Saturday, 13 June 2009
WhyTranslator
I've added Lev Hrytsyuk's interesting and varied blog of literature in English, Ukrainian and Swedish to our Blog List. Although readers of Nordic Voices may not be familiar with Ukrainian, Lev's blog is sufficiently multilingual for many of his posts to be generally accessible. Of particular note are the translations of Ukrainian poetry into Swedish - see these examples of poems by Yaroslav Dovhan, translated by Sanna Witt, and Lev Hrytsyuk's own Swedish translation of a text by Nazar Honchar, with commentary.
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6 comments:
Thank you for the add and warm words. And here was my intro of Nordic Voices in Translation for Ukrainian audience: http://levhrytsyuk.blogspot.com/2009/06/nordic-voices-in-translation-over-water.html
Thanks! Maybe we should start a blogring. :-)
It's interesting to see which authors are picked up on by Lev, through his Lvivian prism. For instance, the book "En elva från Göteborg" / "Odynatsjatka z Geteborga" has names of poets I've never heard of. Much is Stockholm-centred in Sweden.
I also now found Andrukhovych on Lev's blog. I've been meaning to read Michael Naydan's translation of his "Perverzion".
Another literature that would be interesting to explore is that of Belarus. Bykau and Mort are the only names I can think of, off the top of my head.
I "unearthed" this old anthology "En elva från Göteborg" (1992) to find more poets from this city while working on my anthology of Göteborg's contemporary poetry: only Lina Ekdahl, Jörgen Lind, Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson and Fredrik Nyberg (and Ragnar Strömberg) are still active as poets--at least as far as I know... I love Göteborg so this anthology will be a kind of homage to this city and poets living there. :-)
Do read Andrukhovych: he's a great writer, in my opinion. :-) Bodil Zalesky writes about Andrukhovych and Kurkov in Sweden: http://bodilzalesky.com/blog/2009/05/06/ukrainsk-litteratur-vad-valjer-svenska-forlaggare-att-ge-ut-och-varfor/
Valzhyna Mort is very good indeed. I can also recommend poets Andrey Khadanovich and Maryjka Martysevich... But there are a lot of other good writers in Belarus, of course...
Thanks, Lev, for the comments. I once decided that Gothenburg was my favourite Swedish city. I've always had a good time there, although I've not visited it very often. I once met a Cyprian Norwid lookalike there, by the name of Sven Wolf / Wulff. I spoke to him at an outside café on that long road up to the art (?) museum, i.e. the main "stråket" of Gothenburg. He claimed he was a sailor, though I would like to think that he was the reïncarnation of the Polish poet.
I got interested in Belarusian literature when I visited the Centre for Writers and Translators in Visby. There were a few Polish and English translations of various Belarusian authors. I realised that I knew almost nothing about that country.
Do you read "Ariel"?
I associate Andrukhovych with Stasiuk. I have their joint essays in German and Polish. I've not read the whole book, though. I like Czarne, camped out as it is in the Beskids. They seem to have an interesting selection of authors.
And on the very Avenyn I once talked to the great Lithuanian poet Antanas A. Jonynas for quite a long time via an interpreter from Denmark who understood my Swedish and his German until both me and Antanas realized we knew good enough Russian to communicate! And broke into laughter! :-)
Yes, Czarne does a great work... (Ukraine still doesn't have such a publishing house...) Andrukhovych and Stasiuk are good friends, and their book of essays I like very much. Although they are quite different for me...
Ariel was great. The new Kritiker is also great, but it's another thing for me. Why?
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