Terrific poetry reading on Saturday, September 25, celebrating National Translation Month and Hispanic Heritage Month in partnership with the Rutherford Civil Right Commission! Featuring Rutherford High School students reading poems of Latin-American authors in translation. Many thanks to Dana Serea, our Editorial Assistant, who curated and hosted the event, part of the 2021 Multicultural Festival, and to Paul Frazier for making it possible.
In this installment, we’re excited to share a beautiful collection of 10 poems and tangos translated from the Spanish by Stephen Page. The authors include luminaries like Jorge Luis Borges, Federico García Lorca, Antonio Machado, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, and César Vallejo, among others.
We’d love to hear from you! Let us know how you like our selections using #NTM2017 #TranslationMonth @TranslateMonth on Twitter. Happy National Translation Month!
—Claudia Serea & Loren Kleinman
We’re delighted to share with you today these new gems translated from the French and Spanish by the accomplished Hélène Cardona. And we’d love to hear from you! Let us know how you like our posts, or attend, share, and spread the word about our readings. Open your heart to new experiences and the beauty of the world, and celebrate its cultures and new voices with us using #NTM2017. Happy National Translation Month!
—Claudia Serea and Loren Kleinman
Click HERE to read New Translations of French and Spanish Poetry By Hélène Cardona
Once in a while, a book comes along, so good you don’t want to put it down, and when you do, out of necessity, it hurts. This is one of those books. We are so happy to share with you today poems from the award-winning book Y todos estábamos vivos (And We Were All Alive, Cardboard House Press, 2016) by Olvido García Valdés, translated and accompanied by an excellent essay about the craft and process by the acclaimed Catherine Hammond. These poems in English have not appeared in any other publication but the book. The poem beginning “spider mothers” was used in a public art project for the city of Phoenix. We hope you’ll like them as much as we did.
And remember, in September and beyond: read and share your favorite poems in translation. Let us know the authors you discover by using #NTM2017. We hope that Olvido García Valdés will be one of them. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
—Claudia Serea and Loren Kleinman
Another #NTM20017 premiere: we’re delighted to present excerpts from the gorgeous, award-winning children’s book Una gallina en la cocina/Chicken in the Kitchen by Nnedi Okorafor, illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini, published recently by Lantana Publishing. Released in Spanish and English versions, the book has won the prestigious Children’s Africana Best Book Award 2016, it was placed on the White Ravens Honour List in 2016, and it was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal 2017. Chicken in the Kitchen offers a unique window onto a West African culture from the perspective of a young Nigerian girl who finds the courage to protect the traditions she loves. Her enchanting, evocatively illustrated adventure will capture the imaginations of young and old alike. It surely captured ours.
—Claudia Serea and Loren Kleiman
Today we continue the premieres at #NTM2017 with two short stories excerpted
from the award-winning anthology of science fiction written by women in Spanish,
Spanish Women of Wonder (Palabristas, 2015) edited by Cristina Jurado and Leticia Lara. The Infestation by Felicidad Martínez presents a humorous and thrilling military space opera involving evolved plants. Techt by Sofía Rhei showcases a semiotic dystopia with a touch of cyberpunk, recalling novels such as Fahrenheit 451 or 1984. The translator, Sue Burke, does a wonderful job of capturing these two distinct voices. We hope you’ll agree and you’ll check out this mesmerizing collection.
—Claudia Serea and Loren Kleinman
