Posts filed under 'nabokov'

In Conversation: Carol Apollonio on Serving the Spirit of Communication in Translation

"We read translated literature to access a common humanity that transcends borders."

Carol Apollonio translated the first Dagestani novel available in English, The Mountain and the Wall by Alisa Ganieva. Anglophone readers will find much to relate to in the novel’s premise—a rumor that the Russian government is building a wall between the Muslim provinces of the Caucasus and the rest of Russia. In this free-wheeling, clear-eyed interview with Hannah Weber, Apollonio takes an impassioned look at literatures in translation, and at the simplest yet most complex human propensity—the desire to read.

Hannah Weber (HW): You’re a scholar of Russian literature and translate works from both Russian and Japanese. What led to your interest in these particular languages?

Carol Apollonio (CA): Most of your life path is luck. I knew early on that learning languages came easy to me, so I kept on doing it. After French, it was quite a shock to realize that for Russian you didn’t just plug the words into grammar you already knew. You had to change everything around in your brain. Plus, all the words were different. Anyway, if you’re rebellious enough, you decide it’s worth putting in the effort. It helped that I’d studied some Latin early on.

So, why Russian? Here’s how a Cold War eighteen-year-old radical hippie thinks in 1973: “The Russians are our enemies; the only problem is that Americans don’t know Russian. I’ll learn Russian, become president of the USA, we’ll all learn to love one another, and that will solve the whole problem.” So, I went to college and studied Russian and politics. As it turned out, I was too impatient and tactless for politics. As for Russian, at that time basically there were three paths for Russian-language students: one, learn about the complicated grammar and crazy vocabulary—recoil, and turn to economics or psychology; two, learn the language, recoil from the politics, and go into national security; three, learn the language, love it, read the literature and have your head explode. I’m one of the survivors with the exploded heads. READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 1 July 2016: Among Other Things

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Happy first-of-July Friday, Asymptote! This week, annoyingly talented polyglot Vladimir Nabokov’s letters reveal—what, exactly? Marital discord and a whole lot of influence from his wife, Véra (among other things).

And the novel may be changing, but that’s a good thing. A dystopian novel written during the  protests in the Ukraine—on Facebook, no less—will be translated into English (and published as a book). Good thing it’ll be published—and translated—by actual human beings, as computer-driven writers and translators aren’t quite up to the task just yet. And Palestinian and Israeli poets protest the house arrest of Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, who is punished for an “inflammatory” poem. READ MORE…

Weekly News Roundup, 14th August 2015: the Books You Read, the Books You Ban

This week's literary highlights from across the world.

Hey, happiest of Fridays, Asymptote readers! Hope you’re enjoying what’s now—or about to be—the second half of August. For our readers in the United States, that might include a road trip, and what’s more American than a jaunt on the Interstate, as in Vladimir Nabokov’s famed Lolita? Over at the Literary Review, Nabokov falls for America. Or just stay at home, invite friends, open a bottle of wine, and chitchat about your latest favorite read—somehow. What, even, is the social function of the novel?

In Ukraine, that dinner conversation might include a list of books that no one around the table has read—as the country’s recently released a list of 38 banned books, all of which hail from Russian publishers and are deemed “hate” books. The whole thing is rather suspect, especially coupled with news that a Russian publisher has released several pro-Putin tomes using Western-sounding names.

In Japan, everyone’s favorite Nobel point of speculation/runner/baseball fan/novelist Haruki Murakami has published an eight-part e-book release of responses to the questions he had been asked in a crowdsourced, massively hyped advice column earlier this year. Italian anonymous phenom Elena Ferrante is of a slightly different slant when it comes to self-promotion, perhaps: before publishing her debut novel, Troubling Love, in 1991, she “made a small bet” with herself that “books, once they are published, have no need of their authors.” But we’re frothing at the mouth to meet you!

Trivia—more or less. You may have read French surrealist Mallarmé in the English translation (which one?), but have you read English in Mallarmé, Peter Manson’s erasurist, collaborative response? And have you wondered what the great English bard William Shakespeare may have been or possibly was smoking?

Finally, if your novel isn’t taking off yet, blame the trailer. You just don’t find them like this anymore.

Weekly News Roundup, 5th December 2014: Lorca Re-found

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Anyone with a literary pulse noted (and mourned) the passing of former United States poet laureate Mark Strand (here’s a primer to some of Strand’s work, which “moved from common to sublime,” as well as an interview with the Paris Review). And the United Kingdom lost its queen of crime fiction, P. D. James. Finally, another poet passed, but was rediscovered: some of beloved Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca’s remains may have been uncovered, perhaps (but only perhaps) offering some answers to those still mystified by his tragic death-by-firing-squad.  READ MORE…