Today is National Evaluate Your Life Day, and while the holiday may be quirky, it does offer an excuse to take a moment from your busy schedule and reflect on your life. Philosopher Mark C. Taylor has taken this opportunity to reflect on his own life, one split between the bustle of
The first edition of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby-Dick came out in London as The Whale on this day in 1851. But what makes Moby-Dick, or any text, a classic and what do we mean when we call it one? Denis Donoghue, author of The American Classics, shares his insights on appreciation and interpretation in
On this day in 1979, Mother Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The announcement of the 2014 winners is a reminder that the selections invariably provoke discussion and sometimes criticism, but Mother Teresa seems like an almost uniquely uncontroversial choice. Yet in the age of big data and quantitative
In the previous installments (part one, part two) of Danuta Borchardt‘s reflections on translating Trans-Atlantyk, she articulated why the variant of Polish Witold Gombrowicz used in the novel was so difficult to render in English. After considerable research and experimentation, she hit upon an approach that enabled her to translate the archaisms and idiosyncrasies
Shortly before his death in 1837, Giacomo Leopardi, a prolific Italian writer, translator, and thinker, began to organize a small, thematic collection of his writings in an attempt to give structure to his philosophical musings. This collection, culled from his 4,500-page diary, Zibaldone, provides a fascinating introduction to the arguments
In last week’s post, available here, Danuta Borchardt explained some of the immediate challenges she faced in translating Trans-Atlantyk, a novel by the celebrated Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. The farcical adventures of a penniless young writer stranded in Argentina are narrated in the style of the gawęda, a tale told by the fireside. The
Disturbed by the role the Bible, and particularly the Ten Commandments, have played in political and cultural debates, Biblical scholar Michael Coogan set out to trace the history of the text of the Decalogue. Coogan explains that the Bible is not an unchanging text, and understanding how it developed throughout history
Many consider Polish novelist Witold Gombrowicz one of the greatest writers of the past hundred years and Danuta Borchardt is undoubtedly one of his finest translators. Her rendering of Ferdydurke won the 2001 National Translation Award given by the American Literary Translators Association, and her recent edition of Trans-Atlantyk has garnered praise as
Greil Marcus shared a collection of tracks that define rock ‘n’ roll for him in The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs. Now is your chance to challenge his list. Create your own playlist of ten songs on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, or just write them down and submit
We are pleased to release a new interview with Rodrigo Rey Rosa, author of Severina and The African Shore, both available to the English speaking world through Yale University Press’s Margellos World Republic of Letters series. In the interview, Rey Rosa talks about his writing and about the intricacies of