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 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

In Memoriam: Gianni Vattimo (1936-2023)

Wendy Lochner

No other philosopher has played a more integral role in the development of Columbia University Press’s list than Gianni Vattimo. He has been part of my program since its inception and even earlier—since I first joined the Press in 2001,...

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 18, 2023

Ten Must-Read Books for Climate Week 2023

For more than a decade, Climate Week has brought together some of the foremost international leaders in a variety of different fields to discuss solutions to the climate crisis and celebrate progress. The books on this list do the same:...

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...

August 30, 2023

Leibniz’s Peruke

On the Philosophical Importance of Fake Hair

Richard Halpern

Possessed of a monumentally impressive intellect, the philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was not blessed with a body to match. Bald, short, and unhandsome of feature, he accordingly availed himself of that universal male cosmetic—and prosthetic—of his era,...