Category: Themed Month

August 21, 2019

Book Excerpt! Fu Ping

 “Deftly translated by Howard Goldblatt, this love song to Shanghai continues Wang Anyi’s evocation of women’s struggles for individuality and sensual freedom, and further establishes her as one of the world’s great writers.” ~Douglas Unger, author of Leaving the...

August 20, 2019

Q&A: Howard Goldblatt on Translating Literary Works and the Fiction of Wang Anyi

“Wang Anyi is one of the most critically acclaimed writers in the Chinese-speaking world.” ~Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review   Today’s Women in Translation Month featured title is Wang Anyi’s Fu Ping, translated by Howard Goldblatt. Fu Ping follows...

August 16, 2019

Book Excerpts: Translations From Heian-Era Japan

Heian-era Japan saw a flowering of literature, especially at the imperial court. Women wrote diaries, essays, poems, romances, and novels that circulated widely during and after the authors’ lives. To honor these writers, we’re closing the second week of Women...

August 15, 2019

Book Excerpt! The Pillow Bookfrom The Columbia Anthology of Japanese Essays: Zuihitsu from the Tenth to the Twenty-First Century

“The focused ramble of the traditional Japanese essay format called zuihitsu (literally, ‘following the brush’) has appealed to writers of both genders, all ages, and every class in Japanese society. Highly personal, these essays contain dollops of philosophy, odd anecdotes,...

August 14, 2019

The Marvels of the Sarashina Diary

“As the author herself says of Mount Fuji, this unique work ‘looks like nothing else in the world.’” ~David Damrosch, Harvard University   This week, we’ve been featuring works from Heian-era Japan, a period that produced an enormous amount of...

August 13, 2019

Q&A: Gergana Ivanova on Unbinding The Pillow Book: The Many Lives of a Japanese Classic

“Ivanova elucidates the complex reception of [The Pillow Book] as an ongoing dialogue between the irretrievable past and the dynamic present. I cannot think of a better match between a scholar and her subject. It is a dazzling accomplishment.” ~Paul...

August 9, 2019

Book Excerpt! A Double Life

“Published in the revolutionary year of 1848, A Double Life traces the awakening of a young noblewoman who by day submits to the prose of high society matchmaking, while at night she is a poet in her dreams of true...

August 8, 2019

The 18th Century Poetry of Huimyong, Li Ye, and Lady Kasa

This week, we’ve been featuring works of female poets in translation. On Tuesday, Joshua Fogel shared his experience with Yosano Akiko’s travel writing, and yesterday, Barbara Heldt considered how Karolina Pavlova’s A Double Life took on a new life once it...

August 7, 2019

Barbara Heldt on How Translation Can Give a Book a Second Life

“Karolina Pavlova’s 1848 novel made a splash when it first appeared, and for good reason. It is interesting in form, mixing prose and poetry, and full of sharply ironic insights about Russian society of the day, especially the lives of...

August 6, 2019

Joshua A. Fogel on Yosano Akiko’s Travels

Our celebration of women poets in translation continues today with a guest post by Joshua A. Fogel, who translated Yosano Akiko’s Travels in Manchuria and Mongolia: A Feminist Poet from Japan Encounters Prewar China. In 1928 at a highpoint of Sino-Japanese tensions,...

August 2, 2019

Book Excerpt Hatred and Forgiveness, by Julia Kristeva

“In Hatred and Forgiveness the philosopher and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva focuses on the heterogeneity of forgiveness and hatred, which is elaborated in terms of its subversion and sublimation in and through psychoanalysis and text. This book reflects the wide spectrum, and already...

August 1, 2019

Women in Translation Month 2019: A Celebration of Poetry and Fiction from Russia and East Asia

Welcome to Women in Translation Month 2019! WITMonth began five years ago when Meytal Tadzinkski noticed that women writers made up less than half of published translations. Since then, WITMonth has grown into a global movement giving voice to women...