translation Archive
Pursuing Essence through Ambiguity: On Kawabata’s Palm-of-the-Hand Stories
Among the known instances of writers reworking published material, Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata stands apart for his seemingly untenable decision to turn his acclaimed novel Snow Country (for which, along with Thousand Cranes and The Old Capital, he received the 1968 Nobel Prize) into an eleven-page story. Kawabata completed
Do-Overs: The Meursault Question
Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation is getting a lot of attention. This retelling of Camus’ classic The Stranger imagines the eyes that stare down Meursault’s gun. The unnamed Arab from the original is given a name, Musa, and a brother, Harun, who tells the family’s story in a bar.
THE NEUTRAL CORNER: Michael Hofmann’s “Where Have You Been?” And Gottfried Benn’s “Impromptus”
The neutral corner is one of the two corners of the ring not used by boxers between rounds. It is also the corner a boxer must retreat to after he has floored his opponent. The Neutral Corner was also a bar in Saratoga Springs, New York, that I frequented
The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week: “Interiors” by Andrea Maturana
Boredom could be defined as a lack of interest in the surrounding world, and as such, not a particularly fun state of mind to be in, nor a compelling trait for a protagonist of a short story. But Andrea Maturana’s short story “Interiors,” (A Public Space 22, translated from
Round-Down: Saludos to the Spanish-Speaking Reader
Those in the U.S. who speak Spanish in the home can rejoice: now, more easily than ever in this country, Spanish speakers can also find books in their lengua materna—and not just translations from English to Spanish. Real, authentic stories from all over the Spanish-speaking world are in demand
Laughs in Translation
Recently, I was reading The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov’s antic retelling of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilot. The novel follows—in part—the devil and his deranged retinue, including a bipedal cat and a naked woman, as they wreak havoc on Moscow. The edition I own, translated by