This month I’ve been very fortunate to have an article published in a French journal, Cahier Marcel Aymé! I wrote it in English and the editor translated it into French. This is a first for me. The article is an account of my translation process in two stories by Marcel Aymé, “Le Loup” and “Le…
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The Wayback Machine and The Only Beautiful Woman
Published 20 August, 2023
In 2015 and 2016 I had two translated stories published by an online journal, The Brooklyn Rail, in its inTranslation section. This week I was thinking of submitting a new translation to them and went off to read the journal to see if my work would still be a good fit. But they no longer…
Leave a Comment“Opportunities” by Claudine Jacques
Published 27 May, 2023
Today my translation of Claudine Jacques’ short story, “Opportunités” / “Opportunities” was published by The AALITRA Review in Melbourne. It’s about a young Frenchman who unexpectedly inherits a New Caledonian fortune, and the observations he makes of islanders who need possessions and those who don’t. “Opportunités” is from her award winning 2020 collection Caledonia Blues.…
1 CommentMarcel Aymé’s “Dead Time”, the proofs
Published 20 May, 2023
In 2021, Delos: A Journal of Translation and World Literature at Florida University, published “Dead Time”, my translation of Marcel Aymé’s short story, “Le Temps mort”. In my previous post about this story I said it was only available to subscribers to the journal, but time has passed since its publication and I can now…
Leave a CommentThe Little Blue Flame
Published 1 January, 2023
Today is New Year’s Day and I’m very fortunate to have a good start to my translating year with a story published, “The Little Blue Flame”, online in Danse Macabre Literary Magazine. It has actually been published in the U.S. where it’s New Year’s Eve, so technically it was published in 2022! The story is…
Leave a CommentJonah’s Whale
Published 20 November, 2022
Today my translation of Claude Aveline’s radio play, “La Baleine de Jonas”, or “Jonah’s Whale”, has come out in Delos Journal at the University of Florida. I invite you to check it out. It’s accompanied by a long commentary, which together with the translation represents months of unpaid work. My reward is in offering it…
Leave a CommentTranslators Aloud
Published 7 June, 2022
It has been two years since Tina Kover and Charlotte Coombe started a lockdown project of shining a light on literary translators and world literature. I’m one of the hundreds of literary translators who have had videos published by them since it began. A wonderful project that continues long after lockdowns have ended. Watch their…
Leave a CommentReading from “Les Cœurs barbelés”
Published 10 March, 2022
The YouTube site, Jill!, which was set up for women literary translators to read from their translations, has just published a short video of me reading a few pages from my translation of Les Cœurs barbelés, a New Caledonian novel by Claudine Jacques. The rough translation of the title is ‘Hearts Behind Barbed Wire’. It’s…
Leave a CommentThe Time of Serfdom
Published 29 November, 2021
The online literary journal, Bewildering Stories, has today published another of my translated short stories, ‘The Time of Serfdom’. Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé originally wrote it as part of his collection Cœurs russes (Russian Hearts), published in 1894. The journal’s editor has introduced my translation with a mini-blurb: How did the legend begin that a post-medieval…
Leave a CommentReview of ‘The Blue Cross’
Published 21 August, 2021
Twelve or so years ago when I was studying for a Master of Translation Studies degree, I read set works by the New Caledonian author Claudine Jacques, and as part of the course I visited her island for two weeks and even had lunch in her home. Choosing texts for my translation assessment was simple…
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