Metaglossia: The Translation World

This is a long time in coming, but here’s the list of the poetry judges for this year’s Best Translated Book Award:

Brandon Holmquest, poet, translator, editor of CALQUEJennifer Kronovet, poet and translatorJohn Marshall, owner, Open Books: A Poem EmporiumErica Mena-Landry, poet and translatorIdra Novey, poet, translatorKevin Prufer, poet, academic, essayist, and co-editor of New European PoetsRussell Valentino, academic, translator, director of Autumn Hill Books and The Iowa Review.

Publishers all over Africa are finding exciting new voices from all over the continent, writing in a wide variety of styles and genres. Here are five authors to look out for
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Zukiswa Wanner
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 September 2012 12.55 BST
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A book market in Cairo. Photograph: Hemis / Alamy
The South African writer Mike Nicol once told me that when he started writing back in the 80s, he had read most of the books published in his country. I knew what he meant. Every time I walk into any city – whether it's Accra, Algiers, Johannesburg or Nairobi – the first place I want to find is a bookstore, and the first section I seek is the tiny little section labelled Africana/African Literature/African writers. Nine times out of 10 I used to find that I had read every book on the shelf. That is not the case any more. African bookstores continent-wide may prefer stocking Grisham, Picoult, Steel and self-help galore, but these days I always find something new from an African writer.

Here's a personal selection of some authors beyond the two or three African writers whose names come up every time African writers are discussed. They cover a broad range of subjects and genres, but they are all writers who challenge themselves and go the next step with each story.

What’s the most common language in use on the Web and which carries the most significant economic opportunity? Data released from Common Sense Advisory (in its “ROI Lifts the Long Tail of Languages in 2012” report) aims to answer these...

It is hard to pinpoint exactly when the art of translation would have first occurred. Of course, one of the earliest and without doubt the most translated book in history is The Bible. There were certainly scholars in the days before Christ making a trade from translating ancient Hebrew. Possibly even before that, there were those skilled at deciphering pictures and concepts on scroll.
In an ever-shrinking world, however, where thoughts and ideas are channelled through the virtual waves of the internet, professional translation services are in huge demand. With online translation services becoming increasingly popular, there are literally thousands of translators employed worldwide. It has often been said that ‘knowledge is power’, but in today’s multi-cultural society, we have an inkling that it is in fact fast becoming ‘language’.
With demand, of course, comes the need to supply, and with supply, consequently the need to teach. One of the most famous early examples of translation schooling was at Toledo. Initially set up in the 12th Century by Archbishop Raymond of Toledo, there was focus on translating philosophical and scientific work from ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic into Latin. Later, under the guidance of King Alfonso X, translation was progressed one step further, into what were in fact the early foundations of the modern Spanish language. It was here in the culture rich 13th Century Spain, where multi-culturalism really gained prominence, and indeed inspiration within the ranks of scholars.
Throughout history, as empires have risen and fallen, and new states have emerged, more and more languages have developed. Latest statistics suggest that in the world there now exists an astounding 6909 individual languages. With the culture and politics of the world gradually intertwining more and more, as globalisation takes hold, we are not yet moving towards a mono-linguistic world, but perhaps advances in translation technology is the key.

Seguro que si nos preguntaran sobre qué palabra creemos que es la más buscada a través del diccionario online de la RAE pensaríamos en alguna cuya ortografía suscitara dudas; una cuyo significado fuera complicado expresar, o incluso un verbo...

Over 5.2-million books have been analyzed and, perhaps not too surprisingly, the word...

USTIN, Texas July 10 – Trending 2012 Update: Obesogenic, Derecho (and the gender neutral ‘hen’) are taking on the Mayan Apocalypse, Kate, and Debt as candidates for the Top Word of the Year according to a mid-year update by the Global Language Monitor. Each year, GLM produces the top trending words for the following year just before the new year begins. In 2011, it announced 12 possible candidates; mid-way through the year the three new terms have been added to the list.

Chinua Achebe’s classic novel, ‘Things Fall Apart’ has been named one of the ‘50 Most Influential Books of the last 50 years’.

Things Fall Apart, the classic novel by Africa’s foremost novelist Chinua Achebe, has been named one of the “fifty most influential books of the last 50 years.”

The selection was made by a group called “SuperScholar.” Achebe’s first novel, published in 1958 and translated into more than sixty languages, is one of several novels by other world acclaimed writers. Other novels on the list include Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Achebe, who is the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University in Providence, RI, is the author of five novels, several volumes of poetry as well as essay collections. His latest book, There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra, will be published in September, 2012. 

Organized by Three Percent at the University of Rochester, the Best Translated Book Award is the only prize of its kind to honor the best original works of international literature and poetry published in the U.S. over the previous year. Omnidawn’s Spectacle & Pigsty by Japanese poet, Kiwao Nomura won for poetry. The book was translated by Kyoko Yoshida and Forrest Gander. There is an award of $20,000 which is split between the authors and translators for the winning fiction and poetry titles.

Kiwao Nomura is one of Japan’s leading contemporary poets, and is also a prolific critic, translator, and essayist on contemporary poetry. In 2007, he organized the Festival of International Poetry: Toward the Pacific Rim, and was a fellow in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2005. Spectacle & Pigsty is the first full collection of Kiwao Nomura’s poetry to be published in English translation. Click over here to read Elizabeth Clark Wessel’s interview with the translators, Gander and Yoshida. If you’re new to Kiwao Nomura’s work, be sure to click here to read Coldfront’s coverage of his reading at the Poets House, which includes his set-list and videos.

Stone upon Stone (Kamien na kamieniu) by Polish writer Wiesław Myśliwski has received this year’s Best Translated Book Award in the United States.

On Friday, Open Letter Press announced its winners for the Best Translated Book Awards for 2011. The poetry winner was Kiwao Nomura’s Spectacle & Pigsty, published by Omnidawn and translated from the Japanese by Kyoko Yoshida and Forrest Gander. We excerpted this book back in July 2011 at TWO LINES Online. The part we excerpted is very striking, just on a visual level, and it's no surprise that this book went on to take the award:

AW YE KUNNAFONIW SƆRƆ BAMANANKAN NA YAN.

Wiesław Mysliwski’s Stone Upon Stone (translated by Bill Johnston) has won the Best Translated Book Award for fiction. The poetry prize went to Kiwao Nomura’s Spectacle & Pigsty translated by Kyoko Yoshida and Forrest Gander)

The annual award is offered by Three Percent at the University of Rochester, honoring “the best original works of international literature and poetry published in the U.S. over the previous year.” The winning translators and writers will share a $20,000 award donated by Amazon.

The winning titles and translators of this year’s Best Translated Book Award were announced earlier this evening at McNally Jackson Books as part of the PEN World Voices Festival. In poetry, Kiwao Nomura’s Spectacle & Pigsty, translated from the Japanese by Kyoko Yoshida and Forrest Gander, took the top honor, and Wiesław Myśliwski’s Stone Upon Stone, translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston, won for fiction. Organized by Three Percent at the University of Rochester, the Best Transalted Book Award is the only prize of its kind to honor the best original works of international literature and poetry published in the U.S. over the previous year.

The winning titles and translators of this year’s Best Translated Book Award were announced earlier this evening at McNally Jackson Books as part of the PEN World Voices Festival. In poetry, Kiwao Nomura’s Spectacle & Pigsty, translated from the Japanese by Kyoko Yoshida and Forrest Gander, took the top honor, and Wiesław Myśliwski’s Stone Upon Stone, translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston, won for fiction. Organized by Three Percent at the University of Rochester, the Best Transalted Book Award is the only prize of its kind to honor the best original works of international literature and poetry published in the U.S. over the previous year.

After Spanish, the top languages requested for interpretation in the U.S. in the last year were Arabic, Mandarin and Vietnamese, according to a study by Language Line Services, one of the world's largest interpreting service companies.

The Best Translated Book Award announcements are taking place this Friday, May 4, at McNally Jackson Books in New York as part of the PEN World Voices Festival.

Over the past month, two new websites have launched that will likely be of great interest to Three Percent readers . . .

First up is the Biblioasis International Translation Series, which is updated every week or so with interesting translation-related content.

For example, their first post is an essay by Stephen Henighan entitled The Fall of Translation and which provides a cursory history of Canada’s relationship to publishing literature in translation and the eventual formation of Biblioasis’s translation series..... 

I’m late posting this, but on April 17 the shortlist for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction was announced:

Half-Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan (my review here)
The Forgotten Walz, by Anne Enright
Painter of Silence, by Georgina Harding
The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
Foreign Bodies, by Cynthia Ozick (my review here)
State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett (my review here)

A report from Language Line Services, the world's largest provider of language services, reveals that between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012, Arabic, Mandarin and Vietnamese were the top spoken languages in the United States after Spanish.

The quarterly Language Line® LanguageTrak "Interpreter Demand Index" uses proprietary data from 20 million over-the-phone interpretation-request calls the company fields annually in 170-plus languages. The report tracks calls for the government and healthcare sectors across 20 major U.S. cities, and ranks the top-10 most requested languages in each location, as well as percentage growth for each language.

"These findings reflect the growing diversity of the communities Americans live in today," said Louis F. Provenzano, Jr., president & CEO of Language Line Services. "Arabic, Vietnamese and Mandarin have consistently been among the most-requested languages in the nation's largest cities. Businesses, local governments, court systems, emergency services and healthcare agencies need to think beyond Spanish to ensure no one is left without critical services because of a language barrier."

While Spanish remains the No. 1 language across the 20 U.S. cities in the report, Arabic, Vietnamese and Mandarin each ranked among the top-three requested languages in nine of the 20 cities.

Last weekend, the Missouri Writers' Guild held a well-attended annual conference in Chesterfield. The St.

Earlier today, the English PEN announced the winners of its “Writers in Translation” awards, which help publishers “market, promote, champion and celebrate literature in translat...

The shortlist for this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was published this morning, revealing a final line up of six titles which span two centuries of history, and a geography that reaches from Iceland through western Europe, all the way to the Far East.
The biggest name on this year’s shortlist is undoubtedly Italian author Umberto Eco, who makes the cut with his anti-Semitism historical novel, The Prague Cemetery. Eco’s novel is deep and involving and highly controversial, but perhaps not as controversial as another title to make the shortlist – Yan Lianke’s banned-in-China, Dream of Ding Village, which offers a harrowing account of the Aids controversy that blighted the Henan Province during the 1990s. Icelandic myth is represented on the shortlist in the form of Sjón’s From the Mouth of the Whale, while the plight of the Jews in the ghettos during WW2 is explored, in Aharon Appelfeld’s Blooms of Darkness. The only woman to make this year’s shortlist is German author Judith Hermann with her novel of interconnected stories, Alice.

Chad Post of Three Percent announces Best Translated Book Award 2012 Shortlist.

So obviously if you’re interested in the Best Translated Book Award, you’ll be excited to hear the award and the judging process described on television by its founder, Chad Post, along with Jeff Waxman, who’s serving as a judge this year. To see the clip, click here.

And now that you’ve enjoyed that interlude, it’s time to find out which books have been selected for this year’s poetry and fiction shortlists. Both lists were announced last night at a ceremony in Rochester, NY, home to Three Percent, which organizes and hosts the awards. The winners in each category will be announced on Friday, May 4 at 6:00 p.m. at McNally Jackson Books as part of the PEN World Voices Festival.