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Sully Prudhomme was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901. His best known poem was La vase brisé, of which the following is a translation by Pete Crowther:
The Broken Vase
A fan’s light tap
Was enough to chip
This flower vase
In which the roses
Now are dying.
No sound it made
But a hairline crack
Day after day
Almost [...]
The Hesperus Press Blog reports on the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize award ceremony, bemoaning the fact that only 86 titles were submitted for consideration.
I simply do not understand how a tiny company, as we and some notable others are, can say ‘what the hell: this is a damned sight more interesting, exciting, than Dan Brown, and if we love it others will’ and sell enough copies to keep itself in tea and biscuits, and other publishers cannot.
The winner was Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa. He collected the award and a cheque for £10,000 for his novel, The Book of Chameleons, published by Arcadia. The prize is divided equally between the author and his translator from the Portuguese version, Daniel Hahn.
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Here’s my plan (because it’s good to have a plan) : I am aiming to read 100 books from 100 different countries in one year.
The plan belongs to the blogger behind the website and the year in question is already more than halfway through. The books read include novels by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (Spain), [...]
“If I keep listening to it, I won’t finish the revolution.”
-Lenin, regarding Beethoven’s “Appassionata” Sonata
Inspired by an article from Frederick Smock and a viewing of the German film “The Lives Of Others,” Robert Peake considers what it is that makes tyrants and warmongers silence the voices of poets and other artists.
“The U.S. Treasury Department - which, among other things, handles cases of treason - recently warned American publishers against translating poetry from Iran. Such translations, they avowed, would be considered ‘trading with the enemy,’ and would be punishable by fines and jail time.”
Peake, in this quiet and thoughtful piece, argues for poetry and compassion and against demonization and propaganda. He reminds us why poetry matters now.
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