The Observer Translation Project

Notes &Comments

October 03, 2014

From eXchanges blog

 

It took me a while to find time to read the whole thing, but the roundtable discussion that went up a week ago over at the Observer Translation Project is really excellent. Susan Harris (of Words Without Borders), Chad Post (of Open Letter and Three Percent), novelist Norman Manea, and translator Susan Bernofsky offer thoughtful exchanges on topics such as marketing and editing translated literature, team translations, issues of domestication in translation, and the appeal and value of international literature. For example, here’s Susan Bernofsky on editing translations:

The same editing skills that apply to the best editors of English apply to the best editors of literature translated into English as well. Great editors have a sixth sense that tells them exactly what a book’s style wants to be and shows them the spots where it diverges from this ideal. If there’s an outright mistake in the translation, an editor may or may not be able to spot it (depending on whether it breaks the skin of the book’s mood) – but that’s not the editor’s job, that’s the job of the translator.

The whole thing is highly recommended.

 

http://exchangesjournal.wordpress.com/

August 09, 2009

From Salonica World Lit

 

The Observer Translation Project is... a great place to get your bearings about Romanian literature, old and new.  I love this site because it's like a lit journal and a history lesson filled with well-thought out lit crit and incisive commentary. Dig it, friends. 

July 07, 2009

From PEN America

 

The translators’ roundtable over at The Observer Translation Project has been fairly widely noted; also worth reading there is the “Letter from Chişinău,” by Moldovan journalist Leo Butnaru, about the relationship between literature and politics -- and, more specifically, the current political situation in Moldova.

 

http://penamerica.blogspot.com/2009/07/iran-reading-this-saturady-links.html

July 05, 2009

From signandsight

 

What's worse than Western capitalism? Capitalism that hides behind a hammer and a sickle. Moldovan journalist and translator Leo Butnaru sends a caustic letter from Moldova, where the April 7 elections were followed by heavy protests against the Communist election victory. Butnaru explains how the elections were manipulated – a large percent of Moldavians working abroad were prevented from voting – and the perverse nature of the regime: "We're dealing here with a mutant that is hard to describe. This fabulous mongrel, communo-capitalism looks exceptionally repulsive in the fun house mirrors of mysteriously still ongoing, retarded bolshevism, with which European autocracy and diplomacy nevertheless go on flirting. I would very much like to know, for instance, why last March his Excellency, the former British ambassador to Chisinau, John Beyer, allowed himself to be decorated by tovarish Voronin, a dictator, a hypocrite, a show-off, a scoffer at the idea of Europe - an inveterate bolshevik, pure and simple, who benefits from 'multilaterally-developed' capitalism - to borrow a phrase from the old Party manuals."

Beyer is not the only politician whom Butanaru names: his list of foreign dignitaries queuing up to be decorated also includes FIFA president Sepp Blater, Secretary General of the European Council Terry Davis, Austrian EU politician Erhard Busek, Bulgaria's president Gheorghi Pirvanov and the Croatian president Stjepan Mesic.

And the USA-based Romanian writer Norman Manea, Susan Harris from "words without borders" the American translator Susan Bernofsky and the publisher Chad Post discuss the market for literary translations and translation itself.

 

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1894.html#cult

July 05, 2009

From perlentaucher

 

Was ist noch schlimmer als westlicher Kapitalismus? Ein Kapitalismus, der sich hinter Hammer und Sichel verbirgt. Der moldawische Journalist und Übersetzer Leo Butnaru schickt einen gepfefferten Brief aus Chisinau, der Hauptstadt Moldawiens, wo es nach den Wahlen am 7. April zu schweren Protesten gegen den Wahlsieg der Kommunisten kam. Butnaru erklärt, wie die Wahlen manipuliert wurden - einem Großteil der im Ausland arbeitenden Moldawier wurde es unmöglich gemacht zu wählen - und um welche Art von Regime es sich in Moldawien handelt: "Wir haben es hier mit einem Mutanten zu tun, der schwer zu beschreiben ist. Dieser märchenhafte Bastard, Kommuno-Kapitalismus, sieht besonders abstoßend aus im Spiegelkabinett eines mysteriöserweise weiterbestehenden, zurückgebliebenen Bolschewismus, mit dem die europäische Autokratie und Diplomatie weiterhin flirtet. Ich wüsste zum Beispiel sehr gern, warum letzten März seine Exzellenz, der frühere britische Botschafter in Chisinau, John Beyer, sich von Towarischtsch Voronin dekorieren ließ, von einem Diktator, Heuchler, Angeber und Verächter der europäischen Idee, einem eingefleischten Bolschewiken durch und durch, der vom 'multilateral entwickelten' Kapitalismus profitiert - um eine Phrase aus den alten Parteiprogrammen zu benutzen."

Beyer ist nicht der einzige, den Butnaru aufzählt: auch der Schweizer Sepp Blatter, Präsident der FIFA, Terry Davis, Generalsekretär des Europarats, der österreichische EU-Politiker Erhard Busek, Bulgariens Präsident Gheorghi Pirvanov und der kroatische Präsident Stjepan Mesic ließen sich Orden an die Brust heften. (Mehr über die Wahlen in der NZZ.)

Außerdem: Der in den USA lebende rumänische Schriftsteller Norman Manea, Susan Harris von "words without borders", die amerikanische Übersetzerin Susan Bernofsky und der Verleger Chad Post unterhalten sich über den Markt für Übersetzungen von Literatur und das Übersetzen an und für sich.

 

http://www.perlentaucher.de/magazinrundschau/2009-07-07.html#a24511

July 01, 2009

From Words Without Borders

 

The Observer Translation Project just posted a roundtable discussion on our favorite topic, including our very own Susan Harris along with Chad Post of the Three Percent blog and Open Letter publishers, as well as translator Susan Bernofsky whose translation of Yoko Tawada’s The Naked Eye I just read (and will soon comment on).

Here’s an excerpt with Chad honing in on an aspect of reading books in translation that many of us face:

This sounds really bad, but in a roundabout way, I'm motivated by my monolingualism. After college I fell in love with Latin American literature—especially Cortazar—and started trying to revive my Spanish so that I could read the dozens of books I'd heard about, but which had yet to be translated. By the time I got serious about this though, I was off and reading a ton of French Oulipo books. Then titles from Eastern Europe. I'll never be able to speak a dozen languages (like translator Michael Henry Heim does), so I have to rely on English publishers to make available all the great books being written around the world. Probably just an ADD thing, but by not specializing in one language/literature, I feel like I can indulge my roaming interests, and look for books to publish from Asia, then Latin America, then France, then the Nordic Countries, etc., etc.

Read the rest at The Observer Translation Project

 

http://www.wordswithoutborders.org/?post=ObserverTranslationProjectRoundtable

July 01, 2009

From Three Percent

 

The Observer Translation Project, which we’ve mentioned here before, posted a really cool translation roundtable/interview that they conducted recently:

World-famous novelist Norman Manea, two premier experts in the realm of literature in translation—Susan Harris of Words Without Borders and Chad Post of Three Percent and Open Letter—and award-winning translator from German Susan Bernofsky address a literary zone in permanent crisis: the world of literature in translation.

They manage to cover a lot of ground pretty quickly—from editing translations, to the market for translations, to why the panelists read translations—and it’s interesting to see how they approach all of the issues from slightly different angles. Definitely worth a read.

 

http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/?s=tag&t=susan-harris 

June 18, 2009

From three percent

 

The latest entry in The Guardian‘s series of short stories about the transformations of Eastern Europe post-1989 is Stelian Tanase’s Zgaiba, translated from the Romanian by Jean Harris. (Who runs the Observer Translation Project, which is the best source online for information about Romanian literature.)… this is probably my favorite story in The Guardian series.

 

http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php

June 01, 2009

From signandsight

 

Al Ahram Weekly | Outlook India| Observator Cultural | London Review of Books | Polityka | Le Nouvel Observateur | The Economist | Clarin | Elet es Irodalom | NZZ Folio | The Guardian 

 

"The basic question for foreigners in Romania," writes Jean Harris, who runs the Translation Project for the Observator Cultural, " is 'what the hell are you doing here?' That's the existential question, and the sine qua non of successful Romanian-ness involves addressing it to one's self six times a day." The only escape, she suggests, is a healthy sense of the absurd and warm friendships. And with that she introduces Razvan Petrescu, the focus of this month's issue.

Here's an extract from his short story "On a Friday Afternoon":

"Dad went and died. He was a quiet guy, slightly on the mystic side, with two deep furrows on either side of his nose. He was given to occasional bouts of melancholy, and on Sundays he’d do funny stuff over lunch. He'd toss the soup spoon towards the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, then try to catch it. He always failed. Sometimes he'd break the fixture, sometimes – the soup plate. The fat yellow soup would soak progressively into the table cloth first, then into Dad's neatly-pressed trousers, and finally make its way down to the Persian rug, where it became extremely visible and stable. I was in stitches. Not Mom, though. I'm still in stitches now as I look at the Order of Socialist Labor Class III awarded to Dad back in '68 or so. It's a rather nice box, dark cherry in color, soft to the touch, containing a silver medal, a red ribbon and Dad. The medal represents our country's insignia on a bed of sunbeams."

April 21, 2009

From signandsight

 

Observator Cultural throws a spotlight on Norman Manea, a writer Orhan Pamuk described as "one of the great men of Romania ". The site's Translation Project features a number of synopses of his works, an illustrated bibliography and a translation of Manea's "Sentimental Education", "a charming, sexy, wistful and ferocious take on Flaubert's novel of the same name…”  

 

http://www.signandsight.com

April 14, 2009

Weekly News Post
by David Varno
14 April 2009

 

Romanian author Norman Manea won the third Observator Cultural Opera Omnia Award this month from the Observer Translation Project, an international magazine of Romanian literature in translation. See Totalitarianism Today for an in-depth history of Manea and study of his work. Manea was a guest editor for WWB in 2004, and we also published his “Letter to Ernesto Sábato,” translated from the Romanian by Stephen Kessler and Daniela Hurezanu.

April 14, 2009

Honoring Romanian writer Norman Manea. 

The Observer Translation Project is devoting this month to the work of Romanian writer Norman Manea, who recently won the 2009 Gheorghe Crăciun Lifetime Achievement Award. Critic Carmen Musat describes Manea's work: A witness to the paired totalitarianisms of the 20th century, Norman Manea is a writer of survivals. His medium is Romanian. He belongs to the world. (....) Among other precious stones, Jean Harris translates "Sentimental Education", a short by Manea.

April 07, 2009

From Alina Stefanescu’s Romania Revealed

 

Forget the fact that I am a globalized mutt who has developed an intense mistrust of any kennel-- American or Romanian-- and prefers to live in cars where the windows are open. Forget my own misgivings about nationalism, patriotism, self-esteem, and resume voyeurism. Forget everything I've ever said or suggeted about politics and conspiracy and other forms of failed literature. For there is hope and excitement on the Romanian horizon. The Observer Translation Projectlanguage barrier by providing translations of previously untranslated fictional gems. For those who long enchanted by the misgivings of the Romanian pen, this project is an oasis. aims to bridge the

A Romanian writer is highlighted in every issue, thus opening the doors of cross-cultural discourse for the discovery of relics and treasures. Apart from translating novels, stories, and essays, the Project includes critical essays and translation notes.

Dip into pathological memory and the nostalgia of the return, the exile's tattoo, the dissident's favorite pair of blue jeans, the stoicism of Soviet toilets, Napoleon in Bucharest, the social stasis facilitated by intellectuals glorifying the ditch as the best abode, token immortalities, the heady drum-beat of a wasted morning, dinners with the devil or the pope, the din inside the artist's head, the cosmic significance of dark bodies, and so much more.

 

From http://alina_stefanescu.typepad.com/romania_revealed/articles/

April 06, 2009

Norman Manea focus  

 

The impressive Romanian The Observer Translation Project is devoted to Norman Manea this month.

 

(Posted by: M.A. Orthofer)   – permanent link –

 

Posted April 6, 2009

 

March 12, 2009

From Bacacay, the Polish Literature Weblog

 

Lo! Just look at this website: http://translations.observatorcultural.ro.It’s enough to make a literary programmer for some other former Eastern Bloc cultural institution green with envy…

http://bacacay.wordpress.com 

March 10, 2009

From three percent

 

Observer Translation Project
9 March 09 | Chad W. Post |

 

The Observer Translation Project is a relatively new website featuring news, reviews, and samples from and about Romanian authors…. there’s a healthy amount of information available on this site, including samples from a host of authors, a list of forthcoming translations from the Romanian, synopses of a number of Romanian books, and reviews/essays.

 

Definitely worth checking out, both for the features… and for the blog, which tracks information about Romanian literature.

 

http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/

 

March 04, 2009

A Grand Translation Workshop!

Romanian Literature on the March!

http://www.translations.observatorcultural.ro/ 

Co-ordinated by American novelist Jean Harris, this is a magnificent multi-lingual project of translating contemporary Romanian literature into several languages.

 

(From Exquisite Corpse: http://www.corpse.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=357&Itemid=39)

 

March 02, 2009

Signandsight Reads OTP in its Magazine Roundup  

 

The novels and short stories of writer Stefan Agopian mark an important point in the emancipation of Romanian literature...

An English excerpt from Agopian's "The Geographer's Tales" can be found here.

 

http://www.signandsight.com/features/1835.html#oc

 

February 17, 2009

From Radio France International

 

A limited team is about to trigger a genuine revolution in the Romanian literary landscape.  Their “weapons” are their translators and the internet. Last September, four journalists on the staff of the Observator Cultural weekly created The Observer Translation Project site to promote contemporary Romanian authors abroad.  With the help of ten translators, fragments from Romanian literary works are published in [multiple]… languages. This ambitious project receives financial support from the weekly Observator Cultural… the credit goes… to the extremely motivated people creating the site. The number of visitors is constantly growing and frequently enough fragments from the translated literary works feature on some of the most important literary sites in Europe and the United States.

 

(From Radio France International:

http://www.rfi.fr/radiofr/editions/072/edition_3_20090211.asp )

December 22, 2008

THE OBSERVER TRANSLATION PROJECT

 

Now in its fifth issue, this online international magazine features Romanian writing in translation. The site's literary pieces translate into English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Polish, with some guest languages. The director of the Project, Jean Harris, received a 2007-08 ICWT Translation Grant in support of her work on the selection from “The Boars Were Mild”/ Mistreţii erau blânzi from Iarna Bărbaţilor / Men in Winter by Ştefan Bănulescu, that opened the first issue of The Observer Translation Project.

 

(From Here to There: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/icwt/fromheretothere/Fall08/readinglist.html)

October 16, 2008

Magazine Roundup from signandsight.com

 

A while back we linked to an article about the fantastic translation project by the Romanian cultural journal Observator Cultural. But things have developed in leaps and bounds since then, with translations in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish, Dutch and Polish. The first edition was dedicated to the writer Stefan Banulescu, the second to Gheorghe Craciun – featuring an excerpt from Craciun's novel "Pupa Russa" and an essay by Caius Dobrescu which presents Craciun as "a Bertrand Russell with a Wagnerian twist"

This, the third edition, is dedicated to the author Stelian Tanase. There are a few things which a "prospective reader of Romanian literature might like to know" writes the translator, writer and head of the translation project, Jean Harris, by way of an introduction. For example, that in Romania, "we're in a world capital of stories because we're in the world capital of regime change". Before moving on to Stelian Tanase, she provides a brief overview of Romanian history and the fundamentals of Romanian literature: "In the long view, what counts is that the Romanian problem has been 'how to survive.' Often it has been, 'how not to die.' And often it has been 'how to die' – finding a spiritual position that makes death a friend. In this context, story telling equals salvation on several planes." In Tanase's case this mindset is fuelled by the Blues.

Further articles include a synopsis of Tanase's novel "Dark Bodies" and an excerpt.

 

(From signandsight.com: http://www.signandsight.com/features/1778.html )

September 20, 2008

From Conversational Reading

 

The Observer Translation Project [l]ooks like a promising source for reading works-in-translation on the Web.

 

(From Conversational Reading: http://www.conversationalreading.com/links/index.html)

September 09, 2008

Reading Is Sexier in Bucharest

 

In related Romanian-literature-in-translation news, the Observer Translation Project is up and running, featuring previously untranslated Romanian fiction (now translated into En/Fr/Ge/It/Sp/Du/Pol) as well as critical essays (En) on the featured writers and on contemporary Romanian lit in general. The first two numbers have been dedicated to Stefan Bănulescu and Gheorghe Crăciun, respectively. I strongly recommend the excerpt from Crăciun’s Pupa Russa for a lovely account of going to school and learning to read in the People’s Republic of Romania. Kudos to the translator!

 

(From reading is sexier in bucharest: http://readinginbucharest.wordpress.com/)

 

 

September 05, 2008

From the Complete Review

 

       The Observer Translation Project, "an international magazine of Romanian writing in translation" has now well and truly been launched.
       As they explain:

OTP showcases previously untranslated fiction. We highlight a "pilot" author each month. This is the place to learn about Romanian writers, find updates on Romanian writing abroad, read CV’s, take a look at covers published in countries around the globe, check out the bibliographies, dip into author photos, search our steadily growing archive, and discover essays that put Romanian writing in context. Look for single author fiction issues every month, with free-wheeling updates in between.

       Sounds very promising -- and we hope that other nations have a go at their own versions.

 

(From the Complete Review: http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/index.htm)