“Translation, a carrying over…”
October 15, 2018 3:27 AM Subscribe
Translating Poetry, Translating Blackness is a 2016 essay by John Keene about the necessity of translating more stories and poems by African and Afro-descendant writers from outside the Anglophone world into English. Recently the Asymptote Podcast devoted two episodes to responding to the essay, first in the summer when host Layla Benitez-James interviewed Lawrence Schimel, focusing on his translation of Trifonia Melibea Obono’s La Bastarda and the issues raised by being a Western, gay, white man translating an African, lesbian, black woman. Benitez-James returned to the subject last week after Keene received a MacArthur Genius Grant, and interviewed him about his essay.
Really great.
I'm glad the first link mentioned creative nonfiction, too, at least in the footnotes. For years I've been hoping to see more translations of historic nonfiction, along the lines of writers like Henry Highland Garnet, Martin Delany, and other people who addressed racial and social consciousness in the 19th century and earlier.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 11:01 AM on October 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm glad the first link mentioned creative nonfiction, too, at least in the footnotes. For years I've been hoping to see more translations of historic nonfiction, along the lines of writers like Henry Highland Garnet, Martin Delany, and other people who addressed racial and social consciousness in the 19th century and earlier.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 11:01 AM on October 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
« Older best job and best party | Mother of Waters Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by homerica at 3:44 AM on October 15, 2018 [4 favorites]