Find out what's new on our websites, where we've been, what's on our minds and the things we're doing.

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  • Time to Look for a Translation Job

    Posted Tuesday June 1st 2010
    by Catherine Mansfield

    It’s the end of the university year and time for us translation MA students to leave the safety of weekly timetables, subtitling workshops and lectures on post-colonial translation theory and ask ourselves that scary question: what do we do now?

    Our course leaders put together a careers day last week to give us some ideas, with talks by translators and interpreters, and tips on how to set up your own business.

    One of the decisions we have to make is: in-house or freelance? However, it seems that many of us won’t really have a choice. There are not all that many in-house translation jobs around. The European Commission are actively looking for native-English in-house translators, but you have to be able to speak either French or German. So, no trips to Brussels for me, unfortunately.

    This shortage of in-house translation work is bad news for a lot of us, as working in-house has a lot of advantages. Guaranteeing that you get some money in your bank account each month is obviously a plus. And then there’s the social side, having people to talk to. The importance of this was really driven home to us by a freelance translator who came…

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  • An interview with... Scroobius Pip

    Posted Monday May 24th 2010
    by Nikesh Shukla

    Poet, rapper and now book-scribe, Scroobius Pip has led a versatile life since he, alongside co-hort dan le sac, blazed a trail with electro-spoken word track, Thou Shalt Always...

    He has helped to raise awareness of live literature and performance poetry, bringing a spotlight to fellow poets Kate Tempest, Polarbear and Inua Ellams. Now, with a second album out and an illustrated book of poems released through Titan books, he has invigorated a generation's interest in spoken rhyming couplets. We talked to him about the book, his lyrical influences and who to look out for in the current stream of performance poets out there at the moment.

    > Hello Scroobius, how are you?

    I'm alright thanks. Having a bit of a 'post-tour sick-day' but im getting through it.

    > What came first for you- the poet or the rapper?

    I'm not sure really. I guess i got into poetry and spoken word via hip hop. But I was doing spoken word before I was doing hip hop. So it's a bit of a paradox really. They both influenced one another.

    > Did one influence a love in the other?

    Well what do you know! I kind of answered that in…

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  • Return of the Living Dead

    Posted Thursday May 20th 2010
    by Nikesh Shukla

    One of the most enduring sticking points about comic books, as long-term readers such as myself might tell you, is that death never really counts for anything. Dead is never dead in comic books. They always come back. There is the obvious need for dramatic tension, and what’s more dramatic than killing off a villain or an important sidekick or love interest or even the main character. But rest assured, they’ll be back- because dead is never dead in comic books.

    Notably, Batman and Captain America are in the current stages of returning from the dead, having been killed off in the last 5 years. This hasn’t stopped their friends assuming their costumes to carry on their work, but the stories have been notably lacking in a Bruce Wayne or Steve Rogers. Impressively, DC Comics allowed Grant Morrison, a Scottish comic book magi in the style of Alan Moore, to kill off Bruce Wayne in a lengthy and gritty tale called Batman RIP. The impressive thing is that this happened just as The Dark Knight film came out- meaning any new readers to the comic might immediately find themselves on shaky territory. But despite the ominous arc name – Batman…

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  • Whose Muse Is It Anyway?

    Posted Wednesday May 19th 2010
    by Nikesh Shukla

    Booktrust presents...

    Whose Muse is it Anyway?

    An evening of funny improvisational performance poetry, hosted by former Booktrust writer in residence Nii Ayikwei Parkes featuring:

    • Dizraeli (winner of BBC Radio 4 Poetry Slam)
    • Dockers MC (Times Literary One to Watch 2008)
    • Doc Brown (rapper, poet, stand-up comedian and actor)
    • Luke Wright (Aisle 16, BBC Radio 4, Nasty Little Press)


    Download the e-flyer: http://booktrustadmin.kentlyons.com/downloads/WMIIA eflyer.pdf


    Be part of the live audience

    Tickets £5

    Buy your tickets here: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/wmiia

    Follow us on www.twitter.com/booktrust to get involved with the live Twitter games on the night.

    Nii Ayikwei Parkes: Nii was children’s poet in residence at the Brighton Festival in 2007, has led storytelling sessions at the Southbank Centre and British Museum and his poem ‘Wrong Side’ has been memorised by hundreds of pupils across the UK. His debut novel, Tail of the Blue Bird, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2009. He was Booktrust's second writer-in-residence.

    Dockers MC: Laura Dockrill is a poet and illustrator from South London . A graduate of The Brit School of Performing Arts, twenty-three year old Laura was named one of the top ten literary stars of 2008…

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  • A night out at the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

    Posted Wednesday May 19th 2010
    by Catherine Mansfield

    Last Thursday, my fellow blogger Pete and I headed for a night out at the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize party. I’d been a couple of times before, so I knew what to expect: a glamorous venue, plenty of Tattinger champagne, and an interesting crowd of book-lovers to hobnob with. And I wasn’t disappointed. This time the event took place at the Royal Institute of British Architects on London’s Portland Place, a grand old building with an enormous, wide staircase.

    The main event took place in a big, airy room which began to fill up from 7pm with hordes of publishers, authors and translators. I bumped into some friends from Telegram Books – the small publisher of international literary fiction where I used to work – and chatted with them about their upcoming books. Look out for Three Sisters by Chinese writer Bi Feiyu, which should be a good read. And then there was the champagne, of course, with lots of friendly waiters and waitresses filling up our glasses every time we finished them...a good way to start the night!

    So, at around 8pm I found myself out on a garden terrace where authors, translators and writers were doing…

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