#alfred birnbaum

[bones-ivy-breath]

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (tr. Alfred Birnbaum)

[itsyerm]

Full credits list for Literature Girl Insane

@venus-is-thinking and @accirax's Google Doc really started me off here, so shoutout to these two. I have NEARLY (update: it's now complete!) got a complete credits list for the video.

Below the cut is the full list of credits from 3:45:

ORIGINAL LITERATURE GIRL INSANE TEAM

Don (sound engineer)

Len Kagamine (incorrectly credited–this is a Rin Kagamine song)

karasuyasabou (original uploader)

Sayaka Siduki (illustrator)

Coleena Wu (English translation)

Yoppei (vocalist)

AUTHORS/COMPOSERS

Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

Paul W. Chodas (The Collision of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 and Jupiter)

Agatha Christie (Murder on the Orient Express; And Then There Were None)

Osamu Dazai (The Setting Sun; The Flowers of Buffoonery; No Longer Human)

Julius Fucik (Entrance of the Gladiators)

Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

Motojiro Kaiji (Lemon)

Yasunari Kawabata (Snow Country)

Yumeno Kyusaku (Dogra Magra)

Ursula K. Le Guin (The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas)

Kenji Miyazawa (Ame ni mo makezu)

Thomas More (Utopia––surname is incorrectly spelled as "Moore")

Plato (Six Great Dialogues)

Soseki Natsume (I Am a Cat)

Antoine de Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince)

William Shakespeare (Hamlet; Macbeth)

Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

Donald K. Yeomans (The Collision of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 and Jupiter)

TRANSLATORS

Kan-Ichi Ando (I Am a Cat)

Sam Bett (The Flowers of Buffoonery)

Alfred Birnbaum (Lemon)

Lionel Giles (The Art of War)

Benjamin Jowett (Six Great Dialogues)

Donald Keene (The Setting Sun; No Longer Human)

Edward G. Seidensticker (Snow Country)

David Sulz (Ame ni mo makezu)

[alittlecutemeow]

"Some things are forgotten, some things disappear, some things die.”

― Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase - translator: Alfred Birnbaum

📍https://pin.it/1lPFZG5

[yue-muffin]

I'm thinking of reading tgcf in japanese...like, i have no idea why i've never been able to get past the first arc of the story despite liking the plot and characters. then I began to think maybe it's actually the writing (of the translation).

there are definitely certain books I can't get into because of the flow of the translation, and that's 100% a me thing. for example, with the professionally translated murakami books, I much prefer the ones translated by Jay Rubin (wind up bird chronicle) over the ones translated by Alfred Birnbaum (a wild sheep chase). Objectively, there's nothing wrong with the Birnbaum translations. They read fine, but the voice of the narration doesn't click with me.

the language isn't terribly difficult in the japanese version, and I actually kind of like how it flows (and it's the closest I'm ever getting to reading the original lol...though with an audiobook version in chinese I know juuust enough to be able to follow along, it's exhausting to do so).

[medickalmalpractice]

[資料]

2

-A 正しい翻訳とは

●翻訳とは何か?

01

02

翻訳のことを考える場合、 まず翻訳とは何か、ということを考えなければいけないのだと言えば、驚く人がいるかもしれません。 翻訳というのはただ原文を他の言語に直せばいいだけであって、それ以上、深く考える必要はないのだとも思えるからです。しかし、 実は、英語の原文をフランス語に翻訳するといった、言語構造が極めて類似した言語���での翻訳と、 英語から日本語へ、あるいは日本語から英語へといった、言語構造がかけ離れた翻訳とはずいぶん違うものだというのが、 日本文学を英語で教えてきて、これまで強く感じた感想なのです。

03

世界の常識は日本の非常識、日本の非常識は世界の常識と言いますが、 そうした言い方には日本と世界という二分法が当然視されていて、まるで日本は世界に入っていないかのような響きがあるのは大変問題です。 しかし、日本に通用している価値観が他の地域ではそのまま通用しないということを知るのは、やはりよいことと思います。 [中略]

04

もう一つ注意すべき点は翻訳の在り方の文化による違いです。前に翻訳における訳文尊重主義と原文尊重主義について述べたことがありましたが(大澤 1996、70-71)、どの翻訳もその二つの極の間のどこかに存在しています。 原文を全く尊重しない翻訳もありえませんが、訳文の流麗さを無視して、原文に拘る翻訳も存在しません。 それぞれの訳者は原文を尊重することと、自然で、洗練された訳文を作り上げることとをともに望んでいます。 それにどのような折り合いを付けるかは、それぞれの翻訳が置かれた文化的脈絡によって違うのです。[中略]　川端は読点だけで句をつないでいく、 極めて長い文章を書いていますが、それはゆきぐに

しまむら『雪国』でよく見られる手法で、 特に主人公、 島村の心理を描いたところになると、よく見られる技法です。 その長い文章を訳者サイデンステッカー氏は短い、いくつかの文章に分割しました。 それは日本語テクストの印象とは異なる印象を英語読者に伝えることになるわけですが、その変更もサイデンステッカー氏の文章観と英語読者の翻訳テクストへの期待という点から説明出来るでしょう。 [中略]

ハードボイルド 村上春樹

06

今日、日本以外で多くの読者を得ている現代日本文学者と言えば、吉本ばなな (1964年 - )と村上春樹 (1947年) が双璧でしょうが、 村上春樹の英語翻訳にもそうしたテクストの変更は認められます。 『羊をめぐる冒険』を見てみましょう。日本語テクストの冒頭近くをまず引きます。

07

僕はその日のうちに警察に電話をかけて彼女の実家の住所と電話番号を教えてもらい、それから実家に電話をかけて葬儀の日取りを聞いた。 誰かが言っているように、 手間さえ惜しまなければ大抵のことはわかるものなのだ。

08

彼女の家は下町にあった。 僕は東京都の区分地���を開き、 彼女の家の番地に赤いボールペンでしるしをつけた。 それはいかにも東京の下町的な町だった。地下鉄やら国電やら路線バスやらがバランスを失った蜘蛛の糸のように入り乱れ、重なりあい、何本かのどぶ川が流れ、 ごてごてとした通りがメロンのしわみたいに地表にしがみついていた。 (村上、 1992

09 

英訳はアルフレッド·バーンボーム (Alfred Birnbaum) により、 1989年に講談社インターナショナルから刊行されました。 その対応する部分はこうです。

10

I called the police department to track down her family's address and telephone number, after which I gave them a call to get details of the funeral.

11

Her family lived in an old quarter of Tokyo. I got out my map and marked the block in red. There were subway and train and bus lines everywhere, overlapping like some misshapen spiderweb, the whole area a maze of narrow streets and drainage canals.

(Murakami 1990,3)

12

私は警察に電話をかけて、 家族の住所と電話番号を突き止めた。 その後でそこに電話をして、 葬儀の詳細を知った。

13 彼女の家族は東京の昔からの地区に住んでいた。 私は自分の地図を取り出すと、その場所に赤いしるしを付けた。 地下鉄や、電車や、バスが至るところ走っているところで、なにか不細工な蜘蛛の巣のように重なりあったところだった。そこら一帯は狭い通りとどぶ川が迷路のように入り組んでいた。

14

英訳は全体として日本語テクストより、より口語的で、ハードボイルド風の感じを読者に与えることを狙っているように見えます。 そのために、ここでは「誰かが言っているように、手間さえ惜しまなければ大抵のことはわかるものなのだ。」といったような、説明的な文章は落とされたのだろうと思います。 また 「それはいかにも東京の下町的な町だった。」 という東京の下町を知らない人にとっては意味を持たない文章も削除されています。 そして 「メロンのしわみたいに」という日本人にとってはよくわかる比喩も落とされていますが、 それは高価なマスクメロンが北米においては日本ほど売られていないがために、効果的な比喩となりえないという訳者の判断によるのでしょう。

15

そうしたテクストの変更は、その後に出された「世界の終りとハードボイルドワンダーランド』の英訳では、より明示的に表記され、そこでは裏扉に 「アルフレッド·バーンボーム編訳」 (Translated and Adapted by Alfred Birnbaum) と書かれることになります。そうしたテクストの変更は果たして翻訳として正しい姿なのだろうかという疑問が多くの日本人に湧くことでしょう。 実際、 青山南氏は「英語になったニッポン小説』 の中で、村上春樹作品の英訳を検討し、村上春樹がテクストの変更を許していることを指摘した上で、最後に次のように言います。

16

村上春樹のなかでは、原書があって翻訳があるという考え方は、きっとない のだ。日本語版と英語版のふたつのヴァージョンがある、 と認識しているのだ。

17

なると、村上春樹の本は、いまだまともに翻訳されていないということになる。(青山、 1996、111)

18

しかし、重要なことは、 村上春樹の作品が 「まともに」 翻訳されていないと言う時、「まともな翻訳」というのは一体どのようなものを指しているのかということでしょう。 文化を超えて 「これがまともな翻訳である」という共通認識がそもそも存在するのだろうか、ということをまず考える必要があります。 日本文学作品の���まざまな英訳を見てみますと、そこにはもちろん個人差があって、 サイデンステッカー氏の訳はモリス氏の訳に比べれば、日本語テクストから離れることはずっと少ないと言えます。 しかし、 それでもテクストを変えないわけではありません。とすると、翻訳の問題を比較文化的に考える時には、翻訳とは何かという基本的な問に答えを出すことから作業を始めなければならないということでしょう。 日本文化における翻訳の概念を無批判に他の文化圏の翻訳に当てはめて、それらが「まともな」 翻訳かどうかを判断することは、 自分の基準でのみ相手の行為を評価することになります。 それは自分の基準を絶対のものと考えているということにもなるでしょう。 つまりそれは、複数の価値体系の存在を認め、相互の批判からより上位の認識に到達しようとする比較的な精神からは外れた態度になります。

[ma-pi-ma]

Paradosso Zen del gatto ..

Se la porta è chiusa, entra. Se la porta è aperta, resta fuori.

Alfred Birnbaum e Riku Kanmei, da Lo zen per il gatto

[inframince-inc]

otk 003 – Shinro Otake “NewNew” –

完売となっていました大竹伸朗 “ニューニュー” が再入荷しました。

–

2013年に香川の丸亀市猪熊弦一郎現代美術館で行われた同展の公式カタログ。 ─ 「大竹伸朗展 ニューニュー」（7月13日─11月4日）は、 高松市美術館で行われた「大竹伸朗展 憶速」、瀬戸内国際芸術祭2013での展示「女根」とともに、瀬戸内地域でほぼ同時期に開催された大竹の3つの展覧会のうちのひとつとして注目された。 ─ 「ニューニュー」では、タイトル通り、新作・近作・未発表作だけが選ばれており、丸亀市猪熊弦一郎現代美術館��特徴的な立地環境と建築空間を存分に生かした構成となっている。 ドクメンタ13参加作品の「モンシェリー：スクラップ小屋としての自画像」を含むインスタレーション作品と大型彫刻、コラージュ作品と油彩、大型のドローイング、小型のグアッシュのシリーズなど、作品内容も実に多様なものとなった。 - カタログは、シート、冊子、DVDに分かれていて、着脱可能なペーパーファスナーでまとめられている。 作品は、技法あるいは展示空間別に、冊子とシートへと分冊形式で収録。 DVDでは、美術館前の風景から展示室の奥に至るまで、ビジターの鑑賞経験に沿った映像がおさめられている。 - A3を超える大きな8枚のシートには、それぞれ大型のインスタレーション作品を収録。 表には各作品の全体像の裁ち落とし写真が掲載され、ポスターとして掲示することも可能。 裏には細部写真、関連作品、キャプション・データが掲載されている。 サイズの異なる3つの冊子には、絵画的な作品（油彩冊子とコラージュ・ドローイング冊子）とテキスト・資料を収録。 -

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A＿表紙

カラー／1枚

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B＿インスタレーション・シート

A3＋変形／カラー／8枚=16頁

sheet 1：『時憶／雲』

sheet 2：『時憶／ゾーン』

sheet 3：『宇和島駅』

sheet 4：『時憶／美唄』

sheet 5：『焼憶』

sheet 6：『モンシェリー：スクラップ小屋としての自画像』

sheet 7：『モンシェリー：スクラップ小屋としての自画像』詳細

sheet 8：展示風景、開催概要、等

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C＿book 1：���ラージュ、ドローイング

B5／カラー／48頁

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D＿book 2：油彩『Karlsaue, Kassel』

A5＋変形／カラー／32頁

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E＿book 3：テキスト、略歴、参考文献

寄稿：大竹伸朗、中田耕市［美術館学芸員］

A5／モノクロ／32頁

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F＿DVD：展示風景

DVD-Video／ALL Region／MPEG-2/NTSC／COLOR／STEREO／本編映像26分・付録映像20分

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G＿ペーパー・ファスナー

綴じられている全てのアイテムは着脱可能です。

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Supervised by: Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art / The MIMOCA Foundation

Editor: Koichi Nakata

Texts: Shinro Ohtake, Koichi Nakata

Translation: Alfred Birnbaum

Photo (Installation view): Masahito Yamamoto

Design: Edition Nord; Shin Akiyama, Wataru Kobara, Takashi Honda, Genki Abe

Printing and binding: SunM Color Co., Ltd.

-

First edition: 1 September, 2014

External dimensions: 297 x c.235mm

otk 003 / first edition: 2000 copies

[metamorphesque]

Hellooo! i need some good recs so may i know what you're currently reading?

My current reads

Breasts and Eggs | Mieko Kawakami, Sam Bett (Translator), David Boyd (Translator)

The Elephant Vanishes | Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin (Translator), Alfred Birnbaum (Translator)

Her Body and Other Parties | Carmen Maria Machado

Demian | Hermann Hesse

So far I'm fascinated with everything I'm currently reading 🌼

[geopsych]

“… the wind has its reasons. We just don’t notice as we go about our lives. But then, at some point, we are made to notice. The wind envelops you with a certain purpose in mind, and it rocks you. The wind knows everything that’s inside you. And not just the wind. Everything, including a stone. They all know us very well. From top to bottom. It only occurs to us at certain times. And all we can do is go with those things. As we take them in, we survive, and deepen.”

—Haruki Murakami, in Hear the Wind Sing [1979], translated by Alfred Birnbaum.

[dk-thrive]

The silence does not reside on the surface, but is held like smoke within. It is unfathomable, eternal, a disembodied vision cast upon a point in the void.

Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, translated by Alfred Birnbaum. (Prakash Books India; 3817th edition 1994, Originally published 1985.) (via The Vale of Soul-Making)

[grateful-hopeful-dragonfly]

fictional beast 🦄

°°°

"For that one instant, all is still, save their golden hair which stirs in the evening breeze. What plays through their heads at this moment? At what do they gaze?..." - Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (translated by Alfred Birnbaum)

°

Sir Haruki Murakami's imagination and simple yet poetic words are just unparalleled 💚. Surely one of his best books worth a reread.

°

(c) google for the carabao picture used as reference

°

P.S. This is just based on Sir Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World", I don't know why but this is how I imagined the beast described in his book 😅, not the usual unicorn

[bones-ivy-breath]

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami (tr. Alfred Birnbaum)

[fictionfromafar]

Unmissable International Crime Fiction Novels from April 2021 onwards

1 April

The Untamable by Guillermo Arriaga

MacLehose Press

A gripping coming of age thriller of vengeance and destiny set between Mexico City's murderous 1960s underworld and the bleak tundras of Canada's most remote province. By the BAFTA-winning screenwriter of Amores Perros.

Yukon, Canada's far north. A young man tracks a wolf through the wilderness. In Mexico City, Juan Guillermo has pledged vengeance.

1 April

Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka, translated by Sam Marissa

Harvill Secker

Five killers find themselves on a bullet train from Tokyo competing for a suitcase full of money. Who will make it to the last station? A bestseller in Japan, Bullet Train is an original and propulsive thriller which fizzes with an incredible energy as its complex net of double-crosses and twists unwinds to the last station.

15 April

Silenced by Sólveig Pálsdóttir, translated by Quentin Bates

Corylus Books

After a turbulent few years, Guðgeir Fransson is back with the Reykjavík police force and is called on to look into the suspicious suicide of a young woman in a cell at the Hólmsheiði prison. On the surface, it looks like a straightforward investigation. As he digs into the dead woman’s past, he unearths links to a man’s disappearance more than twenty years ago.

My review of The Fox:

15 April

We Trade Our Night for Someone Else’s Day by Ivana Bodrožić, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac

Penguin Random House

Nora is a journalist assigned to do a puff piece on the perpetrator of a crime of passion–a Croatian high school teacher who fell in love with one of her students, a Serb, and is now in prison for having murdered her husband. But Nora herself is the daughter of a man who was murdered years earlier under mysterious circumstances. And she wants, if not to avenge her father, at least to bring to justice whoever committed the crime.

15 April

How To Betray Your Country by James Wolff

Bitter Lemon Press

Following on from the acclaimed debut novel Beside the Syrian Sea, this is the second title in a planned trilogy about loyalty and betrayal in the modern world. An authentic thriller about the thin line between following your conscience and following orders. James Wolff is the pseudonym of a young English novelist who “has been working for the British government for the last ten years”.

22 April

Trap for Cinderella by Sebastien Japrisot

Gallic Books

A beach house at a French resort is gutted by fire. Trapped inside are two women - one rich and the other poor. Only one of them survives, burnt beyond recognition and in a state of total amnesia. Who is she, the heiress or her penniless friend? A killer, or an intended victim?

29 April

Geiger by Gustaf Skordeman

Zaffre

The landline rings as Agneta is waving off her grandchildren. Just one word comes out of the receiver: 'Geiger'. For decades, Agneta has always known that this moment would come, but she is shaken. She knows what it means. Retrieving her weapon from its hiding place, she attaches the silencer and creeps up behind her husband before pressing the barrel to his temple.

29 April

Facets of Death by Michael Stanley

Orenda Books

Detective Kubu, renowned international detective, has faced off with death more times than he can count... But what was the case that established him as a force to be reckoned with? In Facets of Death, a prequel to the acclaimed Detective Kubu series, the fresh-faced cop gets ensnared in an international web of danger—can he get out before disaster strikes?

29 April

The Girl Who Died by Ragnar Jonasson

Michael Joseph

Una knows she is struggling to deal with her father's sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts that she might one day follow in his footsteps.

So when she sees an advert seeking a teacher for two girls in the tiny village of Skálar - population of ten - on the storm-battered north coast of the island, she sees it as a chance to escape.

13 May

Seat 7a by Sebastian Fitzek, translated by Jamie Bulloch

Head of Zeus

Psychiatrist Mats Krüger knows that his irrational fear of flying is just that – irrational. He knows that flying is nineteen times safer than driving. He also knows that if something does happen on a plane, the worst place to be is seat 7A. That's why on his first plane journey in 20 years – to be with his only daughter as she gives birth – he's booked seat 7A, so no one else can sit there. If no one is sat there, surely nothing will go wrong.

My review of Passenger 23 :

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/643950323513311232/passenger-23-by-sebastian-fitzek-passenger-23-by

13 May

The Assistant by Kjell Ola Dahl, translated by Don Bartlett

Orenda Books

Oslo, 1938. When a woman turns up at the office of police-turned-private investigator Ludvig Paaske, has accepted a routine case to find evidence of a cheating husband but soon enough his assistant Jack Rivers has been accused of murder. Rivers is no angel, and Paaske must dig deep to find out what’s going on. The secrets he uncovers go all the way back to 1920s Norway when smugglers, pimps and racketeers ruled the Oslo underworld.

20 May

Summertime, All the Cats Are Bored by Philippe Georget, Translated by Steven Rendall

Europa Editions

It’s the middle of a long hot summer on the French Mediterranean shore and the town is full of tourists. Sebag and Molina, two tired cops who are being slowly devoured by dull routine and family worries, deal with the day’s misdemeanors and petty complaints at the Perpignan police headquarters without a trace of enthusiasm. Out of the blue a young Dutch woman is brutally murdered on a beach at Argelès, and another disappears without a trace in the alleys of the city. A serial killer obsessed with Dutch women?

20 May

Oxygen by Sacha Naspini, Translated by Clarissa Botsford

Europa Editions

Laura disappeared into thin air in 1999, at eight years old. She was found in a metal container, fourteen years later.

Luca is having dinner with his father dinner when they are interrupted by a visit from the carabinieri, who take his father away. Luca can only watch the scene unfold, helpless. The charges brought against esteemed anthropologist Carlo Maria Balestri are extremely grave: multiple counts of abduction, torture, murder, and concealing his victims’ bodies.

27 May

The Waiter by Ajay Chowdhury

Harvill Secker

Disgraced detective Kamil Rahman moves from Kolkata to London to start afresh as a waiter in an Indian restaurant. But the day he caters a birthday party for his boss's friend on Millionaire's Row, his simple new life becomes rather complicated. The event is a success, the food is delicious, but later that evening the host, Rakesh, is found dead in his swimming pool.

27 May

The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed

Viking

Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff's Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, some-time petty thief. He is many things, in fact, but he is not a murderer.

So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, Mahmood isn't too worried. It is true that he has been getting into trouble more often since his Welsh wife Laura left him. But Mahmood is secure in his innocence in a country where, he thinks, justice is served.

10 June

In the Shadow of the Fire by Herve Le Corre, translated by Tina Kover

Europa Editions

The Paris Commune’s “bloody week” sees the climax of the savagery of the clashes between the Communards and the French Armed Forces loyal to Versailles. Amid the shrapnel and the chaos, while the entire west side of Paris is a field of ruins, a photographer fascinated by the suffering of young women takes “suggestive” photos to sell to a particular clientele. Young women begin disappearing, and when Caroline, a seamstress who volunteers at a first aid station, is counted among the missing, her fiancé Nicolas, a member of the Commune’s National Guard, and Communal security officer Antoine, sets off independently in search of her.

10 June

The All Human Wisdom by Pierre Lemaitre

MacLehose Press

In 1927, the great and the good of Paris gather at the funeral of the wealthy banker, Marcel Péricourt. His daughter, Madeleine, is poised to take over his financial empire (although, unfortunately, she knows next to nothing about banking). More unfortunately still, when Madeleine's seven-year-old son, Paul, tumbles from a second floor window of the Péricourt mansion on the day of his grandfather's funeral, and suffers life-changing injuries, his fall sets off a chain of events that will reduce Madeleine to destitution and ruin in a matter of months.

15 June

The Transparency Of Time, Leonardo Padura, translated by Anna Kushner,

Bitter Lemon Press

Mario Conde is facing down his sixtieth birthday. What does he have to show for his decades on the planet? A failing body, a slower mind, and a decrepit country, in which both the ideals and failures of the Cuban Revolution are being swept away in favor of a new and newly cosmopolitan worship of money. Rescue comes in the form of a new case: an old Marxist turned flamboyant practitioner of Santería appears on the scene to engage Conde to track down a stolen statue of the Virgen de Regla—a black Madonna. This sets Conde on a quest that spans twenty-first century Havana as well as the distant past to uncover the true provenance of the statue.

My review of Havana Fever:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/631759758177746944/havana-fever-written-by-leonardo-padura

24 June

The Wrong Goodbye by Toshihiko Yahagi, translated by Alfred Birnbaum

MacLehose Press

In a nod to Raymond Chandler, The Wrong Goodbye pits homicide detective Eiji Futamura against a shady Chinese business empire and U.S. military intelligence in the docklands of recession hit Japan. After the frozen corpse of immigrant barman Tran Binh Long washes up in midsummer near Yokosuka U.S. Navy Base, Futamura meets a strange customer from Tran’s bar. Vietnam vet pilot Billy Lou Bonney talks Futamura into hauling three suitcases of “goods” to Yokota US Air Base late at night and flies off leaving a dead woman behind. My review:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/641412317374988288/the-wrong-goodbye

24 June

Sleepless by Romy Haussmann, translated by Jamie Bulloch

Quercus

It's been years since Nadja Kulka was convicted of a cruel crime. After being released from prison, she's wanted nothing more than to live a normal life: nice flat, steady job, even a few friends. But when one of those friends, Laura von Hoven - free-spirited beauty and wife of Nadja's boss - kills her lover and begs Nadja for her help, Nadja can't seem to be able to refuse.

29 June

Black Ice by Carin Gerhardsen

Scarlet

January in Gotland. The days are short, the air is cold, and all the roads are covered in snow. On a deserted, icy backroad, these wintery conditions will soon bring together a group of strangers with a force devastating enough to change their lives forever when, in the midst of a brief period, a deadly accident and two separate crimes leave victims in their wake.

1st July

The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason

Harvill Secker

A woman approaches Konrad with new information and progress can finally be made. But as Konrad starts to look back at the case and secrets of the past, he is forced to come face to face with his own dark side. In What the Darkness Knows, the master of Icelandic crime writing reunites readers with Konrad, the unforgettable retired detective from The Shadow District.

1 July

Resilience by Bogdan Hrib, translated by Marina Sofia

Corylus Books

Stelian Munteanu has had enough of being an international man of mystery: all he wants to do is make the long-distance relationship with his wife Sofia work. But when the notorious Romanian businessman Pavel Coman asks him to investigate the death of his daughter in the north of England, he reluctantly gets involved once more in what proves to be a tangled web of shady business dealings and political conspiracies. Moving rapidly between London, Newcastle, Bucharest and Iasi, this novel shows just how easy it is to fall prey to fake news and social media manipulation.

8 July

The Therapist by Helene Flood, translated by Alison McCulloch

MacLehose Press

A voicemail from her husband tells Sara he's arrived at the holiday cabin. Then a call from his friend confirms he never did. She tries to carry on as normal, teasing out her clients' deepest fears, but as the hours stretch out, her own begin to surface. And when the police finally take an interest, they want to know why Sara deleted that voicemail.

13 July

Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro translated by Frances Riddle

Charco Press

After Rita is found dead in a church she used to attend, the official investigation into the incident is quickly closed. Her sickly mother is the only person still determined to find the culprit. Chronicling a difficult journey across the suburbs of the city, an old debt and a revealing conversation, Elena Knows unravels the secrets of its characters and the hidden facets of authoritarianism and hypocrisy in our society.

My review of Betty Boo:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/633225446612484096/

15 July

The Basel Killings

Hansjörg Schneider

Bitter Lemon Press

It the end of October, the city of Basel is grey and wet. It could be December. It is just after midnight when Police Inspector Peter Hunkeler, on his way home and slightly worse for wear, spots old man Hardy sitting on a bench under a street light. He wants to smoke a cigarette with him, but the usually very loquacious Hardy is silent—his throat a gaping wound. Turns out he was first strangled, then his left earlobe slit, his diamond stud stolen. The media and the police come quickly to the same conclusion: Hardy’s murder was the work of a gang of Albanian drug smugglers. But for Hunkeler that seems too obvious.

20 July

The Double Mother by Michel Bussi, translated by Sam Taylor

W&N

Already shown as a serial on Channel4’s Walter Presents (as The Other Mother), four-year-old Malone Moulin is haunted by nightmares of being handed over to a complete stranger and begins claiming his mother is not his real mother. His teachers at school say that it is all in his imagination as his mother has a birth certificate, photos of him as a child and even the pediatrician confirms Malone is her son. The school psychologist, Vasily, believes otherwise as the child vividly describes an exchange between two women.

22 July

Girls Who Lie Eva Bjorg AEgisdottir

Orenda

When single mother Maríanna disappears from her home, leaving an apologetic note on the kitchen table, everyone assumes that she’s taken her own life … until her body is found on the Grábrók lava fields seven months later, clearly the victim of murder. Her neglected fifteen-year-old daughter Hekla has been placed in foster care, but is her perfect new life hiding something sinister?

My Review of A Creak On The Stairs:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/631717704661942273/

22nd July

The Doll Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Hodder & Stoughton

It was meant to be a quiet family fishing trip, a chance for mother and daughter to talk. But it changes the course of their lives forever. They catch nothing except a broken doll that gets tangled in the net. After years in the ocean, the doll a terrifying sight and the mother's first instinct is to throw it back, but she relents when her daughter pleads to keep it. This simple act of kindness proves fatal. That evening, the mother posts a picture of the doll on social media. By the morning, she is dead and the doll has disappeared.

5 August

The Soul Breaker by Sebastian Fitzek, translated by Jamie Bulloch

Head Of Zeus

He doesn't kill them, or mutilate them. But he leaves them completely dead inside, paralysed and catatonic. His only trace a note left in their hands. There are three known victims when suddenly the abductions stop. The Soul Breaker has tired of his game, it seems. Meanwhile, a man has been found in the snow outside an exclusive psychiatric clinic. He has no recollection of who he is, or why he is there. Unable to match him to any of the police's missing people, the nurses call him Casper.

12 August

Cold Sun by Anita Sivakumaran

Dialogue Books

Bangalore. Three high-profile women murdered, their bodies draped in identical red saris. When the killer targets the British Foreign Minister's ex-wife, Scotland Yard sends the troubled, brilliant DI Vijay Patel to lend his expertise to the Indian police investigation. Stranger in a strange land, ex-professional cricketer Patel must battle local resentment and his own ignorance of his ancestral country, while trying to save his failing relationship back home.

August date TBC

Skin Deep by Antonia Lassa, translated by Jacky Collins

Corylus Books

The corpse of an elderly millionaire is discovered brutally scarred with acid burns. Her young lover is the chief suspect but the authorities admit they are baffled. It will take the intervention of private detective Albert Larten to explore all the complexities of desire, and ultimately reveal the truth.

19 August

Come Hell Or High Water by Christian Unge

MacLehose Press

The first in a new Swedish crime series featuring Tekla Berg – a fearless doctor with a remarkable photographic memory

With 85% per cent burns to his body and a 115% risk of dying, it’s a miracle the patient is still alive. That he made it this far is thanks to Tekla Berg, an emergency physician whose unorthodox methods and photographic memory are often the difference between life and death.

30 September

Night Hunters by Oliver Bottini

MacLehose Press

The fourth in the Black Forest Investigations - by the four-time winner of the German Crime Fiction Award. Over the course of several days one hot summer, a female student from Freiburg disappears, a father is murdered in a brutal attack, a teenage boy drowns in the Rhine in suspicious circumstances. It soon becomes evident to Chief Inspector Louise Boni and her colleagues at Freiburg's criminal police that the three cases are connected - and that others are now in terrible danger. Including Boni herself.

07 October

Lemon by Kwon Yeo-Sun

House Of Zeus

Focusing on the unsolved murder of teenage girl, this literary crime novel offers insights into gender, class and privilege in Seoul, and marks the English-language debut for award-winning Korean author, Kwon Yeo-sun.

In the summer of 2002, my big sister Hae-on was murdered. She was beautiful, intelligent, and only nineteen years old. Two boys were questioned, but the case was never solved. Her killer still walks free.

12 October

Bread: The Bastards of Pizzofalcone

by Maurizio de Giovanni

Europa Editions

Sometimes it takes facing a formidable adversary to truly know one’s worth. The Bastards of Pizzofalcone may have found just that: when the brutal murder of a baker rattles the city, they are ready to investigate. There’s nothing they wouldn’t do to prove themselves to their community. But this time the police are divided: for the special anti-mob branch, the local mafia is doubtlessly responsible for the crime, but the Bastards are not so sure and think there may be another reason for the murder of the renowned artisan, whose traditionally baked bread attracted customers from far and wide. A rivalry between the policeman and the magistrate is formed, one that, in the end, will extend to more than just their work lives.

12 October

The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock

Crooked Lane Books

It's early September in Copenhagen, the rain has been coming down for weeks, and 36-year-old journalist Heloise Kaldan is in the middle of a nightmare. One of her sources has been caught lying, and she could lose her job over it. And then she receives the first in a series of cryptic and ominous letters from an alleged killer.

28 October

Inertia by Camilla Grebe

Zaffre

Inertia is an eerie psychological thriller from the award-winning Swedish bestselling author Camilla Grebe. When 18-year old Samuel finds himself at the centre of a drug deal gone wrong, he is forced to go underground to escape the police and an infamous drug lord.

October date TBC

The Commandments by Oskar Gudmundsson

Corylus Books

On a cold winter morning in 1995, Anton, a 19-year-old boy, met a priest outside Glerárkirkja in Akureyri. After that, he was never seen again. Two decades later a priest is found murdered in the church in Grenivík. When the police investigate the case, they finds that a deacon has also been executed inside Akureyri.

28 October

Cold as Hell by Lilja Sigurdardottir

Orenda Books

Icelandic sisters Áróra and Ísafold live in different countries and aren‘t on speaking terms, but when their mother loses contact with Ísafold, Áróra reluctantly returns to Iceland to find her sister. But she soon realizes that her sister isn’t avoiding her … she has disappeared, without trace.

As she confonts Ísafold’s abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend Björn, and begins to probe her sister’s reclusive neighbours – who have their own reasons for staying out of sight – leads Áróra into an ever darker web of intrigue and manipulation.

28 October

The Rabbit Factor by Antti Toumainen

Orenda Books

What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the very last decimal.

And then, for the first time, Henri is faced with the incalculable. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother – its peculiar employees and troubling financial problems included. The worst of the financial issues appear to originate from big loans taken from criminal quarters … and some dangerous men are very keen to get their money back.

2 November

Bricklayers

Selva Almada

Charco Press

Oscar Tamai and Elvio Miranda, the patriarchs of two families of brickmakers, have for years nursed a mutual hatred, but their teenage sons, Pájaro and Ángelito, somehow fell in love. Brickmakers begins as Pájaro and Marciano, Ángelito’s older brother, lie dying in the mud at the base of a Ferris wheel. Inhabiting a dreamlike state between life and death, they recall the events that forced them to pay the price of their fathers’ petty feud.

My review of Dead Girls:

https://fictionfromafar.tumblr.com/post/642554449326489600/dead-girls-charco-press

4 November

The Night Will Be Long

Santiago Gamboa

Europa Editions

When a horribly violent confrontation occurs outside of Cauca, Colombia, only a young boy is around to witness it. But no sooner does the violence happen than it disappears, vanished without a trace. Nobody claims to have seen anything. Nobody claims to have heard anything. That is, until an anonymous accusation catalyzes a dangerous investigation into the deep underbelly of the Christian churches present today in Latin America. The Night Will Be Long is a dark, twisting thriller filled with moments of humor and pain--a story that will stick with readers long after they turn the last page.

11 November

The Shadows of Men by Abir Mukherjee

Harvill Secker

When a Hindu theologian is found murdered in his home, the city is on the brink of all-out religious war. Can officers of the Imperial Police Force, Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee track down those responsible in time to stop a bloodbath? Set at a time of heightened political tension, beginning in atmospheric Calcutta and taking the detectives all the way to bustling Bombay, the latest instalment in this 'unmissable' (The Times) series presents Wyndham and Banerjee with an unprecedented challenge.

[alittlecutemeow]

“I don't really know if it's the right thing to do, making new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more ocean fronts filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?”

― Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase - translator: Alfred Birnbaum

📍https://pin.it/2oM6vWr

[yue-muffin]

@mejomonster​ I want to frame your commentary on issues inherent in translated works and hang it on my wall! All of the points you made are exactly my thoughts on the complexities and contributing factors to the imprecise art of translation.

I do believe it is an art or a craft. Although some would disagree, I for one find that it is too imprecise and subject to the translator’s personal style, understanding, and decisions to be anything else. One only need to look as far as any well-known Greek myth, the original of which certainly was not in English, yet has spawned so many translated texts including Spark Notes versions for easier plot understanding, ones that convert the poetry into prose, and so many other variations that I probably aren’t even aware exist. The fact we have so many versions goes to show that there is no One and Only translation and the version you get depends on a lot of factors, one of which is the intent of the translator, and sometimes that intent is not to deliver the most accurate and fully realized version, whatever that means.

When you do want to get as close as possible to the original, it can become incredibly tricky. Like your first major point discussed, how easy it is for a theme or message to get lost in the transition from one language to another! I think people are generally not aware of how difficult it is to convey these messages, especially the ones that are embedded in a phrase, sentence, or symbol that has become a sort of subconscious knowledge passed on through all those who learn that language and grew up in its culture. And that leads them to misjudge a work.

There’s a line that exists between reminding readers that the work they are reading is embedded in a totally different culture context than theirs, and making that translation easy enough to read that the reader doesn’t feel alienated from the piece. Localizations of games have to make some of the toughest choices, in my experience, and some are extremely hit or miss.

The oldest example in the book its Natsume Soseki’s explanation that “I love you” in a confession scene should not be translated literally into Japanese “愛してる” because, he argued, a Japanese person would never confess that way and it would alienate the reader. That’s how we got that famous 月がきれい line. I recently read an article on this in Japanese, and it was basically saying the same thing but interesting nonetheless.

From my own limited, half-baked experiences translating, I have also found that it can be incredibly isolating, and your creative freedom even when working with some constraints is vast. There are things you are going to have to make executive decisions on. That is part of the profession, and why I call it a craft.

Jay Rubin, one of Murakami Haruki’s translators, even said in an interview, “When you read Haruki Murakami, you’re reading me, at least ninety-five per cent of the time.” Murakami’s translated works are interesting to study. I’ve found a blog that discusses them quite a bit. One thing that you’ll quickly notice in certain sections is that the translation is vastly, vastly different from the original. And yet, Murakami’s translators are pretty dedicated. Rubin even apparently phoned Murakami several times on his first translation of his books, to ask and make sure he got details correct or his word choice was good. It also helps that Murakami is a translator himself at times, so even if he doesn’t translate his own books nor work on them, he has knowledge that can help ease the process.

He says that he doesn’t read the English translations on purpose, and that’s a personal decision since he can actually read them critically, but there is a little bit of evidence that he might have read the translation of Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World if one examines the edits he made on a rereleased version of that novel and compares it to the Alfred Birnbaum translation.

Finally, Murakami had this interesting bit to say about translation:

I find myself agreeing. I have always found nothing but benefit in having multiple translations and never understood the conniptions people have when multiple people decide to translate a work (“poaching” is a different matter that does rub me the wrong way, but it is different from starting another translation from scratch). I bring it up a lot, but The Tale of Genji’s various translations throughout the years really highlight this need and the benefit of multiple translations - and also how insufficient a single person’s take, especially on a work with complex themes, can really be.

Genji has many translations. The first complete one was Waley’s. It is criticized today for changing too much of the original, and leaning towards orientalism. These are valid. But it is a popular translation, nonetheless, because it is appealing to many people. Not everyone wants to read the Tyler version which has a million footnotes explaining every cultural nuance that might be missed - a goldmine for those wanting to know more about the history, culture, and language. That Waley translation might not be the best, but it no doubt sparked others to want to make their own that spoke to what they got out of the work and probably inspired people to pick up the language themselves at some point.

The reason why I went into amateur translation myself is because I like fiddling with words and I want to know as close to the original intent of the work as possible. But we have to remember that original intent is also highly subjective. Literary scholars debate the themes and symbolism of countless English works for decades, and those works were originally written in English, and are being consumed by those who grew up in the culture. Port that to another language and suddenly a whole other layer of complexity is added.

I really adore translation work as a field. It’s so interesting and nuanced. Pretty much the only translations I don’t really hold in much regard are machine translations. They’re alright for text that is straightforward, all facts, with more formal grammar and phrasing. But for a language like Japanese, where so much of the beauty and charm of the language is in its indirectness and ability to evoke so much without outright stating it, where sentences by nature imply so many things even down to the subject, machine translation is truly insufficient for fiction that deals with complex themes and imagery.

[ebouks]

Burmese Design & Architecture

Burmese Design & Architecture

Untitled; Introduction; Religious Architecture: by Elizabeth Moore; Bagan; Mrauk-U (Rakhine); Ava; Amarapura; Mingun; Sagaing; Mandalay; Shwedagon Pagoda; Secular Architecture: by Daniel Kahrs; Village Houses of Bagan; Mandalay Palace; Vernacular Architecture of lnle Lake; Early Modern Architecture: by Alfred Birnbaum; Old Rangoon; A Palladian Villa in Teak; Scottish Cottages in the Shan Hills;…