Today I discovered a video of myself reading from my translation, “Madame Gorgibus”, a short story in Jean Lorrain’s collection, Contes pour lire à la chandelle, or “Stories to Read by Candlelight”. Translators Aloud has a YouTube site where they publish short videos of just a few minutes each, in which literary translators read from…
Leave a CommentCategory: short stories
Reading Princess Mandosiane
Published 30 January, 2021
Here’s a 6-minute video of me reading my translation, “Princess Mandosiane”, by Jean Lorrain, from his collection Contes pour lire à la chandelle, “Stories to Read by Candlelight”, translated by me, published by Odyssey Books, 2019. I made the video with the idea of submitting to the YouTube site, Translators Aloud, but it was a…
Leave a CommentA Flower’s Evening – full version
Published 1 January, 2021
Today’s a day of firsts. It’s the first day of the first month of the new year. My translation of Catulle Mendès’ story, “Le Soir d’une fleur”, has just been published in the first edition of a new literary journal, Book of Matches. The story in English, “A Flower’s Evening”, is about a small ragged…
Leave a Comment“The Wolf” by Marcel Aymé
Published 1 January, 2021
Late in 2018 Delos Journal at Florida University published “The Wolf”, my translation of Marcel Aymé’s short story, “Le Loup”. Enough time has passed since the publication that I can now give everyone access to a copy of the story, or at least a copy of the uncorrected proofs… Click here to download a pdf…
Leave a CommentReading from ‘Tears on the Sword’
Published 6 April, 2020
The Agorist Writers Workshop published a translated story of mine a couple of years ago, Tears on the Sword, originally by Catulle Mendès. While we are all isolating ourselves at home, the editor suggested that their published authors make videos of themselves reading parts of their own stories. Here’s me reading the first of three…
Leave a CommentMy authors: Claudine Jacques
Published 22 October, 2019
On the unpredictable path of life I’ve ended up translating French literature from different hemispheres and different centuries. I’ve written about authors from 19th-century France who’ve taken my fancy with their fairy tales and fantasies, and now I want my readers to become acquainted with an author from 21st-century New Caledonia, Claudine Jacques. My first…
Leave a CommentMy authors: Théodore de Banville
Published 29 May, 2019
Théodore de Banville. Prolific poet and writer, frequenter of the most anti-conformist Parisian circles. Proponent of ‘art for art’s sake’: « Il n’y a de vraiment beau que ce qui ne peut servir à rien, tout ce qui est utile est laid. » [There is nothing truly beautiful except that which serves no purpose; everything…
Leave a Comment