Understanding Difference: On Translating Olga Tokarczuk
The urgency of the issues addressed in Tokarczuk's work is nowhere clearer than in the recent barrage of hate mail addressed to the author, absolutely unprecedented in her career,… More
The Books of Jacob
Jennifer Croft is the recipient of a 2015 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, which was awarded the 2015 Nike Literature Award, Poland's… More
A Cosmologist of Language: On Translating Magnús Sigurðsson
Through intricate wordplay and a titanic understanding of his native Icelandic, Sigurðsson is able to create tiny but arresting artifacts—fragments that scale an instant to an aeon, and a… More
The Unimaginable Muse: On Translating Vítězslav Nezval
One of the most prolific poets of his generation, Vítězslav Nezval dazzled even his closest contemporaries with his linguistic facility and uncanny ingenuity. More
The Truffle Eye
Shadows rest on these benches / and you weep lion tears / and bite me with literary envy, / you bite down hard on my back More
The World Migrating: On Translating Song Lin
Permeated with themes of politics and exile, the poems of Chinese "exiled poet" Song Lin are a sensitive anthropology of our migratory world. More
The Gleaner Song
In pieces selected by the poet and translator from thirty years of published work, both East and West have been engaged, creating a landscape of the poet's extensive travels. More
Absurdity ad Absurdum: On Translating Gaston de Pawlowski
Written amidst the depths of World War I and society's growing faith in science, Pawlowski's absurdities are an elegant, far-sighted critique of the church of innovation. More
New Inventions and the Latest Innovations
Published in French in 1916, Gaston de Pawlowski’s book is a catalog of absurd imaginary gadgets and “improvements,” and an early satire on consumer society and the cult of… More