Category Archives: Literary translation

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village “It is sometimes said that in order to convey atmosphere a translation must be redone for each generation”. Is this really the case? asks author and journalist Sara Wheeler in a recent article for Literary Hub. (1) Wheeler takes the example of works by translator …

“Constance Garnett, the great Russian classics, and the problem of era-specific translation”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Nobel prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk has been a bestselling author in Poland for three decades. In a recent interview for “The Guardian” she says she wonders how her life would have worked out if her books had been translated into English sooner. The novel “Flights”, …

“Would Olga Tokarczuk have won the Nobel prize if she had not been translated into English?”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village A new translation of the internationally acclaimed anti-totalitarian novel “Darkness at Noon” will allow the English reading public to read it for the first time as Arthur Koestler wrote it. A recent article in for “The Literary Hub” recounts the circumstances under which the original …

“The recovered original of Koestler’s “Darkness at noon”, lost in 1940, now out in a new English translation”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village In an article for the NYR Daily, author/translator Tim Parks explores what he calls a “perplexing” dilemma. Most readers are only familiar with texts translated in their own languages, and if they enjoy the translation they will rightly thank the translator, he says, and will …

“Can a fine translation be as important and unique as the original work?”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Yes, according to Yuval Noah Harari-a bestselling author whose books have been translated into over 60 languages and sold over 20m copies-if there is a risk that the book will be banned in a specific country. Harari has recently come under fire for amending the …

“Should local adaptation of a book include replacing potentially sensitive content?”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Social acronyms, abbreviations, emphatic capitals, expressive word lengthening, creative respellings, keysmashing, hashtags, emoji, and a subtle use of punctuation are just some of the innovative ways to convey nuances of tone of voice that are changing the way we communicate online. With the explosion of …

““Because Internet”, by linguist Gretchen McCulloch: a must read”