Usha Akella and Pramila Venkateswaran present the second collection of poems by Mexican women poets – Ana Belén López, Natalie Toledo, Elsa Cross, Maria Baranda and Mariana Bernardez – held in honour of Matwaala’s 2021 Festival of Poets of Colour series.
In Ida Marie Hede’s stunningly haunting and humorous novel, Adorable, B and Q’s world changes with the birth of their first child Æ. Here, in a selection of passages from the first section of the novel, the messy birth of Æ and relationship B develops with her are told in gloriously rich detail.
In this ‘part-memoir, part-linguistic excavation’, Polly Barton’s experiences of moving to Japan and becoming a literary translator form a love letter to the country and its language.
In her new book Languages Are Good For Us, Sophie Hardach traces the rich, creative threads of language history, from the earliest clay records to today.
Elodie Rose Barnes talks to Lolli Editions founder Denise Rose Hansen about work in translation, reading across borders, the novel as art, & publishing during lockdown.
In this creative ‘Christmas’ essay, Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou reflects on the power and therapeutic potential of drawing in her own life, the artistic practise of Louise Bourgeois, and Jean Frémon’s new text Nativity (Les Fugitives).
In her third virtual dinner party of the year, Susanna Crossman invites translators and writers Saudamini Deo, Denise Rose Hansen, and Emma Rault to discuss different modes of translating, the fascistic notion of an “original” language, the work of Ann Quin and the ghosts behind translation.
Elodie Rose Barnes explores the epic English and Spanish poetry anthology, The Sea Needs No Ornament / El mar no necesita ornamento, and talks to its translators, Loretta Collins Klobah and Maria Grau Perejoan, about the translation process, empowering women writers from the Caribbean and the literary history behind the poems.
After an Erasmus exchange in Paris, artist and art historian Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie discovered that translation is about the space between languages and voices; a space that affords us new connections, ideas and friendships.
Learning both English and Urdu at school, and teaching French after university, Naima Rashid initially felt dislocated from her “mother tongue” and land. But, on reading Urdu again, she’s discovered it’s ‘the space between languages’ that feels like home.
Little did Toni Roberts know that her decision to study Spanish at school would turn into a life-long love for a language that has since given her confidence, creativity and, above all, joy.
