When Nathan Scott McNamara from the Los Angeles Review of Books wrote to ask if we could talk, particularly about my three most recent translations, I wrote back, "I am a devotee of all things translation as to me all writing is translation, translation the essence of all writing. I translate in order to become a …
Dying #5
The motions I've got these down they are expensive they cost me everything.
Obituary of a Wartime Spy (#1)
I was very heartened by the recent New York Times project called "Overlooked" addressing the fact that many accomplished and, indeed, heroic women were never given an obituary in the Times due to the fact that they were women and deemed not important enough to merit a eulogy in print. Such Better-Late-Then-Never acknowledgement is so important. The …
The Kremlin Ball by Curzio Malaparte, translated by me–and a reading in Bushwick.
The Kremlin Ball by Curzio Malaparte has just been published by New York Review Books. If you have never read Malaparte than this will be a discovery, if you have, then you know the thrill you are in for. It is available here at 20% off. Also, on Friday, April 20, International Translation Day, I will …
Continue reading "The Kremlin Ball by Curzio Malaparte, translated by me–and a reading in Bushwick."
Neapolitan Chronicles by Anna Maria Ortese, Translated by Ann Goldstein and Jenny McPhee: Upcoming Events
Dear All, Ann and I were very intrigued by these powerful stories that evoke yet another Naples, Ortese's Naples, complicated and disorienting, painful and stunning, always infinitely fascinating. Our translation collaboration was also an enthralling adventure. As we write in our introduction: "Translating and writing are profoundly collaborative acts across time and texts, involving an …
Dying #4
My vocation is to perform the voices of the dead. My vocation is to assemble dismembered body parts. My vocation is to fill a bathtub full of my organs. I live in a wounded wonderland.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2018
Lady Liberty give us your guidance in what promises to be another woeful and treacherous year! (This photograph was taken in Red Hook right near Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies. As long as this Key Lime Pie persists, something is right in the world. #sublime.) (New Years Resolutions: more yoga, more blog posts, more patience, more writing, more …
HAPPY JULY 4th: WE ARE ONE
Despite our horrendous challenges, both past and present, I am extremely grateful to be American and to live in the same country, the same world as the artist Kerry James Marshall, whose work unites us all, yes, in our painful existence of injustice, inequality, silence, absence, and erasure, but also in our love of …
The Art and Passion of Translation via Natalia Ginzburg, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ann Goldstein, Giovanna Calvino, Alessandra Ginzburg, Ann Goldstein, Lynn Schwarz, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and myself
Left to Right: Alessandra Ginzburg, Giovanna Calvino, Jenny McPhee, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ann Goldstein, and Lynne Sharon Schwartz An extraordinary panel of translators and writers celebrated my new translation of Natalia Ginzburg’s novel, Family Lexicon, at NYU's Casa Italiana recently. The panel, composed entirely of women, was moderated by historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and featured …
Jenny McPhee 