I, self I, self you, self he and she, self they, self When I say me it is he and she, self When I say he and she it is you Ruby Poltorak Other standout chapters include Arthur Sze’s commentary on a poem he calls “Returning to Fields and Gardens (I)” in his own translation, which commentators were permitted to reference in their notes, by Tao Qian (365–427 ce) and translated here by James Hightower in 1970, Stephen Owen in 1996, and David Hinton in 2008; and Alexis Levitin’s commentary on Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen’s 1972 poem “A Pequena Praça,” translated by Ruth Fainlight in 1988, Lisa Sapinkopf in 1993, Richard Zenith in 1997, and Levitin himself in 1983. The closest comparison to Into English, which Collins mentions in her introduction , is Eliot Weinberger’s Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, which was reissued in an expanded edition this year by New Directions with additional translations of the single poem by Wang Wei that Weinberger analyzes. Into English, like that book, does an excellent job of correcting the primary fallacy of the uninformed translation critic, the literalist—something of a misnomer —who believes in the idea of “accuracy .” Such a fallacy judges translation exclusively on the basis of semantic reciprocity, as if literature were a strictly content-based art, and that, in the case of poetry, semantic meaning should be given precedence over form, meter, and even sound. As Levitin writes in his commentary, “Flaubert was wrong when he spoke of ‘le mot juste.’ The very nature of reality and language precludes such a thing. As all translators realize, we search for le mot juste, knowing we must settle for something that merely approaches it. Even at our luckiest, what we have is perhaps un mot juste, but never the Platonic le.” Into English, with its twenty-five case studies, proves him right but also demonstrates that the pursuit of un mot juste is not just worthwhile but necessary. David Shook Los Angeles Eduardo Galeano. Hunter of Stories. Trans. Mark Fried. New York. Nation Books. 2017. 272 pages. In 2015, with the death of Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, Latin America lost one of its finest literary voices and one of the staunchest critics of the exploitations of its people and resources for over five hundred years. During a life spent largely in exile, fleeing military regimes in both Uruguay and Argentina, Galeano wrote books that earned his reputation as an outstanding author of the “Boom” generation and a prominent opponent of capitalist and colonial policies. His most famous work, Open Veins of Latin America (1971), traces the story of colonization from the arrival of Europeans in the “New World” to the brink of the Uruguayan military coup whose leaders banned the book in 1973. Hunter of Stories is Galeano’s last work. It contains over two hundred pieces of writing, none of which exceed two pages, representing the final phase in a lifelong project of documenting the realities of Latin Yasutaka Tsutsui Bullseye! Twenty Short Stories Trans. Andrew Driver Kurodahan Press Yasutaka Tsutsui’s collection of short stories is an eclectic, postmodern rush that flies from comedic and satirical to grave and surreal. Tsutsui’s prose works at a rapid pace that grabs readers and takes them along for a ride through a Japan that seeks to constantly push against the established notions of what literature is. Roger Sedarat Haji as Puppet: An Orientalist Burlesque The Word Works Somewhere between Pantagruel, Candide, and the unmapped future of brainbending satire is the self-referential verse of Iranian American poet Roger Sedarat in Haji as Puppet. With moments verging on literary pastiche, the riotous journey of the perpetually unfortunate title character juggles religion and international politics as easily as pop culture and race, staging poems amid camera cues and a mounting sense of absurdity. Nota Bene WORLDLIT.ORG 93 America. Galeano does not tell new stories; instead, he unearths and retells stories from other sources, recombining them to form a collection that is readable in any order. He shares stories from Latin America’s colonial and recent history—along with many tales derived from indigenous...
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Nov 29, 2017
Yao Fu 
Open Access
