Happiest of Fridays, translation friends! It’s the weekend, so you should let live a little—unless you’re being censored. In the New Yorker, Peter Hessler travels for a week alongside his censor in China. Widespread translation—and proliferation—of literature may be the anti-censorship, and in that case, we’ve witnessed quite a bit of this in the past few weeks across the globe, as French children’s classic The Little Prince runs out of copyright (practically everywhere except for France). In Turkey, dozens of new versions are appearing (and—we hope—delighting!) the reading public.
Crime, intrigue, and lit: The San Francisco Chronicle is hot on the trace of over-400-year-old stolen Italian books, finally returned to their rightful owners. For the literati on the traces of A Season in Hell: the New York Times profiles Harar, Ethopia, the city where French writer Arthur Rimbaud allegedly and finally “found peace.” And Dublin, Ireland, is perhaps the most oft-cited literary city in Europe—but following the traces of Dublin Murder Squad à la Tana French is still worth a fresh lit-crime-look. In sadder news, the militant group ISIS has burned over eight thousand rare books stored in a library in Mosul, Iraq. And mysterious, famously reclusive Italian writer Elena Ferrante offers her first-ever interview with the Paris Review.
We post about the intersection between literature and politics quite frequently here at the roundup, so nothing should come as a shock to us—but. Eyebrows were certainly raised at the revelation that Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran‘s most powerful leader, tweeted about reading Russian Soviet-era writers like Mikhail Sholokhov and Alexei (the other) Tolstoy. And Canada has adorably instated its first-annual Indie Bookstore Day (Canadian readers, go out and support!).
But on to more serious politics: in Nigeria, the dire political situation invites quite a bit of speculation: here, an imagining in three acts and three personas. In India, real censorship might cause an uproar among those interested in vampire-fanfic-turned-sensation: Fifty Shades of Grey has been banned.
In sadder news: week witnessed the passing of Turkish novelist Yasar Kemal, who fought for political and social equanimity in his works.