Keynote
A unique anthology that "plunges the reader into a translation seminar." (Rosanna Warren)
Book Title
Into English
Subtitle
Poems, Translations, Commentaries
Cover Image
- “An endlessly provocative and invaluable anthology.”—BBC Culture
Body
Into English presents poems, translations, and commentaries in an extraordinary format for readers to experience the intricacy and artistry of poetry in translation. Editors Martha Collins and Kevin Prufer invited twenty-five contributors, all of whom are translators and most of whom are also poets, to select one poem in another language and three English translations of it and provide an essay about the challenges of translating it. This wide-format anthology offers the original poem side by side with the translations, so readers can compare several different ways a poem can be rendered into English. Organized chronologically, the anthology opens with a poem in ancient Greek by Sappho beside translations by Anne Carson, Willis Barnstone, and Mary Barnard, followed by an essay by Karen Emmerich.
The original poems are by poets from across time and from around the world, including Basho, Rilke, Akhmatova, García Lorca, Szymborska, Amichai, and Adonis. The languages represented are many, from Latin to Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Haitian Creole. More than seventy translators are included, among them Robert Bly, Ruth Fainlight, David Hinton, Rosemary Lloyd, Khaled Mattawa, and W. S. Merwin. Into English becomes a chorus in celebration of world poetry and translation—what George Kalogeris, quoting Virgil, describes as “song replying to song replying to song.”
The original poems are by poets from across time and from around the world, including Basho, Rilke, Akhmatova, García Lorca, Szymborska, Amichai, and Adonis. The languages represented are many, from Latin to Chinese, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, and Haitian Creole. More than seventy translators are included, among them Robert Bly, Ruth Fainlight, David Hinton, Rosemary Lloyd, Khaled Mattawa, and W. S. Merwin. Into English becomes a chorus in celebration of world poetry and translation—what George Kalogeris, quoting Virgil, describes as “song replying to song replying to song.”
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About the Author
Credit: Doug Macomber
Credit: Emy Johnston
Praise
- “Into English is a book to be meditated on, a book that exposes the vast inner chasms of poetry, a book that demonstrates that a great poem is something one can live in.”—The Paris Review, Staff Picks
- “Into English is an impressive and ambitious project. . . . It is a genuine pleasure to read this book from its oblong cover to cover.”—Words Without Borders
- “The publication of Into English will soon be considered a watershed moment in the study of literary translation.”—World Literature Today
- “By reframing this impossibility of translation as a good thing, Into English makes a powerful argument for poetry as a whole.”—Babbel
