November 2009
« Previous Month Next Month »An Interview with Margaret Jull Costa
I can’t think of any culture where literary translators are greatly respected. This is partly to do with the predominance of the English language, which means that non-English-speaking countries translate vast quantities of contemporary fiction from Britain and America. Publishers in those countries are not always that choosy about translators as long as they can work quickly. My colleagues in Spain and Portugal have to work to ridiculous deadlines and for very little money.
by Megan DollFailures of the Imagination
I don’t like to attack poetry in reviews. I can do that at home. I like to identify what is happening in the reading experience -- and then finesse the information into useful and interesting claims. I pride myself on this ability. But I am starting to feel that silence on the matter of Failures of the Imagination is condonation. by Olivia CronkBlowing Down Bleecker Street
In my own ebrity, I started thinking again about literary fame and what it might mean. You can have it and write like Chekov, you can have it and write like Elizabeth Gilbert, so that must make the fame part inherently disappointing, like pulling back the curtain in some electric green city and not even finding a meek little man tugging the levers, but finding no one back there at all.
by Elizabeth Bachner