Alexander Pfau

 Amelia Glaser Readings Response

Mr. Vincent

1/28/2024


    Amelia Glaser was a joy to watch, though her presentation was not what I was expecting. Rather than take a deep dive on how she translated certain poems or stories from Ukrainian, she gave more of a background and wholistic view of her work in the past year. One of her major themes was how empathy can connect a community, as demonstrated multiple times in the short stories she presented. Although the theme was wartime poems - which is not a happy topic - her presentation created a sense of nationality between the Ukrainian people, and the unbroken spirit they possess within this time of war. She conducted much of her research through careful combing of online messaging services like Facebook, and, as a computer scientist, her analysis of data not only intrigued me, but contributed to the general theme above. As the war progressed, the percent of Ukrainian language use in posts from Eastern Europe almost doubled, a moniker of the cultural independence of Ukraine. Interesting and uplifting, Amelia Glaser's presentation and translations reaffirmed the spirit of the Ukrainian people while creating a sense of experiential dread that brings the feeling of war closer to home.


    This week's readings were striking. By far my favorite were the samplings from A War Vocabulary. While not exactly poems, these stories created a striking sense of individuality between the people of Ukraine, with each of them telling their own stories of the war's situation. My favorite was the story Bath, where the main character created themes of horror and dread, while mixing in humorous tones throughout. The levity brought by the storyteller is a break from the almost never-ending tragedy that is war. Her allusions to classical literature must have also been an absolute nightmare to translate, speaking to the skill translators possess. Another defining feature that showed up in Kruk's poems was the idea of brevity. Since Ukraine is engulfed in war, poets are forced to create art that reflects the abruptness of conflict without focusing so much on style and prose. This creates poems that are much more straightforward, something I personally enjoy, and something that is easier to translate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yasmine Seale

 Armaan Arif 04/07/2024 Professor Vincent Yasmine Seale presented the work not as a mere book, but as a living tradition of storytelling. She highlighted that the number "1001" is not just literal but symbolic, inviting endless contributions to this story. Seale discussed the challenges and innovations of translating such a classic. She plans to employ long, flowing sentences that span the course of a night, mimicking the storytelling technique of Shahrazad, who uses tales to stave off her fate until dawn. This choice aims to capture the original's poetic flair and emotional depth. Moreover, Seale intends to incorporate various manuscripts in her translation to reflect the historical depth and varied interpretations of The Nights . This method contrasts with traditional translations that typically cite a single source, aiming to portray the text as an evolving entity rather than a fixed work. Yasmine Seale’s lecture was a great portrayal of her translating style and ...
Read more

Yasmine Seale's lecture

 As part of the MFA in literary translation, this semester we are taking a class titled: "A Thousand and One Nights: A Translator's Playground" where we have learned the rich and complicated history surrounding the translation of The Nights . In this context, to have had the opportunity to listen to Yasmine Seale, the newest translator of this work,  was absolutely wonderful. One of the things she mentioned which I really liked was that The Nights  resists being called "a book" as it's more a tradition of storytelling.  This is very fitting since, as we have learned in this class, The Nights  is a compendium of stories that grew throughout time until eventually reaching 1001. Seale mentioned that she might be interested in adding her own stories to this ever-growing tradition since the number 1001 is less of a concrete number and more of an invitation to infinity. I also found it very interesting how the lack of a clear original or an author has provided dif...
Read more

Report on Megan McDowell

  Megan McDowell’s “FAQs: Highly Subjective Answers to All Your Questions about Latin American Contemporary Translation” Lia Galván Megan McDowell – a translator from Latin American literature into English – gave a lecture on Friday, February 2nd, 2024 as part of Boston University’s Literary Translation Series. She was introduced by the series curator Professor Keith Vincent who mentioned her impressive resume. McDowell’s translations have been featured in magazines such as The New Yorker and have won several prizes such as t he National Book Award for Translated Literature, the English PEN award, and the Premio Valle-Inclán. In her lecture, “FAQs: Highly Subjective Answers to All Your Questions about Latin American Contemporary Translation” McDowell discussed the questions she has been asked the most during her translation journey and shared her ongoing reflections about the most appropriate way to answer them.  The first question that McDowell addressed was “How long does it...
Read more