Literature

Stephen Mitchell on Translation and Beowulf

Stephen Mitchell— I backed into translation. As a young man at Yale Graduate School, dealing with a first heartbreak, I became fascinated with the Book of Job. What thrilled and perplexed me was a feeling that the poet who wrote it had seen something, had actually experienced the secret of

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The Skin of Chaos —The Letters of Adonis and Adel Abdessemed (part 3)

This is part three of a three-part series. Read part one and two. World-renowned poet Adonis and award-winning artist Adel Abdessemed present a record of their passionate conversations in Paris in this collection of letters written between June 2013 and February 2015.  Presented exclusively for the first time here in anticipation

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The Skin of Chaos —The Letters of Adonis and Adel Abdessemed (part 2)

This is part two of a three-part series. Read part one and three. World-renowned poet Adonis and award-winning artist Adel Abdessemed present a record of their passionate conversations in Paris in this collection of letters written between June 2013 and February 2015.  Presented exclusively for the first time here in anticipation

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Decoding the Voynich Manuscript

In this popular episode of the podcast, we try to unlock the secrets of the Voynich Manuscript with Raymond Clemens from the Beinecke Library and Joseph Calamia, senior editor at Yale University Press.

The Skin of Chaos —The Letters of Adonis and Adel Abdessemed (part 1)

This is part one of a three-part series. Read part two and three. World-renowned poet Adonis and award-winning artist Adel Abdessemed present a record of their passionate conversations in Paris in this collection of letters written between June 2013 and February 2015.  Presented exclusively for the first time here in anticipation of

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The Spirit of the Text

David Bentley Hart— When I came to the task of producing my own translation of the New Testament, I knew that there are certain words and phrases in the text that present special difficulties, and that no solution I chose would please everybody. In some cases, the difficulty lies in

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Ep. 8 – A History of Things That Go Bump in the Night

On this special Halloween edition of the podcast, cultural historian Leo Braudy, author of Haunted, sat down with us to talk about the history of monsters and other scary creatures. Spooky!

James Joyce Goes to Denmark

Morten Høi Jensen— One day in mid-August 1936, the Danish modernist writer Tom Kristensen, author of the great novel Havoc (1928), stood in line in Politiken’s bookshop in central Copenhagen next to a tall, gaunt man with thick, black eyeglasses inquiring about a book in fluent, if accented, Danish. The

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A Conversation Between Patrick Modiano Translators Mark Polizzotti and Damion Searls

On the heels of our publication of Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano’s Such Fine Boys and Sundays in August in English, two of his esteemed translators sat down to discuss Modiano’s idiosyncratic and impressive body of work and the distinct nuances of translating it. It is with great pleasure that we present

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#BookLoversDay: Books about Books for Book Lovers

Feed your book cravings with a book about book, it’s International Book Lovers Day! This list features books about reading books, writing books, studying books, and the history of the book format itself. Book yourself some time to book up in a comfy chair and book out. (How many times

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