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.
Recalling several occasions where her native tongue has been criticised, Juliane Beck became conscious not only of the sound, but the cultural and socio-political history attached to the German language. Here, she writes about learning to accept and appreciate how language is embedded in life.
Virginie Despentes’ King Kong Theory is an angry and passionate manifesto against late capitalist patriarchy, a story about sexual assault and trauma that centres the survivor.
Following a family bereavement, Stephanie Mamonto started to consider how empathy is conveyed online and how different languages enable or limit our expression of emotion.
On reading Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey, Georgia Poplett started to consider the misogynistic history behind language and the way translated words have been used to harm and heal womxn.
Elodie Rose Barnes reviews Sissal Kampmann’s Faroese poetry collection, Darkening/Myrking, and speaks to translator Marita Thomsen about translating Kampmann’s work, Faroese weather, gender in language, and reading translated texts.
When Majella Mark was left unable to speak because of health problems, she felt alone and excluded. But on discovering New York’s hearing impaired community, she made new friends and learned to communicate in a way she never had before.
Elodie Rose Barnes talks to translator Jennifer Russell about translating Amalie Smith’s masterful new novel, Marble, the hybridity and liminality of translation, the brilliance of Danish sculptor Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, new projects with writer Ursula Scavenius and more.
Amalie Smith’s exciting new novel, Marble, sensuously intertwines the story and discoveries of its titular heroine with those of pioneering sculptor Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen, who lived and worked 110 years earlier. In this preview, Marble reflects on Carl-Nielsen’s time in Athens and the new material reality open to her when separated from her lover.