Seamus Heaney, pseudonym ‘Incertus’ June 13, 2022 When he first began to publish poems, Seamus Heaney’s chosen pseudonym was ‘Incertus’, meaning ‘not sure of himself’. Characteristically, this was a subtle irony. Read More
Why I hoard words June 09, 2022 I took an Old English module on a whim during my first year at university. I came across it at a foreign language informational session, and having never seen or heard Old English before, I was astonished to learn that my own mother tongue could be considered ‘foreign’ to me. Read More
Listen in: Translating Myself and Others June 01, 2022 Translating Myself and Others is a collection of candid and disarmingly personal essays by Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, who reflects on her emerging identity as a translator as well as a writer in two languages. Read More
The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English May 24, 2022 Old English is the language you think you know until you actually hear or see it. Unlike Shakespearean English or even Chaucer’s Middle English, Old English—the language of Beowulf—defies comprehension by untrained modern readers. Read More
Jhumpa Lahiri: Where I find myself May 16, 2022 Having written my novel Dove mi trovo in Italian, I was the first to doubt that it could transform into English. Naturally it could be translated; any text can, with greater or lesser degrees of success. Read More
Beyond The Dragon Daughter and Other Lin Lan Fairy Tales May 02, 2022 The lack of Chinese fairy tales in English translation has been a reality that hinders not only academic studies of the fairy tale, but also the cross-cultural understanding of Chinese traditions in general. Read More
Kafka’s “Ultimate Things”: A new reading of the Zürau aphorisms April 27, 2022 As Princeton University Press celebrates the launch of a new annotated and freshly translated edition of Kafka’s aphorisms, the Press has invited me to supply a couple of amuse-bouches from the two introductory passages to the collection, namely my Translator’s Note plus a brief excerpt from Reiner Stach’s Foreword. Read More
A Vertical Art: On Poetry April 26, 2022 In A Vertical Art, acclaimed poet Simon Armitage takes a refreshingly common-sense approach to an art form that can easily lend itself to grand statements and hollow gestures. Read More
Poems from After Callimachus April 20, 2022 In After Callimachus, esteemed poet and critic Stephanie Burt’s attentive translations and inspired adaptations introduce the work, spirit, and letter of Callimachus to today’s poetry readers. Read More
A look inside Lives of Houses March 31, 2022 The writing of lives often involves writing about houses. Bringing a house to life through observation, familiarity, memory, or excavation can be a vital part of narrating the life of an individual, a family, or a group: life-writing as housework. Read More
Arnold Weinstein on The Lives of Literature January 29, 2022 The Lives of Literature: Reading, Teaching, Knowing as the subtitle suggests, is after large game: why we go to literature, what its value might be in a world increasingly devoted to “information,” and what a career in teaching has taught me, as well as my students. Read More
Bambi: The lonely destiny of outsiders January 14, 2022 Today, almost all the animals in the world do not and cannot determine their destinies. It was not always like this. Before the emergence of human beings thousands of years ago, animals were free to roam the planet as they wished. Read More
“Bambi” isn’t about what you think it’s about January 05, 2022 Most of us think we know the story of Bambi—but do we? The Original Bambi is an all-new, illustrated translation of a literary classic that presents the story as it was meant to be told. Read More
Billy Wilder on Assignment December 19, 2021 Before Billy Wilder became the screenwriter and director of iconic films like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, he worked as a freelance reporter, first in Vienna and then in Weimar Berlin. Read More
Jane Austen’s beginnings December 10, 2021 There is an excellent cartoon, first published in Punch magazine, that depicts Jane Austen sitting in her publisher’s office and getting what we might call some mixed feedback on her latest submission: ‘We like the plot, Miss Austen, but all this effing and blinding will have to go’. Read More
