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 ]
To sell online, indie publishers must use Amazon. But its methods leave them out of pocket – or out of sight, paying hidden charges, says the founder of Linen Press Indie publishers need transparency and support from online companies that sell their books. Amazon fails such publishers on both... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-02-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We talked with Michael Heyward, who runs Australia's Text Publishing, about the his house's classics list, a true crime title he's excited to launch in the U.S., and the advantages of being a small publisher. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
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With a mix of all-ages and adult material, print and digital, Action Lab Entertainment is trying to establish itself while maintaining a balance with a staff located around the country. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
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