LAF represents approximately twenty cultural organizations from across Europe that provide translation subsidies to publishers interested in translating their works. In addition, these organizations frequently produce pamphlets and other promotional materials to spread the word about their literature.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Literature Across Frontiers
They have a spectacular list of links to publishers and organizations that support literature and translation. According to Three Percent:
The Guilt of the Photographer
I know that fiction relies on a suspension of disbelief, to some degree, even realist fiction. But I wonder, as I begin reading Margaret Sayers-Peden's translation of Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Painter of Battles, why a person threatened with being killed wouldn't immediately go to the police. The protagonist, a retired war-photographer, is confronted by the subject of an award-winning photo from ten years ago, who tracks him down in his secluded studio and promises to kill him. Perhaps the photographer cum painter feels an obligation to the subject for his dispassionate capture and use of his image, or remorse for not remembering the subject, asking his name or even finding out whether he survived the war being documented. But that somehow seems too comfortable, to easy to succumb to guilt.
I'm interested to see how it will unfold - it the painter, we already know, is searching for some meaning to life and death, it is why he became a war photographer in the first place. There is the promise that the meaning he seeks will be developed, like a photograph, through the conversations he has with is subject and would-be killer. Perhaps there is he insinuation that by photographing this man in the midst of battle, anonymously and without emotion, the photographer in some way took his life from him. Though the subject survived the battle, his face becomes the symbol of a lost cause, a defeated party in a civil war. That theft of choice in identity - what one's life represents - will be balanced by the theft of the photographer's life.
Faulques, photographer and now painter of battles, says to his subject, companion, inquisitor "War ... can be photographed well only when, as you raise the camera, what you see doesn't affect you." (40) In this way the camera becomes weaponized, the photographer a soldier of sorts. Soldiers learn, through training or experience, to dehumanize the other, the enemy. It's necessary in order to kill, tortue, villanize. A soldier who feels remorse, sympathy or empathy is useless as a combatant. In the same way, here, the photographer cannot indulge in an emotional identification with the subject - sterilizing them, though without the villification necessary to kill them. The interesting double meaning of "shoot."
I'm interested to see how it will unfold - it the painter, we already know, is searching for some meaning to life and death, it is why he became a war photographer in the first place. There is the promise that the meaning he seeks will be developed, like a photograph, through the conversations he has with is subject and would-be killer. Perhaps there is he insinuation that by photographing this man in the midst of battle, anonymously and without emotion, the photographer in some way took his life from him. Though the subject survived the battle, his face becomes the symbol of a lost cause, a defeated party in a civil war. That theft of choice in identity - what one's life represents - will be balanced by the theft of the photographer's life.
Faulques, photographer and now painter of battles, says to his subject, companion, inquisitor "War ... can be photographed well only when, as you raise the camera, what you see doesn't affect you." (40) In this way the camera becomes weaponized, the photographer a soldier of sorts. Soldiers learn, through training or experience, to dehumanize the other, the enemy. It's necessary in order to kill, tortue, villanize. A soldier who feels remorse, sympathy or empathy is useless as a combatant. In the same way, here, the photographer cannot indulge in an emotional identification with the subject - sterilizing them, though without the villification necessary to kill them. The interesting double meaning of "shoot."
Poetry On Demand
I love this. The idea that poetry is just as vital as groceries, if it were just as available. I would love to try something like this - it must be an amazing feeling, to know that your poem, no matter how hurried, is important to someone's day.
More than that, it's a popularizing of the commissioning of works of art - something that only the very wealthy could do, and which they rarely do anymore. Putting art in the hands of the everyday. Because neither can survive without the other.
More than that, it's a popularizing of the commissioning of works of art - something that only the very wealthy could do, and which they rarely do anymore. Putting art in the hands of the everyday. Because neither can survive without the other.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Oversaturated
There is so much information out there it's overwhelming. Well, maybe not if you're under 20, but sometimes I become inundated with input. It's something I almost seek - right now I'm watching a History Channel program, working on the bi-weekly Joiner Center newsletter, checking and answering emails, and researching a few things that especially caught my attention today. So how able am I to significantly absorb any of this information?
There's a lament I've seen, though I can't recall where, that we have become a society of skimmers. We look for fast, quick information that is easily digestible and assimilatable. We shirk from meaningful contemplation. This affects our communications, our intelligence, and according to some, our morality.
The thing is, I've never had a good memory. Really, even before the days of constant digital input (and output) I could barely remember the conversations I had earlier in the day. Does subjecting myself to virtually constant information make it more difficult for me to digest? Some people swear by multitasking - especially those with attention disorders - claiming that using more of the brain allows for better focus. Some, a dear friend of mine for example, advises slowing down. I'm caught in the middle. At times, like now for example, I find myself distracted by the multiple inputs, yet strangely unable to pull myself away from them. At others, and perhaps the origin of the habit for me, I can't seem to devote myself to one project entirely and so search for other stimulation.
There's a lament I've seen, though I can't recall where, that we have become a society of skimmers. We look for fast, quick information that is easily digestible and assimilatable. We shirk from meaningful contemplation. This affects our communications, our intelligence, and according to some, our morality.
The thing is, I've never had a good memory. Really, even before the days of constant digital input (and output) I could barely remember the conversations I had earlier in the day. Does subjecting myself to virtually constant information make it more difficult for me to digest? Some people swear by multitasking - especially those with attention disorders - claiming that using more of the brain allows for better focus. Some, a dear friend of mine for example, advises slowing down. I'm caught in the middle. At times, like now for example, I find myself distracted by the multiple inputs, yet strangely unable to pull myself away from them. At others, and perhaps the origin of the habit for me, I can't seem to devote myself to one project entirely and so search for other stimulation.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Disappointed Potential: The House of Paper
This is one of those books with vast potential that is left untapped, and ultimately disappointed. The premise of the story is spectacular, Borgesian, intriguing and mysterious: a book encased in cement with an inscription to an unknown person from a recently deceased professor is sent to her office and discovered by a colleague. He decides to try to find the sender of the book (no return address) based on the somewhat mysterious inscription, and return the book.The set up is there, and the scope could be grand, labyrinthine, compelling and significant. But the short format makes the story seem hurried rather than unfolding, and dictated rather than narrated. The exquisite insights into the mind and heart of a bibliophile, or even just an avid reader, are plunked in as though the story is being tied up with significant meaning, instead of letting the meaning evolve through the story. It reminded me from the outset of The Shadow of the Wind, a complex mystery centered around the obscure author of a hidden book, but The House of Paper falls significantly short of what it could be.
Perhaps that's what's most frustrating about reading this book - that it could be infinitely more than it is. That the story could be experienced by the reader, rather than relayed by a rather monotonous narrator whose voice (perhaps because of poor translation) sounds no different than the character that tells the bulk of the story. Instead, it is a series of epigraphs linked together by a skeletal and merely sketched plot. Though eminently quotable, it amounts to little more than an excuse for these nuggets of wisdom about the significance of books and libraries in our lives.
The translation itself is in sore need of revision and editing, and reads more like a draft than a final version. The clumsy language obscures whatever rhythm and beauty may have been present in the original.
It is worth reading though, if only for the gift of its potential. And worth expanding upon, should the author and publisher see fit to do so. I would read this happily as a full-length novel rather than merely a novella.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
KALIMA
"Without translation, we would be hopelessly lost to one another, lost to the possible exchange of the hopes and fears that make us all human. The KALIMA Project affirms the centre that connects us all, language and structures we build with it, including our capacity to love," poet, playwrite and translator Aafa Michael Weaver said.
KALMIA is a massive translation undertaking sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), which plans to translate 100 titles annually into Arabic from classic and modern texts in other languages. Announcing its first list of titles this year, if successful, could be the translational equivalent of the library of Alexandria, or more recently, google's ambitious Alexandria project. It's humbling in its magnitude, and unsurprising then that it is only because of translation to and from Arabic that much of 'western' literature and knowledge has passed through to us today.
KALMIA is a massive translation undertaking sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), which plans to translate 100 titles annually into Arabic from classic and modern texts in other languages. Announcing its first list of titles this year, if successful, could be the translational equivalent of the library of Alexandria, or more recently, google's ambitious Alexandria project. It's humbling in its magnitude, and unsurprising then that it is only because of translation to and from Arabic that much of 'western' literature and knowledge has passed through to us today.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Delerium
A friend, Christopher Lee Donovan, brilliant photographer and artist, shared with me his work in a webzine, Area Zinc. The zine itself is bilingual Spanish/English, and is rather spectacularly edited and designed. This issue's 'theme' is delirium, and the collection of art (primarily from the US and Latin America, but with a strong representation of other countries) is haunting. I'm thrilled to know of a new venue in which to indulge my art-voyer habit!
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