The FT on Translations

Sometimes articles on translated science fiction turn up in strangest places: like the Financial Times. Our thanks to author James Lovegrove for doing some great PR work for non-Anglophone science fiction here.

Clute on Ajvaz

Over at Strange Horizons, John Clute reviews the translated novels of Czech writer, Michal Ajvaz. These are The Other City (published last year) and The Golden Age, which hit the bookstores in April and is therefore definitely eligible for our awards.

The Golden Age is translated by Andrew Oakland and published by Dalkey Archive Press. It is described as “a fantastical travelogue in which a modern-day Gulliver writes a book about a civilization he once encountered on a tiny island in the Atlantic.”

Some Translation Links

Here are a few interesting stories that have turned up in the blogosphere in recent weeks.

The Independent reviews Best European Fiction 2010, which includes a ghost story by Portugal’s Valter Hugo Mae and a “futuristic tale” by Georgi Gospodinov from Bulgaria.

– Chad W. Post ponders the value of automated translation tools.

– K.E. Semmel reviews Olga Slavnikova’s novel, 2017 (translation by Marian Schwartz) which is set in a near future Russia facing an environmental catastrophe.

– Haikasoru editor Pancha Diaz talks about the Tiptree-winning graphic novel, Ôoku.

– And Nick Mamatas discusses “The anarchy of translation”.

Translation Links

There is a lot of talk about translation around the blogosphere at the moment. Here are a few items we noticed in recent days.

– Fábio Fernandes talks about working in two languages at Tor.com.

– Charles Tan interviews Nick Mamatas about Haikasoru at World SF News. All of those 2010 publications Nick mentions should be eligible for our award.

– Ekaterina Sedia wonders whether translated works should sound foreign and exotic.

– Anna Tambour reviews a collection of Tamil pulp fiction (with a fabulous cover).

– Chad W. Post reviews a prize-winning Arabic novel about an infertility curse.

– The anthology series, Best American Fantasy, is looking for works from Latin America.