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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Pretty Pictures
Posted Thursday August 6th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaBooktrusters, I have a confession. You ready?
I'm Nikesh Shukla and I still read comics.
Every Thursday, I head to Avalon Comics in Clapham Junction and I buy comics: anything Spider-man, Daredevil, Batman or X-Men. I love it.
There, I'm glad I got that off my chest. Phew, the air feels fresher, the light is brighter. But seriously, even if you can't bear the intense obsessive comic-ment of a Thursday trip to your local comic shop, there's always graphic novels.
As worthy as highbrow literature, as action-packed as a Sly Stallone film and sometimes as politically relevant as the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the graphic novel is a medium that explores everything from the expanse of the human mind and unknown universe to the minutiae of everyday life. We've provided you with a diverse list of graphic novels to start with, some now films you may have seen (Ghost World, The Watchmen, Persepolis), some funny, some action-packed – all perfect for your introduction into the world of graphic fiction. Perfect if you're just getting back into reading, or want something different, the marriage of pictures and words is a powerful medium. Certainly, our children's laureate, Anthony Browne,…
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The Man Booker stronglist
Posted Wednesday July 29th 2009
by James SmithThe longlist for the Man Booker Prize was announced last night. It's an embarrassment of riches: novels by Hilary Mantel, JM Coetzee, AS Byatt, Colm Toíbín, and William Trevor for starters, with the addition of some of the finest young writers currently gracing the shelves of your local bookshop – and a ‘biography’ of Tarzan’s simian friend Cheeta, to boot.
I’m particularly pleased to see authors who have won – or been shortlisted for, or judged – Booktrust prizes in the past. Sarah Hall, who won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2007 for The Carhullan Army (the same title that – inexplicably in our view – never made the Man Booker list that year) and was a judge for the prize in 2008, has been longlisted for the wonderful How to Paint a Dead Man; Sarah Waters was a judge for JLR in 2005 – her books are hugely popular among Booktrust staff; Adam Foulds was shortlisted for JLR last year for The Broken Word, his narrative poem about the Mau-Mau uprising; and Samantha Harvey was shortlisted for the Orange Prize (which is administered by Booktrust) and makes the Man Booker longlist for the same book.
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Further despatch from the translation summer school
Posted Monday July 27th 2009
by James SmithFollowing an intense day of head-scratching in the translation workshops, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the students at the BCLT translation summer school would have retired to the bar for the evening to discuss nothing more taxing than which drink to order.
Not a bit of it. On the day I was there, we traded the workshops for the lecture theatre to hear Piotr Kuhiwczak (until very recently Associate Professor at the University of Warwick) ask the question ‘Is Trauma Translatable?’ Using autobiographical narratives such as Ariel Dorfman’s Heading South, Looking North and Binjamin Wilkorminski’s discredited Fragments, alongside a screened excerpt from Claude Lanzman’s harrowing nine-hour documentary Shoah, Kuhiwczak questioned whether traumatic narratives could be communicated across cultural and linguistic boundaries. In the case of Shoah, we saw the testimony of the rural Poles translated twice: vocalised as French by an interpreter, and subsequently translated into English for the subtitles. Kuhiwczak also highlighted a third level of translation, which would have taken place as the Jews on the transports attempted to interpret the gestures made by the Poles.
A much-needed hour’s break later, we regrouped for dinner, after which the workshop leaders told us how they had got…
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Tis the season to be translating ...
Posted Friday July 24th 2009
by James SmithThe British Centre for Literary Translation’s summer school at the University of East Anglia gives experienced and budding translators the opportunity to work with authors and other translators in language-specific workshops. The week-long residential course also includes seminars, lectures and panel discussions.
I went up to Norwich for a day and a night to get more of an idea of how the summer school operates, and was struck first and foremost by the dedication of those attending: the students (for want of a better word), the workshop leaders, the visiting authors and the organisers.
The workshops are the core of the summer school’s activity. This year, BCLT offered Chinese, French, German and Spanish into English; and English into Italian. The groups, ranging from five to twelve in number, work with an experienced translator to translate passages of a book in the source language, the author of which takes part in the sessions. Flitting from workshop to workshop, I was interested to discover that each group worked in similar and yet different ways.
The German group, run by Shaun Whiteside, was concentrating on a novel called Café Cyprus by Yadé Kara. At times it was like sitting in the heart of…
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Books for summer
Posted Tuesday July 14th 2009
by James SmithDespite the odd rainstorm, Britain really does seem to be settling into the season traditionally known as summer. Which means holidays. Which means holiday reading time!
We’ve put together a couple of lists of recommendations for you – one of children’s books with a summery theme, and one of novels, short stories and non-fiction for adults. These are all books that we have loved over the past year or so and will continue to love and which, moreover, are beautifully written and (in some cases) illustrated.
For children, we recommend stunningly illustrated picture books about a teddy bear lost on the beach; a menagerie’s outing to the seaside; fun and frolics with a dog and his crocodile friend; a magic shell; and Michael Foreman’s story of life, death and seals. For older children, there are tales of eccentric sisters holidaying on the Arundel estate; Greek gods living in New York; the sisterhood of the travelling pants; Jacqueline Wilson’s sequel to Cliffhanger; and a more serious tale about family tragedy in Cornwall.
Adults can choose between short fiction set in Pakistan or Wales or a strange city plagued by ‘animal rain’; novels set in Holland, Australia, the USA and…
