Translation Tuesday: Four Poems by Enrique Sacerio-Garí

November 25, 2014 | in Translations | by Suzanne Jill Levine

“We turn our faces / And feel the states / of this doubling: / Two Earths / Two Worlds / Night and day”

Multiple Places
…greater poverty than yours shall you see.
“Exemplo X,” El conde Lucanor

Neruda taught us
To see two worlds
On Earth
And to enter the atom
With a telescope
To open the door
Of the elements
And to reveal paths
Of green fire.

The faded maps
Suffer the external debt
Of the changes imposed
By the globalizers
Of the steel shovel…
And there is no heaven
Of peace and joy
Or mothers without the scourge
Of war but rather the bitter
fortitude of Evaristo Estenoz,
the external debt we all owe to color
the segregation that obscures
the stars buried in our breast.

Contributor:

Suzanne Jill Levine

Writer:

Enrique Sacerio Gari

Tags:

Say Ayotzinapa

November 18, 2014 | in Essays, Translations | by Sophie Hughes and Valeria Luiselli

A special feature in 20 languages: presenting David Huerta’s “Ayotzinapa” with an introduction by Faces in the Crowd-author Valeria Luiselli

David Huerta wrote “Ayotzinapa” on November 2, 2014, “in anger, outrage, and horror.” It has already formed an installation at the Oaxaca Museum of Contemporary Art, been printed by Juan Nicanor Pascoe’s letterpress, and been read and excerpted in protest banners from Berlin to Xalapa. When I read it two weeks ago, I realised there was a very practical way for Asymptote, as a journal of international literature, to communicate Mexico’s rallying cry for change and justice in multiple languages. Juana Adcock’s English translation was the first in a chain that now stretches from Mexico to Scotland, China, Romania, Israel, Indonesia, Brazil, Greece, and beyond. Asymptote’s global “Ayotzinapa” has become a poetic event, an audible coming-together, which is one constructive way of responsibly renewing the word Ayotzinapa, as Valeria Luiselli suggests we must do in her introduction to the poem. All of the translations begin with the same, untouched word, Ayotzinapa; like David, all of our translators took pains to get across—rephrasing the Greek poet C. P. Cavafy—what these Ayotzinapas mean.

Below you can read and listen to David Huerta’s original Spanish-language poem. You can also use the drop-down menu like a map to read translations of his poem in 20 languages. Listen, too, to our translators’ audio recordings, and particularly to their pronunciation of the unchanged title, “Ayotzinapa.” Above all, this global translation is about resisting the state of speechlessness that is easy to fall into when what you are witnessing is beyond imagination; about learning how to say Ayotzinapa; about stopping the word Ayotzinapa from being a strange, unrelated Mexican sound. #WeAreAllAyotzinapa #WritersWithAyotzinapa — Sophie Hughes, Editor-at-large, Mexico

Contributors:

Sophie Hughes
Valeria Luiselli

Language:

Spanish

Place:

Mexico

Writer:

David Huerta

Tags:

On Manoel de Barros (1916-2014)

November 14, 2014 | in News, Translations | by Idra Novey

“A tree was growing in his voice / And his face was an open field”

Manoel de Barros began writing poetry at the age of thirteen. For the next eighty years, until his death on November 13, 2014, at ninety-eight, he wrote of the wetlands like no other Brazilian poet before him or since. He invented a language to speak not for his own experience of the wetlands but for how the birds experienced it. He wrote of the world as seen by the ants and of the music heard at the bottom of the river and of a humbleness before nature that was not of a poet who visited for a weekend or a month to escape urban life but of a poet who was born into a lush green place and felt himself to be such a part of it that he never lived anywhere else.

Translating his poems dramatically changed my thinking about the relationship between nature and language. For Manoel de Barros, nature and language were one and the same. He sought words that were the birds and therefore “belonged to no language.” As we lose species after species to human destruction, Manoel de Barros speaks for what we are losing with a swiftness that it is nearly unfathomable. – Idra Novey

Contributor:

Idra Novey

Writer:

Manoel de Barros

Tags:

October Issue Highlight: from “Against the Current,” by Tedi López Mills

November 13, 2014 | in Essays, Translations | by Patty Nash

Another in-depth look at our most recent issue

When Asymptote’s October issue came out nearly a month ago, I (that is to say, your trusty blog editor Patty Nash, with my co-editor Eva Richter) promised that the favorites we had picked were merely the tip of the iceberg. That there were more where those came from, which is to say that they weren’t favorites at all, per se, because the word “favorite” implies absoluteness. And in an issue as large and diverse as ours, sticking to one or two final picks feels like an unnecessary burden: as blog editors, we do make the rules, after all. READ MORE…

Contributor:

Patty Nash

Language:

Spanish

Writers:

Tédi Lopez Mills
Wendy Burk

Tags:

highlight
post
tedi lopez mills
wendy burk

Marcel Schwob’s “Mimes” – Mime XVIII

November 11, 2014 | in Translations | by Katie Assef and Sam Gordon

Sam Gordon and Katie Assef with two very different translations of one of Schwob’s most captivating pieces.

Read all previous posts in Asymptote’s “Mimes” translation project here.

Mime XVIII. Hermes the Psychagôgos
(trans. Sam Gordon)

I conduct the dead, whether they be shut up in sculpted stone sarcophagi or contained in the bellies of metal or clay urns, bedecked or gilded, or painted in blue, or eviscerated and without brains, or wrapped in strips of linen, and with my herald’s staff I guide their step as I usher them on.

We continue along a rapid way men cannot see. Courtesans press against virgins and murderers against philosophers, and mothers against those who refused to give birth, and priests against perjurers. For they are seeking forgiveness for their crimes, whether they imagined them in their heads, or committed them with their hands. And having not been free in life, bound as they were by laws and customs, or by their own memory, they fear isolation and lend one another support. She who slept naked amongst men in flagstoned chambers consoles a young girl who died before her wedding, and who dreams determinedly of love. One who used to kill at the roadside—face sullied with ash and soot—places a hand on the brow of a thinker who wanted to renew the world, who foretold death. The woman who loved her children and suffered by them hides her head in the breast of a Hetaira who was willfully sterile. The man draped in a long robe who had convinced himself to believe in his god, forcing himself down on bended knee, weeps on the shoulder of the cynic who had broken the oaths of the flesh and mind before the eyes of the citizens. In this way, they help each other throughout their journey, walking beneath the yoke of memory.

Contributors:

Katie Assef
Sam Gordon

Language:

French

Writer:

Marcel Schwob

Tags:

A Winter’s Night in Sydney: Poetry Plurilingual

November 10, 2014 | in Dispatches, Translations | by Stephanie Guest

Reporting from the front lines of poetry, translation, and performance

I walked through Sydney’s back streets and upstairs to the crowded room where “Poetry Plurilingual” was about to begin. We sat on mismatched armchairs and wooden benches and squeezed up against each other. The night started with a series of readings of poems in foreign languages, followed by English-language translations. The focus of these readings was on the “original,” foreign, text. But the night took a sharp turn when two readers—Jack Breukelaar and Toby Fitch—boldly shifted the audience’s attention to the process and text of translation.

Jack introduced the audience to the work of Japanese writer and manga artist Kiriko Nananan, showing us a “1994 cool female authors” edition of Garo, an avant-garde manga periodical that began in the sixties, that he bought for a dollar at a discount bookshop. The book was visually striking—Jack didn’t know the work’s significance when he bought it—“but was drawn to [the] cover image by Nananan, reminiscent of Schiele or Baudelaire.” More of Nananan’s work has been translated into French than into English, and Jack had not found any previous English translation of his chosen poem: READ MORE…

Contributor:

Stephanie Guest

Languages:

Places:

Australia
Sydney

Tags:

Translation Tuesday: Three Contemporary Russian Poets

November 4, 2014 | in Translations | by Kat Shapiro

Work by Evgeny Nikitin, Andrey Tavrov, and Sergei Shestakov—translated by Kat Shapiro

I. Evgeny Nikitin

The candle flame is trembling and in sway

As, catching fire, a moth melts in to kiss her.

My friend stopped writing—he is like a whisper,

A beast that runs his hunter’s way.

Winter is closing in, drawing its shutters.

The timid gas with little azure tongue

Spurts from the burner, lightly stutters,

The dying moth forgotten before long.

Contributor:

Kat Shapiro

Language:

Russian

Writers:

Tags:

Translation Tuesday: Five Poems by Michela Zanarella

October 28, 2014 | in Translations | by Leanne Hoppe

Translated by Leanne Hoppe

I Chain Myself to the Origins

I chain myself to the origins

of light,

I undo a sunset,

just as poetry touches me,

with my lips I create the fate

of a horizon that glorifies

cemeteries filled with bones.

I rest in the sudden vibration

of a cloud,

intersecting rivers of silence

at the whimsical azure of a crowd

of instants.

Embodied in the exile

of earth and water,

I bind myself to the wind, I yield to the flames.

To eyes permeated by the world

surrounding the sun,

I make myself eternal

like Daphne. I make myself

a forest of olive trees.

Contributor:

Leanne Hoppe

Language:

Italian

Place:

Italy

Writer:

Michela Zanarella

Tags:

cittadella
Italian
italy
leanne hoppe
literature
michela zanarella
poems
Poetry

Marcel Schwob’s “Mimes” – Mime XVI and XVII

October 15, 2014 | in Translations | by Sara Pullin

“Translating a poem from 1894 into a language that has evolved and cast off as much as English has is no easy task.”

Read all previous posts in Asymptote’s “Mimes” translation project here.

Mime XVI. Sismé

She whom you see withered before you was named Sismé, a daughter of Thratta. First, she came to know of bees and flocks; then she tasted the salt of the sea; finally, a merchant trader lured her to the white houses of Syria. Now she remains enshrined like a precious statuette upon a stone plinth. Count the rings sparkling on her fingers: she has lived as many years. See the bandeau, taut about her crown: here, so timid, she received her first loving kiss. Touch the star of pale rubies that sleeps where her bosom once lay: there rested the head of a beloved. Near Sismé have been placed her faded mirror, her silver jackstones and the long amber pins that once wound through her hair; as come her twentieth year (there are twenty rings), she was adorned with treasures. A wealthy magistrate gave her all a woman could desire. Sismé will never forget him, and his jewels are not spurned by her fragile, white bones. In kind, he built this ornate tomb to protect his tender departed, and he surrounds her with perfumed jars and golden vessels for his fallen tears. Sismé is grateful to him. Yet you, if you wish to glimpse the secret of an embalmed heart, unclench the tiny joints of this left hand: here you will find a small, humble glass ring. This ring was once transparent; but with the years it has become hazy and obscure. Sismé loves it. Be silent and see.

Contributor:

Sara Pullin

Language:

French

Writer:

Marcel Schwob

Tags:

Translation Tuesday: “The First” by Mariana Graciano

October 14, 2014 | in Translations | by Mariana Graciano

Short fiction translated by Kadiri Vaquer

An unpredictable cloud of smoke forced him to move around constantly. He had nowhere to stand to avoid it. That day, grandpa mentioned how every January 1st, the wind blew in all four directions. The rest of the family watched him start the fire for the barbecue and his theory, once again, was proven.

It was a thick and humid beginning of the year. After eating, the family rested under the ombu tree like animals waiting for the storm. When the sky turned black, the women hurried to take everything inside: cups, chairs and the clothes hanging on the line. Then it began to rain, just like that, a curtain of water, hard and even. READ MORE…

Contributor:

Mariana Graciano

Writer:

Mariana Graciano

Tags:

Translation Tuesday: “The Space Between” by Christos Asteriou

October 7, 2014 | in Translations | by Patricia Barbeito

“We slip between the spaces left by bodies, through the holes in the teeth, and slide down the subway escalators upside down.”

I’ve been living with Lata since the beginning of the summer. It’s true that I’m only fifteen and she’s around the same age, that we don’t have a single thing to call our own yet—no money, no nothing—but what’s the big deal? Lata and I, we know how to make things work no matter what. We haven’t found a long-term place yet, that’s true, too. We’re usually all over the map—on rooftops, in warehouses—but not every day of the week because we go back home often. I go to my mom’s and she goes to hers. She’s the one that really makes a scene, screaming and crying and saying a whole bunch of things I can’t understand. Of course, she always ends up cooling it and putting her arms around Lata; once she starts in with her broken Greek, everything goes back to normal. My mom, on the other hand, cooks dinner whether I’m there or not in the evening, and waits for me to show up with my stories about the outside world. It’s hard out there, I tell her, the old buildings are really tough and they chase us away. Her eyes open wide and she gives me a strange look. They put up scarecrows and wooden signs on the rooftops, as if we were unwanted birds, and if, after all this, we don’t heed their warning and lie down to sleep up there, there’s always someone who busts in and breaks it up with a gunshot in the air. On the other hand, you’ve got to have real balls to vault the obstacles on those new places, they’re super difficult, and they too want us out of there. I show her with my hands how you’re supposed to do the moves, how to jump over obstacles rhythmically, one-by-one. Like a primitive beast lost in the crowds of civilization, a mad rabbit let loose in the megalopolis. My body taut, my calves like stone, my lungs full of grimy air: that’s how I make it through the heart of the storm, see? That’s how the mind opens when you jump into space, how your thoughts breathe in oxygen. She starts yelling at me about how if I don’t shape up and get it together I will never find a job, about how I’ll get killed one day—all the usual babble. Don’t shout, I tell her, you don’t know what you’re talking about. How could you? Don’t worry—there’s no reason to. Everything will be fine: you see me now, there’s no obstacle anywhere that scares me anymore. And you know what, I like living like this; I like having you and Lata; I like walking on air. And if anyone asks me, I’ll tell them straight to their face: I don’t want to change anything at all, I want to stay like this forever.

Contributor:

Patricia Barbeito

Language:

Greek

Writer:

Christos Asteriou

Tags:

Translation Tuesday: “Conference,” by Naja Marie Aidt

September 30, 2014 | in Translations | by Naja Marie Aidt

From the short-story collection Baboon, translated by Denise Newman

For an exclusive Asymptote blog interview with Naja Marie Aidt, click here.

It’s strange to meet you here, after so many years, and to still feel disturbed just being near your body. The way you’re settled in the chair like a large contented animal, like a large wild cat licking itself in the sun, or an elephant bathing in a river, like a person resting on top of another after pleasurable sex, it has an intimidating and shameless effect on me. My complete attention turns toward you and I’m unable to relax. It’s as if I am overflowing my own banks. READ MORE…

Contributor:

Naja Marie Aidt

Tags:

Translation Tuesday: An Excerpt from “Kvachi,” by Mikheil Javakhishvili

September 23, 2014 | in Translations | by Donald Rayfield

A feature from Dalkey Archive Press’s forthcoming Georgian Literature Series, translated by Donald Rayfield

On the first of April that year the weather in Samtredia was stranger than usual. A pitch-black cloud hung over the earth from the morning onwards. Snow, hail, rain and, sometimes, spring sunshine alternated; after a while there was such a gale that the whole township rattled and shook, then a calm silence would descend and you wouldn’t see the slightest movement of a cloud in the sky.

So the first of April in Samtredia started in confusion: it was a deceitful, false, and treacherous day. READ MORE…

Contributor: