READIN

🦋 New Saramago! New Pontiero!

How exciting: the current issue of Guernica features the first half of the story "Things", from Saramago's short story collection Objecto Quase (1978) -- the second half will be published in April. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first time any of these stories has been seen in English translation. The full collection will be published by Verso Books at the end of April, under the title The Lives of Things. Really great news -- Saramago's signature style begins to take shape in these stories, and themes that will occupy his writing throughout his career.

It is also great news to see that the translation is by Giovanni Pontiero, the master who translated so many of Saramago's early books before his untimely death in 1996. Clearly the translation has been out there for a long time, at last it will be available to the public.

Speaking of translation -- I had good news today, word from the editors of Words Without Borders that they'll be publishing my translation of Fernando Iwasaki's "A Troya, Helena," my project of last weekend. It will appear in their April issue.

posted evening of Thursday, March 15th, 2012
➳ More posts about An Object, Almost
➳ More posts about Short Stories
➳ More posts about José Saramago
➳ More posts about Readings
➳ More posts about Translation
➳ More posts about Writing Projects
➳ More posts about Projects

Great news, Jeremy. A couple of these stories appeared in lit journals and one of them, about a centaur, was anthologized in "Telling Tales", edited by Nadine Gordimer.

Congrats on the Iwasaki translation, will be on the lookout for that.

P.S. Is there a way for subscribing to comments on a blog post here?

posted morning of March 17th, 2012 by Rise

Thanks Rise -- do you know if the stories that have been printed in journals are in Pontiero's translation? Looks like "The Centaur" is.

Sorry, my software does not support comments rss... Possibly I should add that in, I have been neglectful lately about adding new features.

posted morning of March 17th, 2012 by Jeremy

(OTOH READIN is pretty state-of-the-art for a blog circa 2005.)

posted morning of March 17th, 2012 by Jeremy

I think two of them appeared in Pontiero's translations (reference).

A comment subscription feature will be much appreciated. There may be new comments in your older posts that I wasn't able to monitor. Thanks.

posted morning of March 18th, 2012 by Rise

Cool, thanks. I will take that under advisement. His story "Embargo" which was published in translation in Cimarron Review in 95, is the one that was made into a movie two years ago.

posted morning of March 18th, 2012 by Jeremy

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