2014 PEN/Heim Translation Series
PEN’s 2014 Translation Series focuses on the recipients of this year’s PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants, with an amazing array of projects from around the world. Included in the series you’ll find treasures like Eric Becker’s translation of a previously unpublished short story by Mozambican author Mia Couto, Sholeh Wolpé’s translation from Persian of Farid ud-Din Attar’s beautiful The Conference of the Birds, and Zachary Ludington’s translation of Agustín Fernández Mallo’s kaleidoscopic Pixel Flesh. We also asked this year’s PEN/Heim translators to write short essays about what originally drew them to their projects and why they matter now.
The PEN/Heim Translation Fund, now in its eleventh year, awards grants of $2,000 to $4,000 to promote the publication and reception of translated world literature in English. Among the 50 projects awarded grants in the Fund’s first five years of operation, 39 have been published or are forthcoming from a publisher. We hope to increase that number with this year’s projects.
Intuition and Reflection: On Translating Chris Marker
The “essay film” is Marker’s invention and natural element, its best specimens brilliant orchestrations of image and text and sound, of intuition (the snapped photo—and Marker’s images are nearly… More
The Impossible Fairy Tale
The Impossible Fairy Tale is the first novel by one of South Korea’s most promising young writers. In Hong’s pitch-perfect, limpid translation, this meta-fictional story of two small girls,… More
Counterpointed Sonic Progressions: On Translating Gozo Yoshimasu
"The poems are incredibly powerful and, in performance, even magisterial; the difficulties fade away and the force of the poems—chanted, sung, whispered—transcends many linguistic and cultural barriers." More
Dear Monster: The Naked Poetry of Gozo Yoshimasu
Gozo Yoshimasu, an aurally and visually stunning poet known for his Talmudic density, struggles to respond to the 3.11 nuclear disaster in Japan. In her deft, polyvalent translation, Okamoto… More
Athalia Montez, Advice
In a major rediscovery, Burnett brings us the work of Urzidil, a writer from the Prague Circle whose fiction only blossomed later in life, as a writer-in-exile in the… More
My Cosmic Ransom: On Translating Johannes Urzidil
"Urzidil’s world is still very much an enchanted one, with an underlying, often mystical meaning and sense of connectedness. Urzidil is a truth-seeker, and I knew I had to… More
The Feast of Weiner: On Translating Richard Weiner
"What really keeps me turning the pages is rich language, language like Häagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream: dense as it is, each spoonful only makes me want the next. ...… More
The Game for Real
In both its stylistic pyrotechnics and psychological intensity, The Game for Real is the crowning achievement of Richard Weiner’s career and one of the most powerful works of Czech… More
A Writer’s Writer: On Translating Regina Ullmann
"Rilke would continue to champion Ullmann’s work until his death, along with other notable admirers including Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. Yet she remained what we today would call… More
Strawberries
With this translation, Beals introduces English-language readers to a sui generis early twentieth-century Swiss writer. Her sad and haunted voice is like no other—harsh and delicate; acrid and violet-scented.… More