September 29, 2023

Alejandra C. Quintana Arocho on Translating Gabriela Mistral’s Desolación

Gabriela Mistral, born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga in Vicuña, Chile, has fascinated and puzzled scholars, writers, and artists alike for more than a century. Many have tried to weave together the variegated layers of her persona and her “emotionally outspoken verses,”...

September 28, 2023

Ben De Witte and João Nemi Neto on Translating In the Name of Desire

Let the power of desire not be underestimated, capable of moving mountains. —João Silvério Trevisan João Silvério Trevisan published his third novel, In the Name of Desire (originally Em nome do desejo), in 1983 at a time of climactic political...

September 27, 2023

Lily Meyer on Translating Ice for Martians

In Perú, the word marciano has two meanings. It can refer either to a Martian or to a common type of fruit popsicle, which is to say it can be either alien or quotidian. In Claudia Ulloa Donoso’s “Ice for...

September 26, 2023

Alejandro Álvarez Nieves on Translating Negras

A rendering born out of love. This project was a happy accident. Yolanda had just been selected for the prestigious Bogotá 39 list of Latin American authors with her first book, Ojo de Luna. While collaborating as curator for Mayra...

September 25, 2023

Eunice Rodríguez Ferguson in Conversation with Hanna Askarpour about Sundial House

In May, an exciting collaboration unfolded between Columbia University Press and Sundial House, a publishing house founded in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures at Columbia University. Their mission is to promote and showcase the voices of Latin...

September 22, 2023

Eleven Must-Read Books for Translation Month 2023

September marks National Translation Month, a time to appreciate literature penned in various languages and recognize the intricate art of translating texts into new languages while preserving their essence, tone, and flair. Translators act as gateways, granting us access to...

September 21, 2023

Puppet Flower: How the History of Native Formosa Impacted Global History

Yao-Chang Chen

I was born and raised in Tainan, Taiwan. My ancestors came to Taiwan in 1661, with Ming-dynasty general Koxinga (aka Zheng Chenggong), who led his army to defeat the Dutch and seized Zeelandia (now Tainan). Many readers may know Taiwan...

September 20, 2023

The Ambiguities of Musa Sayrami

Chronicler of Violence in the Uyghur Homeland

Eric Schluessel

“The common people hoped and begged for the Emperor of China, and they wept, and in their weeping, they supplicated as never before.”[1] The first time I read that sentence, it baffled me. It was written in the Uyghur homeland,...

September 15, 2023

Johan Elverskog on Translating The Precious Summary

The Precious Summary is the most important work of Mongolian history on the three-hundred-year period before the rise of the Manchu Qing dynasty. Written by Sagang Sechen in 1662, it chronicles the fall of the Yuan dynasty in China, the...

September 13, 2023

Translating the Kokinshū into a Standard Prosodic Form

Torquil Duthie

The Kokinshū was always meant to become a classic. The ambition of its compilers was to make waka (vernacular Japanese poetry) the preeminent literary practice of the Japanese imperial court. Yet surely even they would have been surprised by the...

September 8, 2023

Q&A: Adam Kuplowsky on The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales

Born in imperial Russia, the blind writer, translator, and teacher Vasily Eroshenko (1890–1952) achieved fame in Japan for both his social activism and his storytelling. The Narrow Cage and Other Modern Fairy Tales introduces English readers to a collection of...

September 5, 2023

Q&A: Susanne Fusso on To the Stars and Other Stories

Though you may not recognize his name, Fyodor Sologub was a renowned Russian Symbolist writer and poet credited with bringing morbid realism into eastern European literature. To the Stars and Other Stories showcases Sologub’s iconic writing through short stories, presenting...