A translation, with slight adaptation, of ‘Les Trois Messes Basses’, a short story from Contes du Lundi by Alphonse Daudet, published in 1873. ‘Two stuffed turkeys, Garrigou?’ ‘Yes, Reverend, two magnificent turkeys crammed full of truffles. And I should know; I helped stuff them. They looked as though their skin might burst while roasting, […]
Translation
The End of a Residency
Towards the end of my residency at the BCLT, I had just started editing The Djinn’s Apple, a pacey YA murder mystery set in the Abbasid era, due to be published with Neem Tree Press. For the duration of my residency I have been translating this novel, and used it as a foundation for a […]
Translating YA Literature
Earlier this month, approaching the end of my residency, I led a ‘Translating YA Literature’ workshop at the BCLT, where we covered: Pitching YA Arabic literature Situating it in the greater Arabic literary sphere Process of choosing a cover/publicity YA Translation conundrums During this residency I have been translating the Djinn’s Apple,[1] a YA part […]
House-hunting
I find myself in a moment of change. The bookcases are empty, the books packed in boxes stacked high in our living room that will be shipped overseas in a few hours. Save a dictionary or two and a few books I need with me for work, for the first time in years my life […]
Extract from ‘Francesca’
Francesca is a one-act play by emerging Norwegian playwright Tonje Dreyer Sellevoll, developed in a mentorship program called UNG TEKST, run by Unge Viken Teater. I had the pleasure of translating this play for my MA Literary Translation dissertation which I submitted in September 2021, as well as working directly with the playwright for the […]
Developmental Editing
Although I have been translating literature for over a decade, it was only just a few weeks ago that I was involved in my first ever developmental editing session. I’ve co-translated a riveting read by an Eritrean author that delves into identity politics; it will, God willing, be published in 2023. What is it? […]
Mistakes
Mistakes. Missteps. The dirty secrets, the errors burned into a translator’s brain. Like typos, often so tiny they barely register — which is the point — and yet in reviews they are seized on by critics as nuggets of proof that flag up the translator’s unworthiness for this undertaking, a kind of textual “Gotcha!” This […]
Translating Trauma
A few days into my residency at the BCLT, I submitted my first full-length non-fiction project: What Have You Left Behind – Voices From a Forgotten War, a collection of forty-three accounts of war from Yemen, recorded by the author and activist Bushra Al-Maqtari. It was my first encounter with translating a veritably traumatic piece […]
How to Emerge?
(An Extract from My BCLT 30th Anniversary Edition) It seemed implausible only a year ago, but I’m writing this shortly after celebrating the publication of my first full-length literary translation, and completing the first draft of what will be my fourth. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the BCLT. I stumbled into literary […]
Cannonballs and Rockets
(An Extract from My BCLT 30th Anniversary Edition) My involvement with the BCLT began, as it did for many others, with the Literary Translation Summer School. Unlike most other contributors to this collection, however, for me it has only been a year since that first encounter. In fact, chances are that I’m one of the few whose […]
