News and views from Vagabond Voices and the people we work with. Blog posts include explorations of translated literature; cover art design; storytelling; the acts of reading, writing and translating books; and more.
Can a translation be beautiful? Is it even noticed? In this instalment of our Think in Translation blog series, Vagabond’s founder Allan Cameron, who has translated dozens of books, discusses his process for translating The Anonymous Novel from Italian into English. The Anonymous Novel has received much critical praise, including being called “a literary miracle” by Vitali Vitaliev. The Herald said Allan’s translation brilliantly conveys the sense “that some Russian Master had been leaning over [the author’s] shoulder, guiding his hand.”
Why should you read a translated novel, when there are so many good ones written in English? Surely a translation is never as good as the original? Who benefits most from translated literature? In this blog post Vagabond founder Allan Cameron explores these questions and also discusses the precarious position of small publishers of translated literary fiction.
Vagabond founder Allan Cameron discusses the importance of supporting physical bookshops and smaller online chains like Wordery as opposed to buying books on Amazon.
"When the definitive history of the sixties in Britain comes to be written, few characters will play a larger part in it than David Widgery." David Renton, co-editor of Against Miserabilism, discusses the life and work of writer, doctor and political activist David Widgery.
Read MoreIn the age of fast food, digital downloads and instant gratification, the real allure of bookshops is the space to slow down. Entering a bookshop, rifling the shelves, and settling down between pages for however long is an act of trust; where you choose to lose yourself for a little while speaks volumes. Eloise Hendy talks bookshops and lists her Top 5.
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What would you like to know about the process of translating novels? We’re now wrapping up Series 1 of our Think in Translation podcast and blog. Thank you to all who’ve listened and participated in our debate on literary translation! At the start of this project we sent out a two-question survey in the hopes of getting a better sense of what it is about translation and translated books that most interests our readers and listeners. The following blog post is the first of two parts (we’ll do one post per question) in which Allan Cameron, Vagabond’s founder as well as a writer and translator himself, responds to the questions we received.