Treading a Fine Line: On Translating Tove Ditlevsen’s Gift, by Michael Favala Goldman

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 ]

Other news stories related to: "Treading a Fine Line: On Translating Tove Ditlevsen’s Gift, by Michael Favala Goldman"

How Do You Translate Intergenerational Trauma?

E.J. Koh’s memoir The Magical Language of Others floats stunningly through the abandonment she experienced as a teenager. When she was fifteen, her parents returned home to South Korea for a more lucrative job opportunity, leaving her behind in the United States with her college-going brother. ... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-02-28 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Constable to publish 'Fun House' host Pat Sharp's memoir

Constable is publishing a memoir by radio and television presenter Pat Sharp, best known for hosting ITV children’s game show "Fun House". Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-27 13:41:07 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Margery Kempe Had 14 Children and She Still Invented the Memoir

Not many people know this, but the first memoir in the English language was probably written by a mom who cried a lot. The Book of Margery Kempe is mostly the kind of text you read if you’re a medievalist, or maybe an English major at a women’s college, although I was an English major […] The... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-02-27 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Lit Hub Daily: February 27, 2020

“I try to hide how unreal those two deaths are to me. No, not unreal. It’s just I can’t make them matter.” Elizabeth Tallent on death, silence and the intimacies of sadness. | Lit Hub Memoir Pod Save America’s Dan Pfeiffer lays out a plan for the future of democracy. | Lit Hub Politics “It’s […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-27 11:30:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Headline picks up The Yorkshire Forager

Headline has picked up The Yorkshire Forager, a “wonderfully wild” memoir and field guide by forager Alysia Vasey. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-27 10:30:25 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Religion Book Deals: February 26, 2020

Zondervan nabbed a new book by Christian hip-hop artist Lecrae; Jordan Lee Dooley brings two books to WaterBrook, a memoir on autism lands at Brazos, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-02-26 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Unbound launches memoir from Coppafeel! founder Kris Hallenga

Unbound has launched memoir How to Glitter a Turd from Coppafeel! founder Kris Hallenga. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-25 23:24:09 UTC ]
More news stories like this

“Shame Was My First Drug”: A Conversation with Erin Khar

ERIN KHAR’S TENDER, at times desolate, yet boundlessly hopeful memoir Strung Out: One Last Hit and Other Lies That Nearly Killed Me is, in many ways, a love letter to her oldest son, Atticus. Startled by a story he’d heard on the news about a successful dermatologist who had died of a drug... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-02-25 20:00:40 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Watch Mitchell Jackson give away 125 copies of his memoir on 125th Street in Harlem.

It’s damn near inevitable—someone asking me “who do I write for?” Most times I say, I’m writing for a 20-year-old version of myself, a young man who wasn’t a reader, but who might’ve been had he been exposed to the right books; who wasn’t an intellectual, but was ever curious; who listened to... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-25 19:00:48 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Mirror Books pre-empts memoir of first NHS baby

Mirror Books is set to publish a memoir by Aneira Thomas, the first baby born on the NHS. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-24 20:50:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Whistleblower Has a Hidden Power

The memoir from the former Uber engineer Susan Fowler is a life story that doubles as a cultural indictment. Continue reading at The Atlantic

[ The Atlantic | 2020-02-23 12:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

A Bite of the Apple by Lennie Goodings – essential literary memoir

The Virago publisher is eloquent and inspiring on writing – but her memoir lacks grit and gossipLennie Goodings has had a long and highly respected career in publishing. She is chair of Virago Press, the pioneering publishing house that champions women’s writing. She’s been with Virago since the... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-02-23 09:00:48 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Trump Is Directly Trying to Block Publication of John Bolton’s Book

The president has called his former national security adviser a traitor and says the highly anticipated memoir shouldn't be published before November. Continue reading at Slate

[ Slate | 2020-02-22 15:12:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Book review: Uncanny Valley by Anna Wiener

This amusing memoir feels like a Silicon Valley version of The Devil Wears Prada. Continue reading at Stuff

[ Stuff | 2020-02-21 16:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Panel Mania: ‘Banned Book Club’

Kim Hyun Sook’s irresistible memoir conveys her political and social awakening with equal measures of hilarity and terror. The post Panel Mania: ‘Banned Book Club’ appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at The Millions

[ The Millions | 2020-02-21 11:00:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Mikel Jollett Crafts a Heartbreaking Memoir of Staggering Growth

The author, born into the Church of Synanon cult, tells his heart-wrenching story of love and redemption in words and music. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-02-21 05:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Holocaust survivor's 'courageous' memoir to Michael Joseph

Michael Joseph is posthumously publishing the memoir of a Jewish dressmaker who survived three concentration camps. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-21 04:05:58 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Excuse me: Is Amazon really using this small publisher to try to prove that it’s not evil?

Last night, I was in my third hour of binge-watching The Bold Type when I stumbled upon an ad that made me do a double-take. The ad was for Amazon Storefronts, a section launched in 2018 as a way for small and medium-sized businesses to sell products directly through Amazon. The video’s got... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-20 17:52:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this

Ebury signs climbing memoir from poet and novelist Mort

Ebury has signed a memoir from poet and novelist Helen Mort which it says could do for climbing what other books have done for running and wild swimming. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-20 11:08:11 UTC ]
More news stories like this