Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

In our ongoing quest to become better librarians by reading every genre (regardless of our actual interest) we tackle Books in Translation.  

Listen to your hosts Anna Ferri, Meghan Whyte, Matthew Murray, and Jorge Cardenas discuss the reasons for reading books in translation, publishing barriers to international works, the importance/effect of a translator, which language should you read a book in, the Canadian context, grants to read War and Peace, and what makes a great book.

Your Hosts This Episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Jorge Cardenas | Matthew Murray

Recommended

• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; translated by H.T. Willetts (Russian)
• If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino; translated by William Weaver (Italian)
• Bitter Rose by Martine Delvaux; translated by David Homel (Quebec)
• Closely Watched Trains by by Bohumil Hrabal; translated by Edith Pargeter (Czech)
• Silk by Alessandro Baricco; translated by Guido Waldman (Italian)
• Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa; translated by Gregory Rabassa (Peru)
• The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac; illustrations by Quentin Blake; translated by Sarah Adams (French)
• HHhH by Laurent Binet; translated by Sam Taylor (French)
• Arvida by Samuel Archibald; translated by Donald Winkler (Quebec)

Other Books Read/Listened

• 70% Acrylic 30% Wool by Viola Di Grado; translated by Michael Reynolds (Italian)
• The Cyclist Conspiracy by Svetislav Basara; translated by Randall A. Major (Serbian)
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery; translated by Alison Anderson (French)
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy; translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Russian)
• The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin; translated by Ken Liu (Chinese)
• Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondō; translated by Cathy Hirano (Japanese) (audiobook)

DNF

• The Alphabet House by Jussi Adler-Olse; translated by Steve Schein (Danish)
• The Dinner by Herman Koch; translated by Sam Garrett (Dutch)

Questions:

• Do you seek out or avoid works in translation?
• Do you ever feel like you are missing context/need more footnotes?
• Have you read a book than was significantly better or worse in one language than another?
• Are there genres that exist only (or predominantly) in non-English languages?

Links/Other

• Good-Bye and Other Stories by Yoshihiro Tatsumi - “a book translated from Japanese to Spanish to English and purportedly released without Tatsumi’s knowledge”
• 15 books with more characters than you can keep track of - Infographic
• Valeria Luiselli
• Shake Hands with the Devil by Roméo Dallaire
• Translation Wars - New Yorker article about translations of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky
• Marathon reading of War and Peace - BBC
• 2016 BBC adaptation of War and Peace - Wikipedia
• Why Americans don’t read foreign fiction - The Daily Beast
• Why do you read translations? - Goodreads
• Icelandic christmas book spree - NPR article
• “Do MPs ever abuse Hansard?” - “the late Philippe Gigantes, during a filibuster in the Senate, read one of his books into the record, which contributed not only to the filibuster but also provided a comp[l]ete French translation he later had published.”
• Japanese Golf Comics
• Books translated into Klingon - “Four Klingon translations of works of world literature have been published: ghIlghameS (the Epic of Gilgamesh), Hamlet (Hamlet), paghmo’ tIn mIS (Much Ado About Nothing) and pIn’a’ qan paQDI’norgh (Tao Te Ching).”

Meanwhile in Canada:

• Literary Translation in Canada - l'Association des traducteurs et traductrices littéraires du Canada/Literary Translators' Association of Canada
• Why aren’t there more translations in Canada publishing? - The National Post (includes numbers on English/French translation grants)
• The forgotten mimics - The National Post (includes the House of Anansi controversy)
• Canada Council Translation grants:
• • National
  • International
• Quebec SODEC grants - (In French only)
• Ambos - magazine of Quebec translated literature aimed at English audiences

Places to find reading suggestions:

• Reading the world - review
• Funny/uplifting Arabic novels - list
• 2015 Nobel prize in literature - The Guardian article on Svetlana Alexievich
• Translation awards - Wikipedia
• Three Percent - a resource for international literature
• Asymptote Journal - World lit  
• Canadian books in translation fall 2015 - 49th parallel
• A book that was originally published in another language - Book Riot Read harder challenge

Other podcasts

• Three Percent Podcast - A whole ongoing podcast on the topic of translated and international literature connected with the Three Percent blog mentioned above
• Fiction in translation - The Guardian podcast
• Bestsellers around the world - Books on the Nightstand podcast

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the Books in Translation people in our club read (or tried to read), and follow us on Twitter!