MEMBER DISPATCHES

Anne McLean’s English translation of Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s The Shape Of The Ruins (Quercus, MacLehose Press) has been shortlisted for 2019 Man Booker International Prize. The shortlist was selected by a panel of five judges, chaired by Bettany Hughes, award-winning historian, author and broadcaster, and is made up of writer, translator and chair of English PEN Maureen Freely; philosopher Professor Angie Hobbs; novelist and satirist Elnathan John and essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra. The winner of the 2019 prize will be announced on 21 May at a formal dinner at the Roundhouse in London. Further details can be found here.

From Diana Manole: “Independent Theater Hungary celebrated World Theatre Day on 27 March 2019 by launching the first ever anthology of Roma plays about women, “Roma Heroes – Five European Monodramas.” I’m thrilled to note that it also includes my translation from Romanian to English of “Del Duma – Tell Them About Me” by Mihaela Drăgan. It’s an amazing documentary theatre play about the lives of women of Roma ethnicity in Romania with a specific focus on marriage and family traditions.”

And more from Ms. Manole: “The poems for which Adam J Sorkin and I were awarded the 2nd prize in the 2017-18 John Dryden Translation Competition by the British Comparative Literature Association and the British Centre for Literary Translation were published in print in “Comparative Critical Studies,” by Edinburgh University Press and online FREE OF CHARGE. If you have time to read them, kindly let me know what you think about both the poems and the translations.”

Since last June, Genni Gunn has been Chair of the Public Lending Right Commission, which distributed larger cheques to authors and translators this year. Her new position having kept Genni busy, her latest translations were published in 2017 in Dacia Maraini Beloved Writing: Fifty Years of Engagement, edited and compiled by Michelangelo La Luna. She also translated an excerpt for a memoir, “The Ship from Kobe.”

David Warriner‘s first full-length literary translation of Quebec author Roxanne Bouchard’s We Were the Salt of the Sea (Nous étions le sel de la mer, VLB éditeur) was published by Orenda Books in the UK last spring, and released in Canada and the US in July. There was a prestigious book launch at Canada House in London in May last year, and both Roxanne and David were in attendance.

Arianna Dagnino is launching her novel The Afrikaner that she wrote in Italian and translated into English. A signing and launch will take place in Vancouver on March 29 and April 6, then Montreal, May 2, Ottawa, May 5 and Toronto, May 16.

Susan Ouriou‘s translation The Courage of Elfina by André Jacob was published by Lorimer in February and her translations The Body of the Beasts by Audrée Wilhelmy and Blue Bear Woman by Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau will be published later this year.

Please join us for an evening of conversation, reading, and book signing of award-winning author David Homel‘s novel, The Teardown on Thursday, March 21, from 7 to 9 pm at La Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly at 176, Bernard West, Montreal. The evening will be hosted by Dimitri Nasrallah, and David Homel will be interviewed by LTAC member Katia Grubisic.

Join us for the Toronto launch of Didier Leclair’s This Country of Mine, translated by Elaine Kennedy and published by Deux Voiliers. The event will be hosted by Beatriz Hausner at Another Story Bookshop at 315 Roncesvalles Avenue on Sunday, March 24th at 4:00 PM.

Join us in welcoming new LTAC member K.B. Thors who was recently included on the longlist for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for the translation from Icelandic into English of Kristín Tómasdóttirès’s Stormwarning (Phoneme Media). View the full longlist here.

Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff have made the shortlists for the Premio Valle Inclán Prize for translations from Spanish for their translation of Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz (Charco Press). “A powerful exploration of mental illness and feeling out of place in ‘normal’ life. This short novel is packed with striking imagery, presenting multiple translation challenges with which Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff deal admirably. ” Read more about the prize here.

From Michelle Hartman: My newest translation, A Sky So Close to Us, has just been published by Interlink books. Here are some details from the promotional material: “Interspersed with Joumane’s story is a sweeping historical narrative that moves from nineteenth-century Aleppo, Raqqa, and Damascus, to Palestine before and after the 1948 Nakba, to Iraq before and after the American occupation, and beyond to the United States, Serbia, and Vietnam.” Find more information here, and a review by Cynthia A. Graham here.

From Shouyi Wang: I recently published two books with Heilongjiang University Press. The first, Voyage Home: Poems from the Yuan and Ming and Qing Dynasties of China, is a collection of translations of Classical Chinese poems into English. The anthology contains 24 poems from the Yuan Dynasty, 26 poems from the Ming Dynasty and 51 poems from the Qing Dynasty. This book is totally bilingual except for the notes. Find more information here.

The second book, Snow on the River: Poems from the Tang and Song Dynasties of China, is an anthology of 73 poems from the Tang Dynasty, 34 poems from the Song Dynasty and 21 Lyrics also from the Song Dynasty. This book is also bilingual except for the notes. Find more information here.