Category Archives: Translation

The Global North: Alexander, Boo, Erdrich, Ferry

Posted on February 13, 2013 by wcd2

February 13, 2013 The blizzard this past weekend made me think of Argus, North Dakota. Louise Erdrich’s country. Love Medicine opens with a blizzard: “The snow feel deeper that Easter than it had for forty years, but June walked over … Continue reading →

Posted in Cities, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, contemporary poetry, India, Native-American literature, Translation | Tagged Beyond the Beautiful Forevers, Boston, David Ferry, Global North, Goblin Secrets, Katherine Boo, KIng's College London, Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine, Minneapolis, Mumbai, National Book Award, North Dakota, Sunil Khilnani, The Beet Queen, William Alexander | Leave a comment

Frederick Douglass, H.D.: Egypt Again

Posted on January 2, 2013 by wcd2

Janurary 2, 2013 She never mentioned him and probably never read him. Still, he anticipated her. Visiting Egypt in 1887, Douglass wrote: “I do not know of what color and features the ancient Egyptians were, but the great mass of … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, ancient Greece, Christianity, Classics, Comparative literature, Egypt, Gender, Global South, Islam, Modernist poetry, Poetry, Race, slavery, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Wars, world literature | Tagged Egypt, Frederick Douglass, Greeks, H.D., Islam, Malcolm X, Petition for franchise for women, Seneca Falls Convention, Stesichorus of Sicily, Trojans | Leave a comment

Muriel Rukeyser, Wallace Stevens: Books of the Dead

Posted on December 26, 2012 by wcd2

December 26, 1012 There’s a picture of the two of them – Stevens standing at the back, and Rukeyser seated in front with Marianne Moore. To the left of him from where they were, and to the left of … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Classics, Egypt, Environmentalism, Experimental poetry, Global South, Journalism, Labor history, lyric, Poetry, print medium, Race, Remediation, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Vernacular dialects | Tagged Book of the Dead, Dante, Egypt, Henry Church, Homer, investigative journalism, Marianne Moore, Muriel Rukeyser, Owl in the Sarcophagus, silica mines, U.S.1, Underworld, Virgil, Wallace Stevens, West Virginia | Leave a comment

Seamus Heaney: More Strange Fruit

Posted on August 8, 2012 by wcd2

August 8, 2012 This week I’ve been listening to many versions of “Strange Fruit”: Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley, Gil Evans and the Sting. I have to say: I still prefer Billie Holiday. But I had no idea Seamus Heaney also … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, collaboration, Comparative literature, contemporary poetry, Diaspora, Gender, globe, Irish literature, lyric, Modernist poetry, Music, Race, Racial violence, Remediation, Rock music, slavery, Translation, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature, World history, world literature, YouTube videos | Tagged " Jutland, " Seamus Heaney, "Punishment, "Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday, Denmark, Gil Evans, Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone, North (1975), Northern Ireland, the Sting | 6 Comments

Spanish Civil War: Hughes and Hemingway

Posted on July 4, 2012 by wcd2

July 4, 2012 The Beinecke Library doesn’t have a great Hemingway Collection (most of his material is at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston), but I did find a rare photo, taken in Madrid in 1937, Hemingway with Langston Hughes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, African-American literature, Arabic, Caribbean literature, collaboration, Cuba, Cuban poetry, Ethnicity, Global South, Islam, Latin America, Letters, Libraries, Modernist poetry, Newspapers, peripheral networks, Spanish, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged Baltimore Afro-American, Beinecke Library, Cuba Libre, Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bells Tolls, General Franco's Moors, Gypsies, Havana, JFK Presidential Library, Langston Hughes, Michael Koltyov, Moors, Nicolas Guillen, Oklahoma, Spanish Civil War | 2 Comments

Tender is the Translation

Posted on June 20, 2012 by wcd2

June 20, 2012 Because of my online lectures on Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner, I’ve been getting inquiries about these authors from Asia, Europe, South America – many viewers of the Open Yale Courses are outside the US. This week I … Continue reading →

Posted in Americas, Arabic, Asia, Brazil, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Global South, Latin America, Media, Middle East, Portuguese, print medium, Publishers, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged Asia, Beckett, Cosac Naify, Danish literature, Europe, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Flaubert, Fru Marie Grubbe, Gyula Krúdy, Hemingway, Jens Peter Jacobsen, Lady Chatterley's Lover, New York Times, Open Yale Courses, Sinbad;s Youth, South America, Tender is the Night, The Arabic Nights, The Wishing Tree, Tolstoy | 2 Comments

All Saints Bookstore, Beijing

Posted on June 13, 2012 by wcd2

June 13, 2012 We were in Hong Kong on June 4, the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. A candlelight vigil had been held in Victoria Park for the past 23 years. This year, 180,000 people showed up. There … Continue reading →

Posted in Asia, Boostores, China, Cities, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Diaspora, Dissidents, Educational institutions, literary magazaines, macro politics, Media, Nobel Prize, print medium, public universities, Publishers, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged All Saints Bookstore, Beijing, Beloved, candlelight vigil, Cormac McCarthy, Ernest Hemingway, Hong Kong, Liu Suli, Liu Zaiobo, Mark Twain, Nobel Prize, Peking University, Richard Powers, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Steve Jobs, Strand, The Echo Maker, The Road, Thinkers Cafe, Tiananmen Square crackdown, Toni Morrison, Tsinghua University, Wansheng Bookstore, World Literature Institute, Zhao Baisheng, Zora Neale Hurston | 9 Comments

Literature to Film, Sydney 2012

Posted on May 30, 2012 by wcd2

May 30, 2012 May 28, 2012 was the centenary of the birth of Patrick White. Many of us from the conference went down to a special screening of The Eye of the Storm, directed by Fred Schepisi, featuring Charlotte Rampling … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, architecture, Arts communities, Australia, Cities, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary Art, Diaspora, Educational institutions, film festivals, film medium, Global South, Interdisciplinarity, Media, Modern art, museums, Music, Remediation, Rock music, Theater, Translation, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts, world literature | Tagged Allen Ginsberg, Antony Waddington, Bob Dylan, Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Rampling, Chekhov, England, France, Fred Schepisi, Geoffrey Rush, Howl, I'm not There, James Franco, John Gaden, Judy Davis, MOMA, Patrick White, Russia, Seattle Film Festival, Sydney, Sydney Opera House, The Cherry Orchard, The Eye of the Storm, Vivid Lights Festival | 10 Comments

Two Toledos

Posted on April 25, 2012 by wcd2

April 25, 2012 I’m on my way to Toledo, I told people. Ohio, not Spain, I added. Then I found out that the two are in fact sister cities. The association began in the 1920s when University of Toledo President, … Continue reading →

Posted in Arabic, architecture, Classics, Educational institutions, epic, Islam, Midwest, mixed races, Spanish, Translation, Universities, world literature, World religions | Tagged 1492, Cervantes, Christians, Cide Hamete Benengeli, Don Quixote, Henry Doermann, ijtihad, Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, Jews, La Mancha, M, Mosque of Cristo de la Luz, Mudéjar architecture, Muslims, Ohio, Russell Brown, Sister Cities, Spain, Synagogue of El Transito, Synagogue of Santa Maria la Blanca, Toledo | 20 Comments

Wallace Stevens, amigo of Cuban writers

Posted on April 18, 2012 by wcd2

April 18, 2012 Wallace Stevens and Cristina García? Not the most obvious pairing. Yet it is Stevens’s poems that remained on García’s desk throughout the writing of Dreaming in Cuban, giving the novel its epigraph. And for Stevens, Havana is … Continue reading →

Posted in Caribbean literature, Comparative literature, Cuba, Global South, Latin America, Letters, Modernist poetry, peripheral networks, Spanish, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged " José Rodríguez Feo, "Academic Discourse in Havana", "Someone puts a Pineapple 'Together", Antillean, Cristina García, Dreaming in Cuban, El Sol, Hartford, Havana, Key West, Madrid, Secretaries of the Moon, Wallace Stevens | 2 Comments