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Yule love these books in translation – 2013
Want some expert advice on what to read in translation? Then look no further. Top writers, literary scouts, critics and festival directors recommend books to give - and devour - during the festive season. Enjoy!
Poetry in translation – The Popescu Prize 2013
David Wheatley writes about the genius of mistranslation, Finnegans Wake syndrome, and being a judge on The Popescu Prize for poetry in translation, which was awarded this year to Alice Oswald
A literature in search of its language
Ciwanmerd Kulek charts the ongoing struggle for the Kurdish language, and whether being a language that is now more written than spoken threatens it in new and troubling ways
The duty to write
Journalist-turned-freedom-fighter Mikail Eldin writes for PEN Atlas on his experience of the Chechen wars, and how writing a memoir is a way to honour fallen friends, who risked their lives to ensure he might live to tell their story
PEN Atlas Q&A: Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, winner of the Jan Michalski Prize 2013
Following his recent award of the 2013 Jan Michalski Prize, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi answers questions from Tasja Dorkofikis for PEN Atlas, charting the works, influences and world-view of Iran’s most important living writer.
On Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, winner of the Jan Michalski Prize
Sahar Delijani charts the career of Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, winner of the 2013 Jan Michalski Prize, and how his work has forged the conscience of his nation. Sahar’s PEN Atlas piece precedes an exclusive Q&A with Mahmoud Dowlatabadi.
Any questions for the author?
Jacek Dehnel writes a taxonomy of the literary event attendee, including 'the star', 'the obsessive', 'the well-meaning person' and 'the fixer', all of whom keep life interesting - and strange - for the travelling author
Notes from a Safe House in Area A
Selma Dabbagh returns to PEN Atlas, and to Ramallah, to stay at the Guest House of the Qattan Foundation. In this dispatch, she writes about the physical and bureaucratic walls that divide the territory, records the sounds of the Old City, and explores the impact of the Oslo Peace Accords on Palestinian literature
The ancestors who never left
What happens when an oral culture is colonised and dominated by a written one? Laura Burns explores the Native authors of North America, and how their work crosses and transcends the boundary between the written and spoken, with stories that reinvigorate the present with the past
What next for Greece?
Maria Margaronis writes for PEN Atlas on the complex and at times chaotic relationship between Greek media and the people of Greece, and what their future together might hold
Instructions for writing a corrupt novel
Nepotism, sinecures, blackmailing paedophiles, bribing officials... Juan Pablo Villalobos writes for PEN Atlas this week, explaining how a writer can expose and enable the general corruption of his country
Three Years Old: the reality of publishing translated fiction
What does the future hold for the publishing of literature in translation? Stefan Tobler from And Other Stories takes us through the independents, small presses, social enterprises and community interest companies using innovative ways to publish work from around the world
The hidden languages of Burma
Following recent political reforms, Lucas Stewart investigates the impact on writers in the country, and whether there is real change in the air for ethnic literature and languages
PEN Atlas Q&A – Hanna Krall, author of Chasing the King of Hearts
PEN Atlas editor Tasja Dorkofikis interviews Hanna Krall, author of Chasing the Kings of Hearts, a book which recreates the Holocaust not as an historical event but as a terrifying shared experience. Her literary reportage about the Holocaust is unparalleled in its power and immediacy and is available in the UK for the first time
Two stories by Sławomir Mrożek
A special dispatch from PEN Atlas this week features two stories by Sławomir Mrożek, the Polish author and cartoonist who died last month, and who will be fondly remembered for his surreal and subversive work
Imagine – Writing fiction in Mexico
Juan Pablo Villalobos returns to PEN Atlas this week, asking us to imagine the struggle of being a writer in Mexico, where fiction is so often outpaced by brutal reality
An ‘archival identity’
This week PEN Atlas hears from Carmen Bugan, daughter of Romanian dissident Ion Bugan, on the discovery of previously classified files about her family that were kept by secret police during the 1980s in Romania. A fascinating and moving account about dissidence, family and identity.