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 ]
This film about Misha Defonseca, author of a ‘memoir’ about escaping the Nazis and sheltering with wolves as a child, is propulsively watchable“Sometimes a story is so astonishing it’s unbelievable.” So said a Massachusetts radio presenter in the 90s, introducing Misha Defonseca, a local Jewish... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-09-02 06:00:18 UTC ]
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Shugri Said Salh’s memoir strives for an accurate – rather than sensationalized or simplified – account of growing up in, and then fleeing, Somalia. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2021-08-30 19:15:00 UTC ]
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“Exodus, Revisited” offers new insights about a woman’s break from her Hasidic community. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-08-28 13:00:00 UTC ]
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His acclaimed fiction and a memoir had a common theme: alcoholism. After becoming sober, he called his former besotted muse “Drunkspeare.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-08-28 11:13:30 UTC ]
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“By the time I was born, the city had been conquered thrice, by the British, the Japanese, and the military junta. Three enemies to symbolize the three torments of the mind.” Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint on war, reincarnation, and the changing names of Myanmar. | Lit Hub Memoir Jeffrey Webb revisits... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-08-27 10:30:19 UTC ]
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Levy's memoir trilogy concludes with "Real Estate," pondering happiness and a new kind of home. Unlike Rachel Cusk, she keeps herself in the picture. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-08-24 15:00:41 UTC ]
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In her memoir “Seeing Ghosts,” the author recounts her mother’s death and her immigrant family’s numerous migrations, separations and losses, evoking the way grief entails a particular, perpetual sorrow. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-08-24 09:00:06 UTC ]
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HarperCollins Ireland has scooped a "unique" memoir by the warden of Skellig Michael, a remote Irish island. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-08-22 23:51:22 UTC ]
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Georgina Pazcoguin’s biting memoir is full of melodrama. It also has an important message. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-08-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The American Ballet Theatre star has written a thoughtful collection of essays that gives readers insight into what it means to defy categorization. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-08-19 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The Bodley Head has acquired two titles from German filmmaker and storyteller Werner Herzog, including a memoir. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-08-18 19:49:03 UTC ]
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The German film director has announced two new books: a memoir and The Twilight World, about a remarkable second world war officerWerner Herzog is writing a book about Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who took three decades to surrender after the end of the second world war.The esteemed German... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2021-08-18 12:56:08 UTC ]
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“Names for Light,” by Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint, is a memoir recounted through the stories of family members. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-08-18 12:41:21 UTC ]
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Mirror Books has acquired worldwide rights from The Can Group to Christine McGuinness' first book A Beautiful Nightmare. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-08-18 11:33:49 UTC ]
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As she releases her memoir "All In," tennis icon Billie Jean King discusses her career, her causes and "living truthfully." Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-08-17 13:00:35 UTC ]
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Fiona Sampson’s biography reads like a thriller, a memoir and a provocative piece of literary fiction. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-08-17 12:00:00 UTC ]
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“Don’t Forget Us Here,” by Mansoor Adayfi with Antonio Aiello, is the memoir of a Yemeni man who claims he was kidnapped in Afghanistan, sold to the C.I.A. and sent to the detention camp in a case of mistaken identity. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-08-17 09:00:05 UTC ]
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In 2008, I published my first book, Please Excuse My Daughter, a memoir about my mother and me and how I grew up, and it dipped a little into my mother’s family’s history, which was rich and interesting. Her mother’s uncle, Sam Golding, developed the neighborhood of Rego Park in Queens during... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-08-16 08:49:26 UTC ]
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Yellow Kite has signed Hope is Coming, Louise Blyth’s “extraordinarily powerful” memoir of grief, gratitude and enlightenment. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-08-16 07:57:45 UTC ]
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In “I Live a Life Like Yours,” Jan Grue, a Norwegian professor, writes of living with a rare form of spinal muscular atrophy. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2021-08-15 09:00:03 UTC ]
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