On Translation Browsing a Copenhagen airport bookstore, a translator picks up a book. The journey between that impulse and his eventual translation of the memoir into English was both emotional and serendipitous. In the summer of 2016 I was passing through Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen with my wife, on our way home after a visit with family. We stopped to browse the bookstore, and I noticed a reprint of a book by Danish author Tove Ditlevsen called Gift, which had first been published in 1971. I hadn’t read much of her work, but I knew she was a big name, so I bought it, even though the cover was strange, a psychedelic skull on a gray background. It did not take more than a couple of sittings to devour this memoir of Tove Ditlevsen’s life from the ages of about twenty-three to thirty-five. It chronicles her rise as a best-selling author, while she also had four failed marriages, two back-alley abortions, and a five-year near-fatal addiction to the opioid Demerol. I distinctly remember laying the book down after the final page and thinking to myself, I think this is a masterpiece. This was an intuitive judgment, not a conclusion I had come to after analyzing the text. But looking back now, I think what caused me to deem this work a masterpiece is the combination of Ditlevsen’s writing style, which is concise, honest, and ironic, combined with the content of her story, which through her many troubling experiences pulls back the... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2021-04-06 13:12:22 UTC ]
In the memoir “Rabbit Heart,” Kristine S. Ervin explores the human being behind sensational headlines, and our culture’s insatiable thirst for other people’s tragedy. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-03-23 09:00:45 UTC ]
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Howard Norman talks to Michael Ondaatje about his first collection of poetry in twenty-five years. | Lit Hub In Conversation “If the infant is primitive so is its earliest vice, jealousy—probably the most innate vice of all.” The late Elspeth Barker on the most human of experiences. | Lit Hub... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-03-20 10:30:01 UTC ]
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Former nun Catherine Coldstream shares the story of her 12 years at a Carmelite monastery in a debut memoir out this month, 'Cloistered' (St. Martins), which earned a starred review from PW. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-03-19 04:00:00 UTC ]
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‘If all things were equal, what were we even doing here? Why weren’t we lying on our living-room floors, watching the dance of the dust, today and every day?’ Memoir by Noreen Masud. The post A Flat Place appeared first on Granta. Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2024-03-18 17:23:09 UTC ]
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“Interior design’s aim is to make reading easy. It creates order out of chaos and bestows authority (warranted or not) on an author’s words.” On book design beyond the cover. | Lit Hub Art The accidental icon Lyn Slater on style, rebellion, and aging with attitude. | Lit Hub Memoir What do Leo... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-03-15 10:30:28 UTC ]
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Which cookbook or foodie memoir would you like your book club to discuss and make the food from? Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-03-13 17:00:00 UTC ]
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Leslie Jamison’s new memoir Splinters follows the aftermath of divorce and the awakening of motherhood, but it explores desire more than it does any kind of death. Jamison wants to make meaning, to connect, to love, to feel, to mother, to write, and to revise her life endlessly. There are losses... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-03-08 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“I am fascinated by the mismatch of these two systems, the fact that we can occupy two temporal spaces simultaneously…” Grace Loh Prasad on finding meaning in the space between Chinese and Western astrology, and what it means to remember her translator father. | Lit Hub Memoir Jennifer Croft on... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-03-08 11:30:08 UTC ]
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The veteran tech journalist is promoting her memoir with tech bros like Sam Altman. Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2024-03-06 10:50:00 UTC ]
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A new mystery from the Queen of Irish detective fiction, a memoir by RuPaul, and a trippy, shifting narrative set in Prague all round out today's new releases. Which ones are you thinking of picking up? Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-03-05 12:30:00 UTC ]
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Chronicling the high-heeled path to drag-queen superstardom, the new memoir also reveals a celebrity infatuated with his sense of a special destiny. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-03-05 10:00:18 UTC ]
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It’s 1995, and I’m trying to watch a video on the internet. I entered the longest, most complex URL I’d ever seen into AOL’s web browser to view a trailer for Paul W.S. Anderson’s long-awaited film adaptation of Mortal Kombat. I found it in an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly, tucked away in... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2024-03-01 17:00:14 UTC ]
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Lily Meyer recommends books that recollect personal experience without being prescriptive. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2024-03-01 17:00:00 UTC ]
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“These girls thought themselves saints of something, and I nodded and kneeled.” Emmeline Cline on eating disorder memoirs and the contagion of identification. | Lit Hub Memoir Steven W. Thrasher on the murder of journalists in Gaza and the loss of critical American voices in journalism: “What... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-28 11:30:35 UTC ]
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Today's new releases include a follow up to Tommy Orange's THERE THERE, a memoir of grief, a secret, anti-Confederacy spy society, and more. Which ones will you TBR? Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-02-27 13:00:00 UTC ]
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“I was still reporting to my father, the things I had read and all that I had remembered.” Amitava Kumar on family, loss, and resonating with the words of other writers. | Lit Hub Memoir “Even in the worst of times, humans have a way of coming together to lighten the load and provide hope […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-27 11:30:51 UTC ]
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What’s Aisha Sabatini Sloan reading? Diana Arterian on the author’s nightstand. | Lit Hub Criticism “The intimacy I feel with what my home once was cannot be reconciled with what downtown has become.” Emma Dries reflects on her childhood home and how 9/11 changed downtown Manhattan forever. |... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-22 11:30:18 UTC ]
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“I’ve been prank-calling Justin Torres for like two decades,” says the poet and performer, whose new book is called “Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt: A Memoir in Verse.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-02-22 10:00:27 UTC ]
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In today's new releases, there's an epic story of a conjuror-made safe haven in 1830s St. Louis, a feminist retelling of Zorro, a Cambodian food-based memoir of survival, and more. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-02-20 13:30:00 UTC ]
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It’s another Tuesday, and that means that a bevy of beautiful new books are out. And it’s a brilliant bevy indeed: below, you’ll find twenty-three new titles to consider that span an incredible range, including a raw new memoir from Leslie Jamison on motherhood and the self; the esteemed... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-20 09:46:58 UTC ]
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