John Biguenet – författare

Written by some of the most distinguished literary translators working in English today, these essays offer new and uncommon insights into the understanding and craft of translation. The contributors not only describe the complexity of translating literature but also suggest the implications of the act of translation for critics, scholars, teachers, and students. The demands of translation, according to these writers, require both comprehensive scholarship in preparing to translate a text and broad creativity in recreating the text in a new language. Translation, thus, becomes a model for the most exacting reading and the most serious scholarship.Some of the contributors lay bare the rigorous methods of literary translation in comparisons of various translations of the same piece; some discuss the problems of translating a specific passage; others speak about the lessons learned over the course of a career in translation. As these essays make clear, translators work in the space between languages and, in so doing, provide insights into the ways in which a culture makes the world verbal. Exemplary readers both of authors and of their individual works, the translators represented in this collection demonstrate that the methodologies derived from the art and craft of translation can serve as a model to revitalize the interpretation and understanding of literary works.Readers will find the opportunity to look over the shoulders of the translators gathered together in this volume an exciting and surprising experience. The act of translation emerges both as a powerful integration of linguistic, semantic, cultural, and historical thinking and as a valuable commentary on how we communicate both within a culture and from one culture to another.

Spanning the centuries, from the seventeenth to the twentieth, and ranging across cultures, from England to Mexico, this collection gathers together important statements on the function and feasibility of literary translation. The essays provide an overview of the historical evolution in thinking about translation and offer strong individual opinions by prominent contemporary theorists. Most of the twenty-one pieces appear in translation, some here in English for the first time and many difficult to find elsewhere. Selections include writings by Scheiermacher, Nietzsche, Ortega, Benjamin, Pound, Jakobson, Paz, Riffaterre, Derrida, and others. A fine companion to The Craft of Translation, this volume will be a valuable resource for all those who translate, those who teach translation theory and practice, and those interested in questions of language philosophy and literary theory.

Widely praised by critics and hailed by audiences, the award-winning plays in John Biguenet's The Rising Water Trilogy examine the emotional toll of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Approaching the storm, the levee collapse, and subsequent socioeconomic catastrophe through the lives of three couples and their families, Biguenet conveys insights into the universal nature of trauma and feelings of loss with heart-wrenching intimacy and palliative humor.Each play -- Rising Water, Shotgun, and Mold -- incorporates the structure of a house as it examines the anatomy of love, moving from the hours just after the levees' collapse to four months into the flood's chaotic aftermath -- and then to a year later when a family returns to their now mold-encrusted home. In aggregate, these plays employ the seemingly simple act of living together to examine questions of what home truly means. Biguenet also delves into the consequences of living in a city wracked by catastrophe and long-simmering racial tensions, yet so beloved by its inhabitants that even decades of federal neglect and municipal mismanagement cannot erase their emotional attachment to the place and to each other.

Interviews from the Edge presents a selection of conversations, drawn from 50 years of the international journal New Orleans Review, that dive head-first into the most enduring aesthetic and social concerns of the last half century.From reflections on the making of literature and films to personal accounts of writing inside racial divides and working against capital punishment, the writers, poets, and activists featured in this book offer not only a fresh perspective on our present struggles but also perhaps a way through them—for writers and readers alike. “I think it’s frightfully important, and this is really much more difficult than it sounds, only to say what you absolutely believe.” – Christopher Isherwood“Most American writers probably do not think of their writing as a kind of activism. And it shouldn’t have to be—I don’t think we can impose that on writers—but it can be. I think for many writers, the ones I admire—it is.” – Viet Thanh Nguyen“Do you become a writer because you desire to become famous and make a lot of money? Or do you become a writer because there’s something you discovered, this spark, this flash, that you want to share with other human beings knowing that they can enter into the words too?” – Sister Helen Prejean “The hardest part of developing a style is that you have to learn to trust your voice. If I thought of my style, I’d be crippled. Somebody else said to me a long time ago in France, ‘Find out what you can do, and then don’t do it.’” – James Baldwin“As I have grown older, I have come to see that the romantic notion of the outsider in love with death doesn't solve a thing. It only makes life worse. We have to find ways to create communities.” – Valerie Martin

Interviews from the Edge presents a selection of conversations, drawn from 50 years of the international journal New Orleans Review, that dive head-first into the most enduring aesthetic and social concerns of the last half century.From reflections on the making of literature and films to personal accounts of writing inside racial divides and working against capital punishment, the writers, poets, and activists featured in this book offer not only a fresh perspective on our present struggles but also perhaps a way through them—for writers and readers alike. “I think it’s frightfully important, and this is really much more difficult than it sounds, only to say what you absolutely believe.” – Christopher Isherwood“Most American writers probably do not think of their writing as a kind of activism. And it shouldn’t have to be—I don’t think we can impose that on writers—but it can be. I think for many writers, the ones I admire—it is.” – Viet Thanh Nguyen“Do you become a writer because you desire to become famous and make a lot of money? Or do you become a writer because there’s something you discovered, this spark, this flash, that you want to share with other human beings knowing that they can enter into the words too?” – Sister Helen Prejean “The hardest part of developing a style is that you have to learn to trust your voice. If I thought of my style, I’d be crippled. Somebody else said to me a long time ago in France, ‘Find out what you can do, and then don’t do it.’” – James Baldwin“As I have grown older, I have come to see that the romantic notion of the outsider in love with death doesn't solve a thing. It only makes life worse. We have to find ways to create communities.” – Valerie Martin