Thank you so much!

I’ve actually met Glyn Maxwell and we had a great talk on poetry (and yes, I’m very much into it; the topic of my own first book, Brodsky Translating Brodsky, was poetry in self-translation).

Do have a look at readingsjournal.net, it might suit you. (I’m starting this journal more or less on my own, in my spare time, and am…[Read more]

Thank you!

To which I would add the nonfiction of Kundera, Testaments Betrayed and The Art of the Novel.

Wonderful question, wonderful answers–I’ll just toss in four more: Borges, Seven Nights, Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium, and in case anyone out there still considers poetry part of what we mean by “literary” (many non-litterateur friends of mine do, but I’m drawn to poetry-lovers), Muriel Rukeyser’s The Life of Poetry and Glyn M…[Read more]

I love Artful!

Such a pleasure to share tastes; I’d be delighted if you submitted to readingsjournal.net

Dear Steve,

thank you very much! All your suggestions are either books I like, or (incl. the beguilingly entitled work of your own) books that I probably will like. You are very warmly invited to join the journal I’m launching  as an author and/or reviewer.:)

Call for Papers and Reviewers

Best,

Alexandra

If you do recommend Azar Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” I would also strongly recommend that you suggest that they read Fatemeh Keshavarz’s trenchant critique of it, “Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran.” Nafisi’s book is full of problems and, as Keshavarz argues, it–like Khaled Hosseini’s “Kite Runner” and many other…[Read more]

Reading Lolita in Tehran never grabbed me, but it sure resonated with a broad public and has been translated into many languages. Ali Smith’s Artful is a strange amalgam, in which a well-done, ghoulish narrative of grief drives some otherwise not terribly interesting literary remarks, but the novelty of the form deserves a look. Then there are…[Read more]

Hi Alexandra,

Books such as Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer come to mind, as do Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel and Charles Dickens: A Life. In general it looks like literary biographies and collections of author letters are most likely to be read for pleasure. A good example is Phyllis Rose’s Parallel Lives: Five Victorian…[Read more]

Hi Alexandra,

Books such as Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer come to mind, as do Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel and Charles Dickens: A Life. In general it looks like literary biographies and collections of author letters are most likely to be read for pleasure. A good example is Phyllis Rose’s Parallel Lives: Five Victorian…[Read more]

Hi, Prithviraj,

Agreed with the excellent suggestions in previous posts; and it is a huge topic. See also the just-released 2nd ed of Douglas Robinson’s anthology of texts (Western Translation Theory from Herodotus to Nietzsche; Routledge). At the risk of self-reference, I’d like to mention to a resource coming out soon that might prove helpful,…[Read more]

That’s a big topic. One recent book, focused on the English Renaissance, is English Renaissance Translation Theory (ed. by Neil Rhodes, with Gordon Kendal and Louise Wilson, MHRA, 2013). The introduction provides a nice overview of this trend, at least in England, between about 1485 and 1660.  Another source is the series, The Oxford History of…[Read more]