Allan Massie
The Terrors of Translation
A FEW YEARS ago I was appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival with Ivan Klima. As it happened I had recently received copies of the Czech edition of one of my Roman novels. So I gave him one – a small matter of courtesy, also an opportunity to get rid of a copy. ‘Your novel,’ he asked, the next time I met him – ‘is it written in some sort of slang?’ ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘Then I’m sorry,’ he rejoined , ‘but it’s very bad Czech.’
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Unlike much that was extracted from India, these paintings were not plunder, and those who created them were properly remunerated and often received due credit.'
@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/artists-for-hire
‘"I feel", Lowell told Hardwick ... "as if I were pulled apart and thinning into mist, or rather being torn apart and still preferring that state to making a decision."'
Richard Davenport-Hines on the letters of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/yours-unfaithfully-2
'To me, Elmore Leonard is as comforting in extremity as Pym, and as safe, in the last resort, as Wodehouse. The guys with the best lines are going to come out the other side; the dumb fucks are going to get it in the head or chest.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/a-spoonful-of-elmore