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 ]
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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Kate Sidley on writing in the aftermath of a home robbery: “When bad things happen, they happen off-page, out of sight, and with a certain delicacy.” | Lit Hub Memoir Lockdown may be over, but what did it to to our collective sense of balance? How the pandemic ruined our understanding of “free”... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-19 11:30:44 UTC ]
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As his own life unfolds, an artist reconsiders his reaction to Joan Didion’s memoir about loss. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-02-17 10:04:10 UTC ]
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Silicon Valley’s top pundit dishes on her memoir Burn Book, immature billionaires, and whether she’s actually mean. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2024-02-15 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Britney Spears is perfect and her nasal voice with a Southern accent and just the right touch of vocal fry is perfect. Which is why I was so surprised to hear Michelle Williams, an actress who is also perfect, read the audio version of Britney’s memoir with a bit of a drawl but mostly very […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-02-15 09:55:31 UTC ]
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In her memoir “I Heard Her Call My Name,” the author reflects on her life and embarking on a gender transition in her late 60s. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-02-14 10:02:14 UTC ]
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His charming memoir “What Have We Here?” traces the path from a Harlem childhood to “Star Wars,” while lamenting the roles that never came his way. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-02-13 10:00:45 UTC ]
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Murder at a school reunion, a memoir on motherhood, disaster bisexuals in love, and more of today's best book deals! Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2024-02-05 17:04:05 UTC ]
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Lucy Sante recounts the trials and joys of her gender transition in the memoir “I Heard Her Call My Name.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-02-03 10:14:55 UTC ]
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The actor reads “Collision of Power,” a new memoir by the famed former editor of The Washington Post and The Boston Globe. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2024-02-02 10:00:17 UTC ]
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The following is excerpted from Cold Crematorium:Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz, József Debreczeni’s firsthand account of his deportation to Auschwitz, from Hungary, in May 1944. * The long train, comprised of low boxcars with German insignia, was grinding to a halt. “We’re stopping,” the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2024-01-25 09:53:48 UTC ]
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Crystal Hefner writes in her new memoir that she confronted her late husband about “little spy holes” in his bedroom. Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2024-01-23 23:35:37 UTC ]
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