Rodin on the Artist in Nature
Gustav Klimt, Bauernhaus mit Birken, 1900 To any artist, worthy of the name, all in nature is beautiful, because his eyes, fearlessly accepting all exterior truth, read there, as in an open book, all the inner truth. – Auguste Rodin, French sculptor
Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator” – Part II
Continuing our series on Walter Benjamin, Eric selects certain passages from “The Task of the Translator” and relates them to our work at Archipelago: Translation is so far removed from being the sterile equation of two dead languages that of all literary
James Baldwin on Film Adaptations
[scene from "Decasia" ; image courtesy of University of South Carolina Moving Image Research Collections/Icarus Films] Now, obviously, the only way to translate the written word to the cinema involves doing considerable violence to the written word, to the extent, indeed, of
WHAT I’M READING I: Murder, Axolotls, and Soviet Blocs
An axolotl: one of the creatures in Caspar Henderson's The Book of Barely Imagined Beings [image courtesy of http://southerncrossreview.org ] Every so often, we'd like to share some of our book recommendations around the office. For the first installment, Florence fills us in on
Announcement of upcoming events for Landscape with Yellow Birds
Archipelago Books is delighted to announce an exciting event series for José Ángel Valente’s Landscape with Yellow Birds, with readings by the translator Thomas Christensen Please join us for our upcoming events: A reading, lecture and Q&A at George Washington University, Washington D.C. September 25th at
Libretti & All: Auden the Translator
A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. -- W.H. Auden, The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Prose: Volume II. 1939-1948 In addition to his own verse, Auden translated a number of works into English, including
INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL, Vol I: Bucharest & Its Bookstores
(Image courtesy of My Search For Sunshine Tumblr) In honor of our forthcoming publication of Mircea Cărtărescu's Blinding, Archipelago's Bronwen Durocher takes us on a tour of Bucharest--through its bookstores. Bucharest is a city I’d love to see—and not just because I’d like to
Benjamin's "The Task of the Translator" – Part I
Benjamin's essay most relevant to our work here at Archipelago has to be "The Task of the Translator." Originally written as an introduction to his translation of Baudelaire's Tableaux Parisiens, the essay stands on its own as a translator's manifesto. Over
Ezra Pound & Canto I
If you're going to engage with English poetry, a mentor once told me, sooner or later, you're going to have to deal with Pound. She was referring, of course, to his controversial--and often, downright bigoted--remarks both on the page and
GUEST POST: Mary Ann Newman – Translators: Handmaidens or Guerrillas?
Catalan translator Mary Ann Newman kicks off our GUEST POST series which features translators, thinkers, and enthusiasts in the field. Newman offers her invaluable insight into the underappreciated world of the translator: The core challenge for translation is the question of professionalism.