wallace in danish

My translation of David Foster Wallace's story Suicide as a Sort of Present from the collection Brief Interviews With Hideous Men will be appearing in the Danish journal Den Blå Port. The Danish title is Selvmord som en slags gave.

crime

A piece here>> in today's Guardian on the current UK vogue for Scandinavian crime literature.

the buddhist

And then, quicker than you can say "But I don't want to be reincarnated ...", the second of my two Dorthe Nors translations, The Buddhist, has been accepted for publication by the prestigious Boston Review (here>>). Thanks here are due, not only to Dorthe for her excellent story, but also to 2008 Pulitzer-winner Junot Diáz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) for pointing us in the right direction.

apparatur

Just out here is Apparatur #18 (here>>) containing, amongst a whole load of other excellent and exciting stuff, my short introduction to Richard Brautigan and his work, as well as three of his stories from the collection Revenge of the Lawn (1971) in my Danish translation. The stories are The Literary Life in California/1964, I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone, and Partners.

agni

Like I said, I recently translated two stories by Dorthe Nors (here>>), taken from her excellent collection Kantslag [Karate Chop]. Now, almost before you could say Vadehavet, one of them, The Wadden Sea, has been accepted for publication by the American journal AGNI (here>>). First word is it'll be out in the fall 2009 issue (that's autumn, for the rest of us). AGNI comes out of Boston University and has previously published such luminaries as Seamus Heaney, Joyce Carol Oates and Derek Walcott, to name but three. Thanks to Rick Moody (The Ice Storm and much more) for the pointer.

three percent coincidence

Like I said, only three percent of books published in Britain are translations. What a coincidence, then, to discover that in the United States the figure is, wait for it, three percent. Coincidence or not, three percent is also the title of a very good blog here>> at the University of Rochester, which describes itself like this:

Three Percent launched in the summer of 2007 with the lofty goal of becoming a destination for readers, editors, and translators interested in finding out about modern and contemporary international literature.

The motivating force behind the website is the view that reading literature from other countries is vital to maintaining a vibrant book culture and to increasing the exchange of ideas among cultures. In this age of globalization, one of the best ways to preserve the uniqueness of cultures is through the translation and appreciation of international literary works.

the host

"Stephenie Meyer (née Morgan, born December 24, 1973) is the American author of the bestselling, young adult Twilight series, which revolves around the relationship between mortal Bella Swan and vampire Edward Cullen. The Twilight books have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, with translations into 37 different languages around the globe. A film adaptation of Twilight was released domestically on November 21, 2008. Meyer is also the author of the adult science-fiction novel, The Host [published 2008]."

Thus Wikipedia. As soon as Christmas present is Christmas past, I'll be getting underway translating The Host into Danish for Lindhardt & Ringhof in Copenhagen. All 619 pages of it. Publication is scheduled for October.

(Interesting fact: Danes may be interested to learn that it won't be called 'Hostet')