Skip to content
  • Common Currency
  • Campaigns
    • PENWrites
    • Writers at Risk
    • Writers in Residence
    • Free speech in the UK
  • News
  • Events
  • Translation
    • PEN Translates
    • PEN Transmissions
    • International Translation Day
    • The World Bookshelf
      • Books
      • Authors
      • Translators
    • PEN Presents
      • Issues
      • Books
      • Apply to PEN Presents
  • Prizes
    • PEN Pinter Prize
    • PEN Ackerley Prize
    • PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize
  • Donate
  • Join
Home > Translation > The World Bookshelf > Books > Translation as Transhumance

Translation as Transhumance

Mireille Gansel grew up in the traumatic aftermath of her family losing everything – including their native language – to Nazi Germany. In the 1960s and ’70s, she translated poets from East Berlin and Vietnam to help broadcast their defiance to the rest of the world. Winner of a French Voices Award, this half memoir, half philosophical treatise is a humanist meditation on the art of translation. Gansel considers estrangement as her price paid for the priviledge of moving between tongues, and muses on how translation becomes an exercise of empathy among those in exile.

Author

Mireille Gansel

Mireille Gansel

Books

Translation as Transhumance

Mireille Gansel has published translations of a number of distinguished poets including Nelly Sachs, Peter Huchel, and Reiner Kunze, as well as letters by Paul Celan. After living in Hanoi in the seventies, she published the first volume of classical Vietnamese poetry translated into French. Her second and third books as an author, Une petite fenêtre d’or and the poetry collection Comme une lettre,were published in France in 2017.

Photo credit:  Jean-Yves Masson

Translator

Ros Schwartz

Ros Schwartz

Books

Kamal Jann

About My Mother

Stalin's Meteorologist

Translation as Transhumance

With over 60 titles to her name, Ros Schwartz has translated a wide range of Francophone fiction and non-fiction authors including Dominique Manotti (whose Lorraine Connection (Arcadia) won the 2008 International Dagger Award), and Lebanese writer Dominique Eddé, whose Kite (Seagull Books), was longlisted for the 2013 Best Translated Book Award in the USA. In 2010 she published a new translation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (shortlisted for the Marsh children’s book award) and she is involved in translating a number of Maigret titles for Penguin Classics’ new Simenon edition.

Ros frequently publishes articles and gives workshops and talks on literary translation around the world. She is co-organiser of a 2014 translation summer school in association with City University, London. In 2009 she was made Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her services to literature.

Published by

Les Fugitives, 2017
Buy Book

Share

Mireille Gansel grew up in the traumatic aftermath of her family losing everything – including their native language – to Nazi Germany. In the 1960s and ’70s, she translated poets from East Berlin and Vietnam to help broadcast their defiance to the rest of the world. Winner of a French Voices Award, this half memoir, half philosophical treatise is a humanist meditation on the art of translation. Gansel considers estrangement as her price paid for the priviledge of moving between tongues, and muses on how translation becomes an exercise of empathy among those in exile.

Join our mailing list

Sign up to receive the latest English PEN news and events.

SIGN UP
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Partners
  • Outreach
  • Jobs
  • Contact us

With thanks to our Core Funders

©1921 - 2023

English PEN is a company limited by guarantee number 5747142 (England & Wales) and a registered charity, number 1125610.

We use cookies to help us improve your experience on our website. By closing this notification or interacting with the website you agree to our use of cookies. ACCEPT Find out more
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT