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"7 reasons to read the Odyssey The new Catalan translation, by Pau Sabaté, claims the strength and validity of the classic, which tells the adventures of Odysseus and the longed-for return to Ithaca This is how the new Catalan version of Homer's Odyssey begins, one of the foundational epic poems in the history of literature, translated by Pau Sabaté and just published by Bernat Metge Universal, a label from Abacus. The classic tells the journey of the heroic and cunning Odysseus (or Ulysses, depending on the version), after the Trojan War – an episode dealt with in the Iliad, Homer's other literary monument–, with the aim of reaching the island of Ithaca, reuniting with his wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus, and reclaiming his throne. It is one of the books "most known and influential, subject to countless readings, rewrites and interpretations," comments the editor in the preface of the volume, Roger Aluja. Why does it continue to amaze readers and motivate new adaptations, such as the one that filmmaker Christopher Nolan is about to premiere, almost three thousand years after its conception? 1. A foundational and enigmatic text "Homer is the great child poet. The world is born and Homer sings it. He is the bird of that dawn". These words by Victor Weber in the first chapter of his essay William Shakespeare (1864) serve to illustrate the foundational element of the Odyssey. Composed and recited orally since the 9th century BC and fixed in writing during the 8th century BC, it is one of the first epic poems in the Western literary canon. Divided into 24 cantos and comprising more than 12,000 hexameters, it has been praised by writers as diverse as Dante Alighieri, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce –who offered a very personal reinterpretation in Ulysses–, Mercè Rodoreda, Jorge Luis Borges, and Margaret Atwood. "Whether the Odyssey is Homer's work or not adds a mist of mystery that seems secondary to me. What is important is that we have two great poems attributed to this name", comments Roger Aluja. In the essay The Scar of Ulysses, included in Mimesis (1946) and recently recovered by Acantilado in Spanish, Erich Auerbach (1892-1957) praised "the joy of sensory existence that becomes present" when reading the Odyssey: "We don't care to know if it's a legend, if it's all lies – he adds–. Homer doesn't need to insist on the historical truth of his narrative, his reality is solid enough. Homer seduces us, traps us in the reality he describes, and that's enough for him. In that real world, which exists in itself, and to which we as readers have been brought as if by magic, there is nothing else. The Homeric poems hide nothing, they contain no teaching or secret second meaning". Cargando 2. Resonates in the past of any reader Classics can be fascinating on a personal level – and end up in the "unforgettable" books drawer – or blend into the collective unconscious, as Italo Calvino recalled in Why Read the Classics (1981; in Catalan at Edicions 62). Youthful readings are so important, for Calvino, that he recommends rereading them at least once in a lifetime. “As we grow older, we change and our encounter with texts is totally different,” he writes: every rereading of a classic is, in reality, a reading as initiatory and surprising as the first.The love for Pau Sabaté and Roger Aluja's Odyssey began in adolescence and has been transforming. "The first time I read it, I was 15 years old – Sabaté recalls. We had the second translation by Carles Riba at home [published between 1947 and 1948]. It amazed me. When you overcome the barrier of the splendid language it uses, it becomes very seductive and interesting." Homer influenced Sabaté in his decision to study Greek and, later, classical philology at the University of Barcelona (UB). In 2019, he inaugurated the lavish Bernat Metge Universal collection with his translation of the Iliad, and six years later he repeats with the Odyssey. His editor, Roger Aluja, was also captivated by the same book as Sabaté when he was in high school. "My research project consisted of comparing various versions of the sixth canto – he explains. Riba's, which was the first I read, but also the one in prose by Joan Alberich [La Magrana, 1998], and a couple or three in Spanish." When he was studying classical philology at the UB, Aluja coincided in the classroom with the Hellenist Jaume Pòrtulas: "He is one of the foremost specialists in the world in Homeric poetry. Professor Pòrtulas ended up directing my doctoral thesis, which is an aesthetic commentary on the eleventh canto of the Odyssey". Pau Sabaté and Roger Aluja, translator and editor of Homer's 'Odyssey', during the interview at Casa Abacus, on Peu de la Creu street in Barcelona.XAVIER BERTRAL Cargando 3. It goes beyond being an adventure book "TheOdyssey" is a book of travels, without travels –assures Dolors Miquel in the epilogue of the new edition of the Bernat Metge Universal–. A tale that a shepherd or a peasant would tell by a fire or on a summer evening. Or someone from distant lands. It would seem that the author is telling us that the only great and possible journey is that of the logos, that the most penetrating Odyssey of all is that of the imagination." It is Odysseus himself who, transformed within the work into an aede –a term that designated Greek rhapsode poets–, is in charge of narrating his adventures, among which are the deception of the cyclops Polyphemus, the song of the Sirens –who have the head of a woman and the body of a bird–, the sacrifice of the Sun's cows, and his relationships with Nausicaa, Circe, and Calypso. "Although Calypso offers him immortality if he stays with her on the island where she lives, Odysseus prefers to return to Ithaca to reunite with Penelope and his son Telemachus –says Sabaté–. At first glance, the most striking and attractive part of the Odyssey is the adventures, but the cantos that take place in Ithaca are fundamental. For the adult reader, perhaps they are even more interesting." In relation to highlighting the adventures in the epic poem, Carles Riba considered it, in the prologue to his second translation, an attempt to bring the classic "to the marketplace," and added: "To snatch the Odyssey" from the monopoly of more or less learned Hellenists, all right; but as much as delivering it to the insensitivity and banality of mere novel devourers [...] it is difficult to resign oneself to it". 4. Allows rediscovering a different hero Odysseus represents "a type of heroism different from that of Achilles, the great protagonist of the Iliad", says Aluja. He shares with Achilles skill on the battlefield, but unlike him, "he does not give up other war tactics, such as ambushes, camouflage, or the use of the bow, which for warriors of strength is the weapon of cowards". Cargando "Odysseus is a master of dissimulation and deception", comments Sabaté. The fact that he is a man "of great cunning" –according to Riba–, "of a thousand faces" –in the translation by Joan F. Mira in 2011 for Proa– or "very versatile" –in Sabaté's version– allows him to overcome all obstacles, human and divine, during the ten years that separate him from the end of the Trojan War and his arrival in Ithaca. "When he wakes up on the beach of Ithaca, Athena [or Athena], his protector, transforms him into a miserable beggar, so that he remains unnoticed by everyone, friends and enemies alike –writes Jaume Pòrtulas in the prologue to the latest reissue of the Odyssey translated by Carles Riba in the Bernat Metge Essencial in 2019–. Finally, already at home and among his own, the man who had been [...] No one will manage to recover, thanks to a series of measured and successive recognitions, the different facets of his personal and social self. He thus returns to the fullness of himself. We could say that he rebuilds himself: he rebuilds himself as the father of Telemachus, as the husband of Penelope, as the son of Laertes, and also as the king of Ithaca". Detail of Odysseus's route map that leads him from Troy to Ithaca, included in the Proa edition of the book.Proa 5. The excellence of Catalan translations There are three versions of the Odyssey by Carles Riba: between the first, published by Editorial Catalana in 1919, and the last, by Alpha – from the Col·lecció Bernat Metge – in 1953, more than three decades passed. "The mark it has left on contemporary Catalan literature has been important, although perhaps more in the realm of poets, translators, and other writers than for the average reader," admits Jaume Pòrtulas. When Joan F. Mira published his Odyssey in 2011 with Proa, he aimed "not to embellish the text, nor to try to improve it, nor to pretend to make it more poetic and more elevated". Like Riba and Sabaté, but unlike Joan Alberich's version, he translated it in verse. "Translating Homer in prose is entirely respectable, but it can never be read, perceived, or felt like a translation in verse – Mira argued at the time –. Never, in any way. And translating Homer in verse means, if it is materially possible (in some languages it certainly is not), reproducing the hexameters of the original". Cargando Pau Sabaté has wanted to follow "Riba's path": "I have tried to capture the passion for genuineness. Riba is sometimes even colloquial. He also has the aspiration to be very literal, to convey the strangeness of the original Greek text, which sometimes seems like an incantation. I have tried not to emphasize this point". The translator has avoided "modernizing the language of the Odyssey to the extreme". The reader interested in a sound prose version – made from the English adaptation by Samuel Butler, author of Erewhon, in 1900 – can turn to the recent edition by Blackie Books, which features the translation by Xavier Pàmies. 6. A poem full of women that announces patriarchy As Dolors Miquel points out in her epilogue, the Dolors Miquel points out in her epilogue, the Odyssey opens and closes with the goddess Athena. Throughout the poem, women have "a more relevant role than in the Iliad", says Aluja. "Although Calypso wants to keep Odysseus on the island, she eventually lets him go, and it is Circe who explains all the obstacles he must overcome to reach Ithaca — she adds—. Penelope awaits him there, who has managed to postpone the decision to choose a suitor with the cunning of undoing at night what she weaves during the day. Until the work is finished, she will not remarry." Miquel explains that beneath this female presence beats "the beginning of a phallocentric truth obsessed with hiding what is mysterious, what is feminine, uterine and unique". She recalls that Greek thought, appealing to the philosopher and psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray, transmits a "world that man has constructed to supplant adhesion to the maternal world, to assert himself against the mother, against participation in her world". In the Odyssey 7. It will allow you to go down to hell and come back In addition to proposing a journey through various Greek islands and allowing the reader to learn about their fauna, the Odyssey is a poem rich in mentions of trees and plants. "The names of animals and plants are always a thorny issue when translating ancient literature –comments Pau Sabaté–. The flora and fauna of the eastern Mediterranean, even if not radically different from ours, do not entirely correspond to that of the western shores either. A second problem is that the temporal distance and the limited nature of the sources have made certain denominations confusing." Wracking his brains, Sabaté has reached the conclusion that the "double thicket" under which Ulysses shelters on the island of the Phaeacians is formed by a part of olive tree and another that, instead of being broom or wild olive, must be oleaster. "A wild olive and an olive tree growing together do not quite make a "}double thicket" –he adds–. The usual cultivation technique for olive trees was to graft them onto oleasters to make them fruit faster. Cargando One of the riskiest adventures posed by the epic poem is the journey to Hades, the name by which hell was known in ancient Greece. "Odysseus goes there twice. The first time is explained in the eleventh canto, and among the most memorable passages is the reunion with Achilles, the hero of the Iliad", recalls the translator. Achilles laments having had to pay the price of death to achieve glory among the living: "Do not try to console me about death, Odysseus, do not comfort me! / I would much rather earn a day's wage on earth / by hiring myself out to a man without inheritance or much to live on / than be the king of all the dead, of those who have finished." Odysseus learns his lesson and ends up returning home." Jordi Nopca 12/06/2026 https://en.ara.cat/culture/7-reasons-to-read-the-odyssey_130_5767086.amp.html #metaglossia #metaglossia_mundus
"Hindi will be introduced as an official language in the Assam legislative assembly, alongside Assamese, English and Bodo from the Budget Session starting Monday, Speaker Ranjeet Kumar Dass said.
Addressing a press conference in Guwahati on Sunday, Dass said the decision was taken at the general purpose committee meeting held a day ago.
"The meeting was held on Saturday. It was decided that along with Assamese, English and Bodo, Hindi will be introduced as an official language in the assembly," he said.
"Since Hindi is a 'Rashtra Bhasa', as a sign of respect for it we have decided to introduce it in the House," the Speaker added.
Dass also said the committee had decided to rename ALA TV, which streams the proceedings of the assembly, as 'Assam Bidhan Sabha TV'.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma dismissed speculation that Bodo would be withdrawn as an official language in the assembly.
In a post on X, Sarma said he had been informed by the Speaker that there was no proposal to discontinue the use of Bodo in the assembly.
He said Bodo language is an inseparable part of Assam's rich cultural heritage and identity, adding, "It carries the history, traditions, and aspirations of the Bodo community and enriches the vibrant diversity that defines our state." -- PTI"
https://m.rediff.com/news/commentary/2026/jul/05/hindi-to-be-introduced-as-official-language-in-assam-assembly-speaker/2efd5e164cded2402cae9faa5861f985
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Spain has an island where people speak entirely through whistles, full sentences travel across kilometres of mountain valleys, and every child still learns the language in school
On a small, mountainous island in the Canary archipelago off the coast of northwest Africa, an entire community still communicates using nothing but whistles. The island is called La Gomera, and the whistled language, known as Silbo Gomero, can carry a full sentence across several kilometres of deep mountain ravine, far further than the human voice could ever travel.
It works by replacing every vowel and consonant of Castilian Spanish with a distinct whistling sound, distinguished by pitch and whether the sound is continuous or interrupted, allowing practised whistlers to convey more or less any message they could otherwise say out loud. Long dismissed by outsiders as a simple signalling system, Silbo has since been studied by linguists and neuroscientists, recognised by UNESCO, and is still taught in every school on the island today.
How an entire island learned to speak in whistles
Silbo Gomero developed as a practical solution to a genuine problem, communicating across a landscape that was never built for the human voice. La Gomera is a small volcanic island with steep rocky slopes and deep wooded ravines rising to nearly fifteen hundred metres at its highest peak, and for the shepherds and farmers who once worked its terrain, walking down into one ravine and back up another simply to pass on a message could waste hours of the day.
According to UNESCO's own record of the tradition, the whistled language replicates the islanders' everyday spoken Spanish using two distinct whistles for the five Spanish vowels and four whistles for the consonants, handed down over centuries from master to pupil, and it remains the only whistled language in the world that is fully developed and actively used by a community of more than twenty two thousand people.
Why the whistles carry so much further than a shout
The physical advantage of Silbo over ordinary speech comes down to simple acoustics.
A whistle concentrates sound energy into a narrow, high pitched frequency band that travels much further through open air than the broader, lower frequency range of the human voice, and it also bounces cleanly off the steep rock faces that line La Gomera's ravines rather than getting absorbed or scattered the way spoken words often do in that kind of terrain. Historical accounts of the island describe messages travelling up to five kilometres between hillsides, easily covering the kind of distance that would otherwise require someone to walk for the better part of an hour, and its sheer loudness meant Silbo was traditionally used for public information as much as for private conversation, from announcing market days to letting neighbouring villages know when a ferry had arrived.
What happens inside the brain of a whistler
Long before Silbo caught the attention of conservationists, it caught the attention of neuroscientists curious about how flexible human language processing really is. According to a study published in the journal Nature by Manuel Carreiras and colleagues, brain imaging of proficient whistlers showed that the left temporal lobe, the region normally associated with processing spoken language, became active while listening to Silbo in exactly the way it does for ordinary speech, while this same activation was absent in people who could not understand the whistled language.
The researchers also found that regions in the brain's frontal lobe, typically engaged during spoken language comprehension, responded in a similar way when proficient whistlers listened to Silbo. Their conclusion was striking, the brain's language processing regions can adapt to an unusually wide range of signal types, treating a whistled tune as genuine language rather than simply background sound, so long as the listener has learned to decode it that way.
From near extinction to a compulsory school subject
Despite its practical advantages, Silbo very nearly disappeared during the twentieth century as roads, telephones and mass emigration from the island reduced the everyday need to whistle across a valley. Concerned that the tradition was fading, local authorities on La Gomera declared Silbo part of the island's historical and ethnographic heritage in 1999 and made it a compulsory subject taught in every primary and secondary school, alongside launching an annual event called School Encounters with Silbo Gomero to keep younger generations engaged with the tradition.
The effort paid off, and in 2009 Silbo Gomero was formally inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, recognition that gave the island's preservation campaign both international visibility and a stronger case for continued funding and support.
Why Silbo still matters today
Silbo Gomero today survives as something between a living language and a cultural performance, understood by nearly the entire population of La Gomera and still used during religious festivities and traditional processions known as bajadas, even as its practical, everyday use for long distance messaging has faded alongside the arrival of mobile phones.
It has also become an important part of the island's tourism economy, with restaurants and hotels regularly hosting demonstrations for visitors curious to hear the whistled language in person. For linguists, though, its real significance goes well beyond novelty, Silbo remains one of the clearest living examples anywhere in the world of just how adaptable human language truly is, proof that the brain does not care whether meaning arrives through spoken words or through a carefully pitched whistle carried on the mountain wind, as long as the listener has learned the code."
TOI World Desk / TIMESOFINDIA.COM / Jul 05, 2026, 12:51 IST
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/spain-has-an-island-where-people-speak-entirely-through-whistles-full-sentences-travel-across-kilometres-of-mountain-valleys-and-every-child-still-learns-the-language-in-school/articleshow/132192295.cms
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Dakar, 5 juil (APS) – Des éditeurs en langues nationales ont proposé, samedi, à Dakar, de développer l’édition sénégalaise par la promotion de l’alphabétisation.
L’édition de livres dans les langues sénégalaises ne cesse de faire du chemin, a reconnu la directrice des éditions EJO, Ndèye Codou Fall Diop, tout en estimant qu’il est nécessaire d’apprendre à davantage de personnes à lire et à écrire dans les mêmes langues.
Au Sénégal, ‘’presque tout se fait en français’’ dans l’Administration publique, a-t-elle observé en intervenant à un débat sur ‘’l’édition en langues africaines : enjeux, défis et perspectives’’, à l’occasion de l’anniversaire de la bibliothèque dakaroise ‘’Teere ak teraanga’’.
Le français ‘’n’est pourtant pas la langue de communication de nombreux Sénégalais’’, a signalé Mme Diop lors de ce débat, une initiative de l’Association culturelle pour la renaissance africaine.
La directrice des éditions EJO, qui enseigne le wolof au CESTI, souhaite que les autorités du pays s’attèlent à une alphabétisation massive des Sénégalais en langues nationales.
Ceux qui savent lire et écrire dans les langues locales s’intéressent aux livres publiés dans les mêmes langues, ce qui augmente les tirages des maisons d’édition, a laissé entendre Ndèye Codou Fall Diop.
‘’Éditer, c’est important, mais cela n’a pas de sens s’il n’y a pas assez de lecteurs’’, a-t-elle soutenu, proposant d’apprendre les langues nationales aux enfants.
Les prix des livres en langues nationales peuvent baisser, s’il existe des lecteurs en grand nombre, a laissé entendre Mme Diop.
L’alphabétisation est utile non seulement pour l’édition en langues nationales, mais pour transmettre aussi ‘’les valeurs et les savoirs’’ aux futures générations, selon l’éditeur et écrivain Mamadou Ndiaye.
‘’La souveraineté dont on parle passe nécessairement par nos langues nationales’’, a ajouté M. Ndiaye.
La présidente de l’Association des juristes sénégalaises, Aminata Fall Niang, pense que les textes relatifs aux droits et aux devoirs des citoyens doivent être traduits dans les langues sénégalaises et africaines, et ces langues enseignées à davantage de personnes.
L’écrivain Marouba Fall, qui dit s’être mis récemment à l’écriture du wolof, souhaite que les autorités du pays incitent les Sénégalais à s’intéresser davantage à la lecture et à l’écriture des langues nationales.
FKS/ESF"
https://aps.sn/des-editeurs-proposent-dalphabetiser-davantage-pour-booster-ledition-en-langues-nationales/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Enhancing the linguistic and instrumental competence of trainee interpreters in tertiary Institutions
"Abstract
This corpus-based study aims to investigate the interpreting competence of Arabic-English interpreters through the design and analysis of a simultaneous interpretation corpus. The corpus is composed of some speeches that have been interpreted by interpreters of well-known Arabic channels such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. It is the contention of this study that the problems that interpreters encounter are not only linguistic, but they could be cultural, technical or psycho-physiological. The study analyses the parallel corpus with a view to finding the linguistic and extralinguistic (i.e., cultural, encyclopaedic, and subject-specific) problems (if any) that interpreters encountered while rendering these speeches from Arabic into English and vice versa as well as the strategies they employed in the process of interpreting. It relies on a qualitative approach to analyse the parallel interpreting corpus. In addition, it investigates psycho-physiological aspects of interpreting such as saturation and external pressures to ascertain the impact it has on the performance of interpreters, how this can be addressed during training and how Computer Aided/Assisted Interpreting (CAI)/Computer-assisted interpreter training (CAIT) tools can enhance the competence of the would be interpreters. The study uses an eclectic theoretical and conceptual framework that draws insight from the key models of interpreting competence (Beeby et al., 2009, 2011, NAATI, 2016) Gravitational Model of Language Availability (Gile, 2009), social constructivist learning theory and instructional design models (Ghani and Daud, 2018). The problems identified in the end-product, and the multidisciplinary inquiry guides the design of technology-mediated training materials or training prototype that can enhance the linguistic and extra-linguistic competence of interpreters.
Keywords
Interpreting, instrumental, linguistic, extra-linguistic, competence, Arabic
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/10566/24811
Collections
Magister Artium - MA (Foreign Languages)"
Date
2026
Authors
Salasa, Gadeeja S
Publisher
University of the Western Cape
https://uwcscholar.uwc.ac.za/items/80376648-76d8-4172-826c-a6e6290e120a
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"“El odio es el mecanismo político fundamental”: Eduardo Rabasa, traductor de ‘1984’
Entrevista
Eduardo Rabasa conversa sobre su traducción, la primera en México, de ‘Mil novecientos ochenta y cuatro’, la novela de George Orwell.
Mil novecientos ochenta y cuatro, la novela distópica más importante del siglo XX y la más representativa del británico George Orwell, es traducida en México por primera vez. La versión al idioma español que hablamos en nuestro país fue realizada por el escritor, traductor y editor Eduardo Rabasa, un sueño que se cumple después de treinta años. El fundador de la Editorial Sexto Piso lleva a Orwell tatuado en el brazo izquierdo y ha leído unas once veces la novela de este autor visionario nacido en la India. George Orwell, seudónimo de Eric Arthur Blair, supo descifrar, como pocos, los mecanismos del poder, el carácter frágil de la verdad en la era de las ideologías y la manipulación del lenguaje como arma de control. Big Brother o Gran Hermano, Newspeak o neolengua, así como Thought police o policía del pensamiento, fueron términos creados por Orwell para describir el mundo y la sociedad que imaginó en esta novela cuya actualidad es sorprendente.
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¿Cómo entraste en la obra de George Orwell?
En la Facultad de Ciencias Políticas de la UNAM, una maestra, Tere Lozada, me dio The Lost Writings, una colección de escritos perdidos de Orwell. Me seguí con Mil novecientos ochenta y cuatro y Rebelión en la granja. Esas lecturas cambiaron mi forma de ver el mundo, sobre todo, la realidad política. Hice mi tesis sobre Orwell y me eché un par de años leyéndolo. Desde entonces se volvió un autor muy importante para mí.
¿Qué te impresionó de su escritura?
El uso del lenguaje. Es un tema importante en Orwell, así como la relación entre lenguaje y pensamiento que en este libro está muy presente. En un ensayo Politics and English Language reitera cómo el lenguaje determina buena parte de lo que pensamos. Su prosa es refinada y pulcra, pero al mismo tiempo es simple. Ahí radica su elegancia, en la economía del lenguaje.
¿Por qué decides traducir esta novela?
Era una idea que siempre tuve. Había traducido sus ensayos y su Diario de guerra, pero esta es la obra cumbre, por lo menos para mí. Ahora que pasó a dominio público fue la oportunidad perfecta para cumplir mi sueño de toda la vida. Estuvo bien que pasara un tiempo porque me sentí más preparado para traducirla. Es una obra de gran complejidad.
¿A qué te enfrentaste durante la traducción?
Primero al peso de lo que estaba traduciendo. Además, es un libro muy traducido y pensé: para qué una más. Es una versión traducida en México y ahí está la diferencia. Me parece bien abonar desde del español que aquí hablamos. Por otra parte, hay muchos giros del lenguaje que no se traducen de manera exacta debido a las diferencias en la conjugación de verbos en inglés. Por ejemplo, hay palabras compuestas de la neolengua inventada por Orwell que en inglés tienen sentido, pero cuando pasan al español quedan excesivamente largas. Siempre digo que traducir es meterte a las entrañas de un libro, sobre todo en una novela como esta.
Meterse a fondo en la maquinaria de George Orwell debe ser fascinante. ¿Hubo algo que te haya sorprendido?
Van diez u once veces que la leo. Me llamaron la atención los breves pasajes que tienen lugar en el campo, cuando el personaje recuerda su niñez. Siendo una novela que ocurre en una ciudad gris, fea, sucia, en los pasajes del campo Orwell se permite una especie de homenaje a lo bucólico. También me llamó la atención que casi al final, cuando Winston está solo en el café donde lo torturan y lo emborrachan y ya con la mente transformada, se pone a garabatear con el dedo y escribe sobre la mesa 2 + 2 =. Orwell no lo cierra. En otras traducciones sí está 2 + 2 = 5, pero en el original Orwell lo deja abierto. Según yo, se trata de un gesto de esperanza, pues en su fuero interno el personaje no se atreve a decirse a sí mismo 2 + 2 es igual a 5. Luego está el título, que en casi todas las ediciones en español lo traducen con número, 1984, pero el original está con letras. Me parece que fue intencional. En el libro se habla mucho de cómo los acrónimos evocan una cosa y el lenguaje extendido otra. Por eso en el partido se la pasan recortando el lenguaje, para hacer más conciso y acotado el rango de pensamiento. El hecho de que el título sea extendido tiene, según yo, la intención de evocar un paisaje más amplio en la novela; por eso decidí ponerlo con letras.
El Partido Único de la Sociedad de Oceanía nos dice mucho de lo que podría pasar en el futuro o ya está pasando en algunos gobiernos que tienden al totalitarismo.
Orwell tenía en mente al partido nazi y al régimen soviético. Por desgracia, a lo largo de la historia se ha repetido el fenómeno. Es la vocación de Trump. Se supone que Estados Unidos es la gran democracia, el faro de libertad del mundo occidental, pero él ha dicho en varias ocasiones que le encantaría perpetuarse en el poder, o sea, ser un dictador o fundar una dinastía como en el régimen chino. Lo dijo hace poco: “Me gustaría entregarle el poder a mi hijo”. Cosas que parecerían muy locas en voz de la máxima democracia del mundo con un líder que claramente se comporta e incluso se considera un Big Brother.
Resulta fascinante cómo ciertos autores tienen la capacidad de adelantarse a un tiempo, de imaginar un futuro. ¿Qué vio Orwell?
En su ensayo How I Write, cuenta que desde los cinco años descubrió una vocación literaria y habla del poema de William Blake y el tigre. Pero también dice que uno de sus rasgos distintivos como escritor es la capacidad de ver cosas que los demás no ven. Y no es que no puedan, sino que no están dispuestos a aceptarlas. Es el concepto del “doble pensar”, la idea que nos hacemos de ciertos aspectos de la realidad que si los tomáramos literalmente resultarían apabullantes. Orwell no tenía eso, estaba dispuesto a llevar el pensamiento a sus últimas consecuencias, aunque no le gustara la conclusión a la que llegaba. Recordemos que le tocó vivir una época convulsa: las dos guerras mundiales, el nazismo, el ascenso del régimen soviético. Le tocaron fenómenos extremos y tenía esa capacidad de escribir tal como veía las cosas. No necesitaba hacerse piruetas mentales para acomodarse a un sistema de pensamiento u otro, a un partido u otro. Tenía una gran honestidad y ese rasgo distintivo le permitió ver cosas que poca gente veía y que incluso siguen vigentes en nuestras sociedades.
Por ejemplo, el modo en que se ha degradado el lenguaje en el espacio público, lo que hoy vemos en algunos discursos políticos.
Estamos viviendo la literalidad de lo que era ficción para Orwell. Mucho de la comunicación política actual, de los grandes centros de poder como la presidencia de Estados Unidos, la de Argentina, el candidato de Colombia, sucede a través del insulto. Miley dice: “Zurdos de mierda, los vamos a joder”; eso es desde el más alto centro de poder. Es algo muy orwelliano porque el insulto es una expresión de pensamiento simple, sin complejidad, dirigida a desatar una emoción, una respuesta catártica de histeria, de odio, incluso de rechazo. Esa degradación del lenguaje tiene una connotación política muy clara que Orwell pudo ver. Muchos de estos movimientos y grotescos personajes políticos, dicen: yo le hablo a la gente en su propio lenguaje, Buscan un lenguaje con efecto político a partir de ideas sencillas y simplificando fenómenos muy complejos.
El Big Brother, ese ente oculto que nos ve día y noche, ¿también es algo que experimentamos?
El tema de la vigilancia tomó fuerza desde el 11 de septiembre, cuando George Bush coartó las libertades civiles; luego vinieron las revelaciones de Snowden sobre cómo nos espiaban. Tenemos la vigilancia gubernamental, pero también la vigilancia, muchas veces voluntaria, de los aparatos inteligentes y las redes sociales. Es como un Big Brother autoalimentado por uno mismo. Cuando dices algo o te detienes en cierta información, de pronto ya te están inundando con eso. Lo mismo cuando subes un post: te la pasas checando si ya lo vieron, si no lo vieron, si tiene like, si te critican, si mejor lo bajas. Lo que en su momento parecía ciencia ficción, como las telepantallas en los hogares donde te transmitían propaganda y te veían, es muy parecido a lo que hacemos con las camaritas: nos estamos autovigilando todo el tiempo. Ya no es solo el Estado, es la propia sociedad colaborando. Las telepantallas de Orwell son hoy las cámaras de las redes sociales. La diferencia es que las prendemos voluntariamente.
¿Cuál piensas que es la gran profecía en Mil novecientos ochenta y cuatro?
La gran profecía es haberse dado cuenta de que el odio es el mecanismo político fundamental. Incluso en regímenes democráticos donde se cuenta con la voluntad o la participación del individuo común, hay una idea muy acertada cuando dice que, en su vida cotidiana, la gente es muy razonable. Si va al supermercado con diez libras, sabe que le alcanza para comprar tal y tal cosa; no hay duda. En cambio, cuando se habla de política, las categorías racionales de esa misma persona se trastocan, es capaz de entrar en ciertos estados de histeria o de odio que son inducidos desde el poder. Creo que la universalidad de ese mecanismo fue muy profética. Podríamos pensar que solo está asociado a regímenes totalitarios, pero te das cuenta de que no. Si lo vemos en el ámbito del poder político, en las redes sociales sucede lo mismo. El odio es el alimento de muchas personas dispuestas a destruir vidas sin importar las consecuencias con tal de probar el efecto de esa pequeña descarga que sacará un momento de mí.
Es interesante descubrir la claridad con la que detectó los resortes del poder.
Al final, hay una revelación entre el héroe caído en desgracia y su torturador, que le dice: “A ver, ¿por qué crees que hacemos todo esto?” Cuando Winston responde: “Me vas a decir que es por nuestro propio bien”, le da una descarga eléctrica y le dice:“No digas estupideces, lo hacemos por el poder puro. Los totalitarismos del pasado se engañaban supeditando el ejercicio del poder a un fin, a la grandeza del pueblo, por ejemplo, pero nosotros no. Para nosotros, es el poder por el poder desnudo, por el puro placer del ejercicio del poder”. Suena muy fuerte. En el caso de algunos regímenes políticos, no te explicas ciertos actos sino a partir de esa categoría. ¿Cómo puedes justificar racionalmente que metan a niños en jaulas para deportarlos? Eso es sadismo puro, no encuentro otra palabra. Creo que Orwell lo vio claramente."
Guadalupe Alonso Coratella
Ciudad de México / 03.07.2026 14:06:36
https://amp.milenio.com/cultura/laberinto/eduardo-rabasa-reto-traducir-1984-distopia-actual
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Taiwan-Ireland Poetry Translation Competition 2026 - Call for Entries
The deadline for submissions is 1 September 2026
Entries from translators at all stages of their careers and from anywhere in the world are welcome
"Organized by The Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation, in partnership with the National Museum of Taiwan Literature in Taiwan, this annual competition celebrates the rich linguistic and literary traditions of Taiwan and Ireland, encouraging translators to explore connections between different poetic cultures and to bring new voices to readers across languages.
This year's competition features three short poems by Jocelyn Wen (温若喬), a poet who writes in the Taiwanese language: 〈相辭〉 Sio-sî, 〈無聲無說〉 Bô-siann-bô-sueh, 〈行跤花〉 Kiânn-kha-hue
Entries from translators at all stages of their careers and from anywhere in the world are welcome. Whether you are an experienced literary translator, a student, a poet, or someone with a passion for languages, you are encouraged to engage creatively with these remarkable poems.
Deadline for Entries
The deadline for submissions is 1 September 2026.
For further details please visit https://www.tcd.ie/literary-translation/upcoming-events/";
Post Date:2026-07-04
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https://www.roc-taiwan.org/ie_en/post/5749.html
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"Prize money for the winning book double from £50,000 to £100,000, to be split equally between the author and translator(s).
Shortlisted titles will continue to be awarded a prize of £5,000 (also split between author and translator).
The announcement comes as the International Booker Prize, which has established itself as the world’s most influential award for translated fiction, celebrates its 10th year. Since its launch in 2016, officials said the prize has celebrated 11 winners writing in 11 different languages and driven a 31% increase in sales of translated fiction in the U.K.
Daria Bukhman
The move comes after Bukhman Philanthropies supported the prize in 2026. Furthermore, in recognition of the decade-long funding commitment, the prize will be named the Bukhman International Booker Prize. Under the arrangement, officials said Bukhman has committed to providing £1.4 million annually for the International Booker Prize, “to enable the Booker Prize Foundation to engage more readers with the world’s best translated fiction and to support the translated fiction ecosystem” over the next decade.
“Some of the books that deeply influenced me growing up were translated fiction. It was through these works that I first understood the world is larger than any single perspective,” said Daria Bukhman, Co-Founder and Chair of Bukhman Philanthropies, in a statement. “Supporting this prize over the next decade is deeply personal to me. In a world increasingly shaped by speed, distraction, and massive advancement in AI, translated fiction asks us to slow down, to listen, and to understand lives unlike our own.”
The additional funding will also enable the Booker Prize Foundation to continue gifting 500 sets of each year’s shortlist to libraries across the U.K. through The Reading Agency; “improve access” to the nominated books through the Booker Prize Foundation and National Literacy Trust’s prison reading program Books Unlocked; and support Braille and audio editions of the winning International Booker Prize books.
In addition, officials said the prize will develop “new initiatives to support translators in building their craft, forging meaningful connections, and bringing a wider range of international works to new and younger audiences.”
“Bukhman Philanthropies’ commitment has the power to reshape not only the future of the prize, but the landscape of literature itself, elevating writers and translators whose stories connect us more deeply to one another across cultures, borders, and experiences,” said Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, in a statement. “As we look towards the next decade of the prize, we do so with a deep sense of responsibility and hope.”
Prize officials said Crankstart, the charitable foundation of Sir Michael Moritz KBE and Harriet Heyman that provides academic scholarships to low-income students, and which has supported Booker Prize Foundation’s work since 2019, will continue to fund the foundation’s work. (For more information on how the Booker Prize Foundation is funded see here).
2027 Judges Announced
In addition to the funding news, the International Booker Prize this week announced the judges for the Bukhman International Booker Prize 2027.
The 2027 Bukhman International Booker Prize judging panel (from left): Caleb Azumah Nelson, Olga Ravn, Katie Kitamura, Patrick McGuinness, Tessa Thompson.
The panel includes: Booker Prize-shortlisted author Katie Kitamura as Chair; Booker Prize-longlisted writer, translator and Professor of French and Comparative Literature Patrick McGuinness; filmmaker and Sunday Times bestselling author Caleb Azumah Nelson; translator and International Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist Olga Ravn; and award-winning actor and producer Tessa Thompson.
The award seeks long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the U.K. and/or Ireland between May 1, 2026, and April 30, 2027. A longlist of of 12 or 13 books will be announced on Tuesday, 16 March 2027 with a shortlist of six books to follow on April 15, 2027. The winning book will then be announced at a ceremony in May 2027. Rules and submission guidelines are available here.
“Translation represents a dialogue between two minds. The Bukhman International Booker Prize offers readers the opportunity to experience the profound encounter between author and translator. As a prize, it is exemplary in the way it recognizes the work of both participants. The celebration and support of this intrinsically human collaboration feels particularly vital right now.”
About the Author
Andrew Albanese
Andrew Richard Albanese is the editor-in-chief of 'Publishing Perspectives' and founder and editor of 'Words & Money,' a media site that centers the role of libraries in the 21st Century publishing business. A veteran library and publishing industry reporter, he has previously worked for 'Publishers Weekly' and 'Library Journal,' where he was widely known for his in-depth coverage of the Google Books and Apple E-book price-fixing cases, developments in the digital library market, book bans and freedom to read issues, the open access movement, and copyright issues. He is a former associate editor at Oxford University Press, and the author of 'The Battle of $9.99: How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight.'"
https://publishingperspectives.com/2026/07/booker-prize-foundation-adds-new-funding-partner-will-double-top-prize-money/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"This study examines the sentiment translatability of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows through comparative analysis of the English original and four Chinese translations—two by human translators and two by neural machine translation systems. By integrating the NRC emotion lexicon with the DUTIR Chinese sentiment dictionary, we construct four core metrics (polarity, intensity, density and complexity) to develop the Sentiment Fidelity Index (SFI), which quantifies how faithfully translations preserve the source text’s affective structure. Results reveal substantial differences in sentiment fidelity across translation approaches. Human translations demonstrate distinct strategies: Yang’s version achieves the highest SFI, maintaining 94% of the original’s emotional complexity and closely mirroring chapter-level emotional arcs, while Ren’s translation adopts an emotion-amplifying strategy, increasing overall sentiment intensity by 15% but reducing complexity. Both machine-translated versions exhibit systematic weakening effects, with 24% average loss in emotional complexity and tendency to neutralize strongly affective expressions. The analysis reveals a hierarchy of sentiment translatability, with joy showing the highest retention and disgust the lowest. While machine translation has advanced in syntactic accuracy, it continues to lag in conveying emotional nuance. This study broadens methodological scope in children’s literature translation research while providing theoretical grounding and empirical evidence for improving machine translation of sentiment-sensitive texts."
Published: 03 July 2026
Lost in algorithmic translation? A quantitative analysis of sentimental differences between human and machine translation of the children’s literature classic The Wind in the Willows
Yuhao Liang & Xiao Zhang
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2026)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-08201-z
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Eljay Castro Deldoc is a Palanca award-winning playwright, director, and translator
"Yemaya is unlike any play being staged in the Philipping theater circuit today, and that’s exactly what director Ed Lacson Jr. set out to do.
As 9 Works Theatrical’s first attempt at a straight play, Yemaya is a triumph for stage, sound, and lights design. The Black Box at The Proscenium Theater in Rockwell is transformed into an otherworldly space, like a cavern at the bottom of the ocean. The audience is immersed in a world swathed in blue hues and warm sunshine that seems to be situated somewhere on sand and below sea. Set pieces float and sink like anchors from above. A beautiful soundscape ripples throughout the theater space. Everyday items like dominos and coconuts, feathers and rice, and SPAM and Coca-Cola become the focal points of emotionally charged choreography.
Nothing less is to be expected from Lacson. He is a multiple Gawad Buhay Award winner, two of which he won Outstanding Stage Direction and Outstanding Set Design for his last directorial work for 9Works Theatrical, Himala: Isang Musikal. Building worlds on stage through imagery and scenic design is his greatest love and biggest strength. It is what attracted him to Yemaya’s Belly in the first place when he first encountered the obscure but beautiful script by Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes.
“I knew it was going to be a difficult material to do. But it has a lot to offer as a material to a director because of the images it conjures in your mind, and then how you’re going to use your imagination to create this world that [Hudes] painted for you.”
MAGIC IN EVERY SCENE. Benedix Ramos as Jesus/Mulo performs on a stage that feels like its own very real world. Photo by Dan Esguerra
The play follows a boy overcoming hardships with persistence and imagination, leading him to hop on a raft to sail towards the United States of America, a land of dreams, wonders and the promise of a fresh start. Hudes’ storytelling is rooted in magical realism, where a sip of Coca-Cola becomes a mystical experience and voices from the sea call their children to them. It is also grounded in very real experiences of domestic life, death, displacement, and immigration. If the Odyssey is about a hero’s journey home, this epic is about what it takes to leave it behind.
The material checked all the boxes Lacson was looking for in a comeback production after years away at sea working on cruise ships. Choosing an obscure but beautiful work by a non-white female playwright allowed him to introduce a new voice to Philippine theater as well as exercise his scenic design muscles. But there was just one more hurdle they needed to overcome: the play is in English.
Filipino, but not the Philippines
“I was very specific to do [this production] in Tagalog. That was a non-negotiable for me. So luckily, 9Works was brave enough and kind enough to just accommodate my request and I asked Eljay, of course, to translate for me.”
Eljay Castro Deldoc is a Palanca award-winning playwright, director, and translator. His celebrated work, Si Maria Isabella at ang Guryon ng mga Tala, led to his first collaboration with Lacson, who directed a production of it back in 2015. Lacson describes Deldoc’s command of the Filipino language as masterful.
“The lyricism that Eljay uses is on that fine line of accessible but not too colloquial. It’s an elevated way of using the Tagalog language, which I think is very beautiful.”
However, Deldoc’s challenge was not simply translating the material to Filipino, but fulfilling both his responsibility to the original playwright and upholding the trust and vision of his director.
“Yes, confident ako sa pag-handle ko ng Filipino language. Pero siyempre, di ko rin alam kung anong naririnig ni Ed sa vision niya, sa imagination niya. Malinaw sa akin na ang ise-serve ko ay si Alegria [Hudes] tapos si Ed, silang dalawa. I have to be faithful [to the source material] dahil translation siya tapos pagdating naman kay Ed, kailangan kong ma-capture kung ano man ang naiimagine niya na feeling niya kaya kong i-deliver.”
(Yes, I’m confident in my grasp of the Filipino language. But of course, I didn’t know what Ed hears in his vision, in his imagination. It’s clear to me that I will serve Alegría Hudes and Ed, the two of them. I have to be faithful to the source material since it’s a translation, and when it comes to Ed, I have to capture what in his imagination that he feels I can deliver.)"
https://www.rappler.com/people/human-interest/yemaya-play-english-filipino-translation/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Finnish translator of Polish literature wins 2026 Transatlantyk Prize
Tapani Kärkkäinen, an acclaimed translator of Polish literature into Finnish, has received the 2026 Transatlantyk Prize from the Polish Book Institute.
Tapani Kärkkäinen, winner of the 2026 Transatlantyk Prize.Kuba Ociepa/Polish Book Institute
The annual award recognises the most outstanding promoters of Polish literature and culture abroad — translators, publishers or critics.
The prize was presented at a gala ceremony on the second day of the World Congress of Translators of Polish Literature in Kraków, southern Poland.
Grzegorz Jankowicz, director of the Book Institute, said that thanks to Kärkkäinen, "Polish literature is present in Finland today, not only in bookstores but also on theatre stages."
He added that the translator's "commitment to bringing Polish culture closer to Finns also includes his own books, notably guides to the cultural heritage of Warsaw and Kraków."
Born in 1962, Kärkkäinen has translated books by Nobel Prize-winning author Olga Tokarczuk, Ryszard Kapuściński, Hanna Krall, Andrzej Sapkowski, Bruno Schulz, Wojciech Szabłowski and Wojciech Tochman, as well as stage plays by, among others, Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, Sławomir Mrożek and Tadeusz Słobodzianek.
His translation of Tokarczuk's Bieguni (English title: Flights) won him the Mikael Agricola Prize, a prestigious Finnish literary award.
Past recipients of the Transatlantyk Prize include Anders Bodegård (Sweden), Albrecht Lempp (Germany), Ksenia Starosielska (Russia), Bill Johnston (United States), Lajos Pálfalvi (Hungary), Antonia Lloyd-Jones (United Kingdom), Ewa Thompson (Poland) and Tokimasa Sekiguchi (Japan).
(mk/ał)
Source: Polish Book Institute"
04.07.2026
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7791/Artykul/3705092,finnish-translator-of-polish-literature-wins-2026-transatlantyk-prize
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Intelligence artificielle : pourquoi Le Caire et Kigali unissent leurs forces
L’Égypte et le Rwanda veulent accélérer leur coopération dans l’intelligence artificielle. Les deux pays cherchent à peser dans la définition d’une voie africaine de l’IA, au moment où le Maroc, le Kenya ou encore l’Afrique du Sud avancent eux aussi leurs pions.
La rencontre s’est tenue le 29 juin au Caire. La ministre rwandaise des TIC et de l’Innovation, Paula Ingabire, y a été reçue par son homologue égyptien des Communications et des Technologies de l’information, Raafat Hindi. Les deux gouvernements ont convenu de préparer un protocole d’accord dans le secteur des technologies de l’information, appelé à encadrer une coopération plus large entre administrations, universités, centres de recherche et acteurs de l’innovation.
Des projets pilotes dans la santé, l’agriculture et les services publics
Les discussions ont porté sur le lancement de projets pilotes utilisant l’IA dans plusieurs secteurs jugés prioritaires dont la santé, l’agriculture, les services publics numériques et les technologies adaptées aux langues locales. L’objectif affiché est de produire des résultats mesurables, au-delà des grands discours sur la transformation numérique.
Chaque partenaire arrive avec ses arguments. L’Égypte s’appuie sur sa stratégie nationale d’intelligence artificielle 2025-2030, qui fait de l’IA un levier de modernisation économique, de formation et de services publics. Le pays dispose déjà de hubs technologiques, d’instituts de formation et d’une ambition assumée de leadership régional.
Le Rwanda, lui, cultive depuis plusieurs années son image de laboratoire numérique africain. Kigali a récemment approuvé la création d’une Agence nationale de l’intelligence artificielle, chargée de coordonner les investissements, l’innovation, l’adoption et la gouvernance de ces technologies. En avril 2025, le pays avait aussi accueilli le premier Sommet mondial de l’IA en Afrique, qui a réuni plus de 1 000 participants venus de plus de 90 pays, selon le PNUD Rwanda.
Une compétition africaine déjà bien engagée
Ce tandem égypto-rwandais s’inscrit dans un paysage continental de plus en plus concurrentiel. Le Maroc investit fortement dans l’IA, notamment autour de l’Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique (UM6P), du centre AI Movement et de solutions appliquées à l’agriculture de précision, comme AgriEdge. Rabat veut aussi développer ses capacités de calcul, ses data centers souverains et la formation de talents.
Le Kenya, de son côté, mise sur son écosystème numérique, ses startups, ses infrastructures et sa capacité à attirer les talents. Dans l’AI Talent Readiness Index for Africa 2025, le pays occupe la 4e place, derrière l’Afrique du Sud, la Tunisie et l’Égypte, mais devant Maurice, le Rwanda et le Ghana. Le Maroc y apparaît en 9e position, ce qui confirme à la fois son potentiel et la marge qui lui reste pour structurer son vivier de compétences.
Face à ces trajectoires différentes, Le Caire et Kigali font le choix de la complémentarité : poids démographique, industriel et universitaire côté égyptien et agilité réglementaire et capacité d’expérimentation côté rwandais.
Faire émerger une voix africaine sur l’IA
Au-delà des projets bilatéraux, l’enjeu est aussi diplomatique. L’Égypte et le Rwanda veulent promouvoir une approche africaine de l’intelligence artificielle, fondée sur la responsabilité, l’inclusion et le développement durable. Les deux pays entendent également mieux coordonner leurs positions dans les forums régionaux et internationaux consacrés à la gouvernance de l’IA.
Alors que les grandes puissances technologiques imposent déjà leurs modèles, leurs plateformes et leurs normes, l’alliance entre Le Caire et Kigali envoie un signal politique. L’Afrique cherche à former ses talents, protéger ses données, adapter l’IA à ses langues et à ses besoins, et peser dans les règles du jeu mondial.
La bataille du leadership africain de l’intelligence artificielle ne fait que commencer. Mais elle se joue déjà entre laboratoires, ministères, data centers, universités et diplomatie. Dans cette course, l’Égypte et le Rwanda viennent clairement d’accélérer."
Kofi Ndale
5 juillet 2026
https://www.afrik.com/intelligence-artificielle-pourquoi-le-caire-et-kigali-unissent-leurs-forces
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Suppression en masse des filières langues au profit de l'IA
"Plusieurs dizaines d'universités chinoises ont supprimé des programmes de langues étrangères au cours des derniers mois. Un rapport du gouvernement chinois, publiée en mai 2026 et portant sur 70 établissements, a ainsi documenté des coupes sévères dans ces disciplines. Car les outils de traduction par IA menacent directement les débouchés des diplômés en langues. Le gouvernement chinois a donc engagé une refonte à grande échelle de l'enseignement supérieur.
Huit filières de japonais supprimées dans les universités chinoises en un an
Le cabinet éducatif MyCOS a analysé les changements annoncés par ces établissements. Huit cursus de japonais ont disparu des catalogues, ainsi que cinq en allemand et cinq en traduction. Ces disciplines figuraient pourtant parmi les formations à la croissance la plus rapide en Chine. Le développement du commerce international après 2001 avait alimenté cette expansion sur plus de dix ans.
Le gouvernement a aussi revu des milliers de programmes dans d'autres secteurs. En 2025, seize cursus de marketing ont été retirés de l'échantillon étudié. Le commerce en ligne, longtemps porté par Alibaba et JD.com, avait déjà subi des coupes entre 2020 et 2024 après le ralentissement de l'économie numérique. Plus de 30 % des diplômes du premier cycle ont ainsi été modifiés entre 2021 et 2025.
Pékin impose 38 nouveaux diplômes centrés sur l'intelligence artificielle
En avril 2026, le ministère de l'Éducation a approuvé 38 nouvelles formations pour la rentrée. Neuf campus, dont l'Institut de technologie de Harbin et l'université Beihang, accueilleront des étudiants en « intelligence incarnée ». Cette discipline forme aux technologies d'IA physique, notamment la conception de robots humanoïdes et de machines autonomes capables de percevoir leur environnement. Le catalogue officiel compte désormais 883 diplômes répartis en 13 catégories.
Les autres programmes couvrent l'IA commerciale, l'ingénierie des semi-conducteurs et la gestion de l'économie dite de « basse altitude ». Par ailleurs, Ao Manyun, enseignante en traduction à Pékin, a reconfiguré son cours de swahili vieux de soixante ans. Ses étudiants remettaient en cause l'utilité de la traduction humaine face aux performances des outils automatiques. Ils apprennent désormais à piloter et évaluer ces systèmes plutôt qu'à traduire eux-mêmes.
Les universités chinoises redessinent l'enseignement supérieur mondial
Aux États-Unis, les masters en intelligence artificielle ont aussi presque doublé entre 2022 et 2026. Quelque 304 établissements américains proposent désormais des diplômes en IA, dont 193 au niveau licence. Mais le modèle américain reste décentralisé et chaque université décide seule de ses propres offres sans approbation gouvernementale.
Certains dirigeants de la tech américaine défendent pourtant la valeur des sciences humaines. Jensen Huang, PDG de Nvidia, a qualifié l'anglais de filière « potentiellement la plus performante ». Car cette discipline serait, selon lui, le véritable langage de programmation de l'IA. Le gestionnaire d'actifs BlackRock a de son côté indiqué privilégier les diplômés en histoire et en lettres lors de ses recrutements.
Yingyi Ma, professeure de sociologie à l'université de Syracuse, estime néanmoins que Pékin pourrait « sous-évaluer certaines disciplines avant d'en comprendre l'importance à long terme ». La Chine fait face à un chômage des 16-24 ans de 15,6 % et doit absorber 12,7 millions de diplômés cette année. Les premiers étudiants formés en intelligence incarnée dans les universités chinoises arriveront sur le marché du travail à partir de 2028."
05 Juil 2026
Auriane Polge
https://www.science-et-vie.com/technos-et-futur/les-universites-chinoises-suppriment-en-masse-les-filieres-de-langues-au-profit-des-cursus-sur-lintelligence-artificielle-247603.html
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
Une expérience en Australie et des tests sur les couleurs montrent comment la langue oriente nos automatismes mentaux sans enfermer la pensée.
"Votre langue maternelle manipule radicalement votre perception de la réalité...? Entre l’intuition de Benjamin Lee Whorf et la critique de Steven Pinker, les études récentes dessinent une réponse nuancée : nos langues ne nous enferment pas, elles tracent des habitudes de pensée.
Des Aborigènes alignent le temps selon les points cardinaux, des russophones trient les bleus plus vite que vous. Que révèle votre langue de vos réflexes de pensée les plus secrets ?
Depuis près d’un siècle, linguistes et philosophes se demandent si la langue que nous parlons change notre façon de penser. Dans un village aborigène du nord de l’Australie, quand on demande à des habitants de ranger des images où un homme vieillit ou un crocodile grandit, ils les alignent spontanément d’est en ouest, quel que soit l’endroit où ils sont assis. Pour un francophone, ce geste demande un effort conscient.
Ces habitants sont les Kuuk Thaayorre de Pormpuraaw. Lera Boroditsky et Alice Gaby ont montré en 2010 dans Psychological Science que leur langue, qui parle toujours en points cardinaux, les conduit à organiser le temps sur un axe est-ouest. Entre l’intuition de Benjamin Lee Whorf et la critique de Steven Pinker, les études récentes dessinent une réponse nuancée : nos langues ne nous enferment pas, elles tracent des habitudes de pensée.
De Benjamin Lee Whorf à Steven Pinker : le vieux débat relancé
Dans les années 1930-1940, Benjamin Lee Whorf avance que la langue structure nos expériences, au point que certaines catégories de pensée dépendraient des catégories grammaticales. Plus tard, Steven Pinker défend dans The Language Instinct l’idée d’un code mental indépendant, le « mentalese » : la langue serait l’habillage de la pensée, pas son squelette.
Les expériences contemporaines déplacent le débat. En 2007, Jonathan Winawer et ses collègues montrent dans PNAS que des russophones distinguent plus vite deux bleus quand l’un est goluboy (clair) et l’autre siniy (foncé). L’avantage disparaît dès qu’on leur occupe la « petite voix intérieure » avec une suite de chiffres. La langue ne crée pas de nouvelles couleurs, elle rend certaines frontières plus rapides à percevoir.
Espace, temps… et ce que les mots révèlent de nous
Chez les Kuuk Thaayorre, décrits par Lera Boroditsky et Alice Gaby, on ne dit pas « à gauche » mais « au nord » ou « au sud ». Pour parler, il faut donc savoir à chaque instant où se trouve l’est. Le même schéma sert pour le temps : les suites d’images vont d’est vers l’ouest, alors que des anglophones les ordonnent de gauche à droite et des hébréophones de droite à gauche. Le temps emprunte la forme spatiale proposée par la langue.
Les philosophes rappellent que cette influence va jusque dans notre vie intérieure. Maurice Merleau-Ponty écrit : « Nous nous donnons notre pensée par la parole ». Julien Auriach résume, à propos du langage, que la « diversité des langues est aussi une diversité des regards sur le monde ». Pour Sigmund Freud, le « moi n’est pas maître en sa propre maison » : les lapsus, ces mots qui « sortent tout seuls », montrent que des couches inconscientes s’emparent aussi de notre langue.
Des habitudes mentales, pas une prison pour la pensée
Les études citées par GE Editing insistent sur un point : tout ce qui est possible pour un locuteur l’est pour un autre, mais pas toujours avec le même effort. Les russophones peuvent apprendre d’autres découpes du bleu ; les anglophones peuvent ordonner le temps d’est en ouest ; les Kuuk Thaayorre peuvent utiliser « à gauche » si on leur enseigne. Ce qui change, c’est le réflexe spontané, surtout quand l’esprit est occupé.
Lera Boroditsky écrit dans Scientific American que les « formes de pensée disponibles pour les humains » sont influencées par « la langue particulière qu’ils parlent ». Un article de GE Editing donne l’exemple du mot allemand Schadenfreude : les anglophones connaissent très bien le plaisir un peu honteux devant l’échec d’autrui, mais, faute de mot unique, ce sentiment est moins immédiatement disponible. La langue ne dicte pas ce que nous pensons ; elle règle ce que nous pensons sans y penser.
En bref
Depuis les travaux de Benjamin Lee Whorf jusqu’aux études de Lera Boroditsky, chercheurs et philosophes interrogent le lien entre langue et pensée.
Des expériences sur les bleus en russe ou l’orientation du temps chez les Kuuk Thaayorre montrent que la langue façonne nos automatismes cognitifs sans créer de barrières absolues.
Entre Merleau-Ponty, Freud et les neurosciences, l’article montre comment mots, lapsus et vocabulaire disponible orientent nos jugements au quotidien."
Publié le 03/07/26 à 08:35Par La Rédaction Peaches
https://www.peaches.fr/psycho-love-sexo/je-lai-appris-a-40-ans-la-science-prouve-que-votre-langue-maternelle-manipule-radicalement-votre-perception-de-la-realite-228315.html
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"The UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance Should Tackle the AI Language Gap
The United Nations will convene the Global Dialogue on AI Governance on July 6-7 in Geneva. The gathering is open to all UN member states and hundreds of stakeholders. Heated consultations on the agenda of the Dialogue have produced a draft program that is predictably generic. Such thematic breadth is unavoidable and largely by design in UN processes.
Nevertheless, the Dialogue is an opportunity to zoom in on policy areas that receive insufficient attention elsewhere, and to generate real political momentum. As the Dialogue will have a uniquely high concentration of representatives of diverse language communities, one of these issues is multilingual artificial intelligence.
Why should policymakers care about multilingual AI?
Current AI systems are less accessible, less useful and less safe for users of so-called low-resource languages. These are languages which may well be spoken by many but for which little digitized data is available to power large language models. Market forces have not mobilized the necessary investment to address these shortcomings. Fierce economic and geopolitical competition funnels attention and resources into the development of a narrow set of frontier models, which are optimized for a small set of dominant and well-resourced languages.
This imbalance results in a global inequity that warrants policymakers’ attention in and of itself. But it also creates a cumulative advantage for those benefiting from unfettered access to more powerful AI systems over time. Simply put, the longer the gap exists, the wider it becomes. If AI generates a net positive impact on socio-economic development, as is widely assumed, addressing this imbalance is urgent.
AI models underperform in low-resource languages
The systemic weaknesses of low-resource language AI models are well studied by a growing body of academic research.
Access to frontier AI capacity is limited by a lack of infrastructure and high cost, especially in low-income countries. And even for those with technical access, language can be a constraint. Frontier models are developed and optimized only in a few well-resourced languages, resulting in a “language gap.” The development of localized models optimized for specific linguistic or cultural objectives has seen progress in recent years and some commercial labs scale up relevant research, but low-resource languages remain largely underserved.
Models can process prompts in different languages today. But on top of generating poorer quality outputs in low-resource languages, multilingual capacity alone does not remove all access barriers. Researchers point to a so-called ‘token tax’; access to models is usually billed by use of tokens, the units into which natural language is split for processing. Studies have shown that low-resource and morphologically complex languages systematically require more tokens to represent the same content compared to English, which drives up cost and latency. In other words, using an AI model optimized for English in a low-resource language is more expensive and slower.
AI systems are less useful for low-resource language users. Their performance is significantly lower when prompted in those languages. Simply translating prompts into English cannot fully close this gap. Some researchers have even identified performance differences for specific tasks prompted by native versus non-native speakers of English.
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Similarly, models generally reason more effectively in English than in another language, studies show. Beyond accuracy, pivoting to English for internal reasoning also risks producing outputs that are biased towards the linguistic and cultural norms encoded in English. Poorer representation of a language in training data and, consequently, the concept space underpinning a model lead directly to weaker cultural and linguistic alignment.
The language gap in AI systems is a safety risk. Researchers have shown that it is possible to jailbreak AI systems — that is, to breach their safeguards — by machine-translating prompts into low-resource languages. In addition to such vulnerabilities, there is also a broader safety gap: studies have demonstrated that translating malicious input into a low-resource language is more likely to generate unsafe content. Most safety research is conducted in English and a handful of high-resource languages, and the alignment stage requires manually annotated data, which is even harder to come by for low-resource languages than unlabeled data used in pretraining.
What difference can the Dialogue make?
The reason for the weaker performance of models in low-resource languages is not that these are somehow categorically less suitable for LLMs; rather, they are caused by specific model design choices and the lack or limited availability of training datasets. Until now, market forces have not redirected resources to address this, and are unlikely to do so. Policymakers can correct course by building momentum and awareness and designing policy incentives. The upcoming Dialogue at the UN is a timely opportunity to tackle the issue. It should consider the following:
Generate political momentum by reframing the challenge: multilingual performance of AI systems is commonly framed as an inequity issue or is subsumed under more general labels such as ‘responsible and inclusive AI’. This does not adequately highlight the safety concerns and cumulative disadvantages users are exposed to over time when using AI in low-resource languages. Participants at the Dialogue should frame investment in multilingual capacity as an urgent issue of national or regional interest, on a par with efforts to bolster ‘sovereign’ AI. Many countries and regions have started investing in local models in an effort to increase ownership and control over AI systems. Models optimized for local languages would make it faster and cheaper to train on local data and context.
Amplify technical solutions and help prioritize targeted R&D investment: researchers point to technical solutions on at least three tracks: more multilingual datasets, more engagement of human annotators from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds and more priority and compute for multilingual LLM research, especially on safety. Simply calling for more investment in thousands of underserved languages, however, is hardly practical; and neither is a purely national approach where every country launches its own initiative. But the Dialogue can articulate top priorities by clustering, aggregating, and organizing needs, interests and resources across national or regional borders. It can identify principles or criteria to determine where to begin: to decide which investment in which language would generate the most benefit for the most people. And it should serve as a platform to promote co-creation and co-design approaches, to better involve the communities this technology is intended to serve in the relevant research and development processes.
Share policy levers and incentives to strengthen multilingual capacity: researchers have suggested requiring more transparency from model developers to articulate and document the language coverage of their products explicitly. As pre-deployment testing is being institutionalized more broadly, the Dialogue presents a timely opportunity to press for the inclusion of language-specific vulnerability checks in these processes. But more broadly, representatives of low-resource language communities could use the Dialogue to strategize on how to leverage access to their markets and data to affect change in frontier model development. Permission to process local datasets, especially when mediated through official institutions such as archives, public broadcasters or cultural institutions, could be tied to commitments by model developers to improve multilingual performance and safety. Licensing agreements between media companies and AI labs are an example of how access to data can be leveraged. Similarly, public procurement processes could require specific investment in multilingual capacity as a condition for government contracting. The Dialogue is not the place to negotiate such arrangements, but to build alliances and coalitions that lead to better bargaining positions. The languages may vary across regions, but the underlying demand is the same.
By delivering on a tangible issue such as multilingual artificial intelligence, the UN’s first Global Dialogue on AI Governance has a shot at creating genuine added value, and proving its usefulness as a new platform. Tackling the systemic disadvantage faced by users of AI systems in low-resource languages addresses a real need that is not being solved elsewhere. And by prioritizing it now, it can help close a gap in access, usefulness and safety that — unchecked — grows wider the longer it exists.
A dialogue platform has real limitations. It's unrealistic to expect it to boost capacity across all, or even most, languages spoken globally. The Dialogue can, however, reframe the issue as an urgent policy challenge that goes well beyond equity, articulate and prioritize the most promising areas of research and development, and aggregate political will and bargaining power to enable representatives of low-resource language communities to accelerate progress by influencing frontier model development more effectively. That would be a useful and impactful contribution."
Christian Schlaepfer / Jul 1, 2026
https://www.techpolicy.press/the-un-global-dialogue-on-ai-governance-should-tackle-the-ai-language-gap/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
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"On an extended visit to prewar Taiwan, a Japanese writer discovers herself
Antonia Finnane Books 3 July 2026
When the International Booker Prize committee awarded this year’s prize to Yang Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue it continued a laudable tradition of diversity. In the eleven years since its relaunch in 2016, the prize has gone to books translated from eleven different languages. Taiwan Travelogue, a Chinese-language novel brought to the English-reading public in a thoughtful translation by Lin King, is the prize’s first Chinese-language recipient.
A Taiwanese writer of Chinese heritage, Yang has an ambivalent relationship with the language in which she writes: the language of the People’s Republic of China, the “them” against which the “us” of Taiwan is defined. In contemporary Taiwanese television and movies, it is common now to hear Taiwanese (Hokkien) spoken. Yang Shuang-zi seeks to evoke in writing what on the screen is readily projected: an imagined community for Taiwan, with a history and cultural references that belong to it alone. In Taiwan Travelogue this is not linguistically bound community, but language is effectively deployed to show it struggling to come into existence. Most obviously, Taiwan is a place that has to be translated to be understood. The entire novel is in fact one long translation process.
The novel is imaginatively framed, with an informative introduction at the beginning and a series of afterwords revealing the afterlife of the text that constitutes the main narrative. This introduction should not be skipped: it is part of the novel. The purported writer, Hiyoshi Sagako, Taiwan-born of Japanese ethnicity, is a fictional character, and her account of the novel’s various editions a 1954 Japanese original translated into Chinese (in abridged form) in 1977 and then again, with elisions restored, in 2020 is also fictional. The only translation that a reader has to believe in is the one into English by Lin King, first published in the United States by Graywolf Press in 2024, from a Chinese-language original published in 2020.
From the introduction, we learn that the fictional Japanese original is a first-person narrative by literary celebrity Aoyama Chizukyu, who arrives in Taiwan in 1938 on an official visit organised by the Japanese Government-General. By then, Taiwan had been under Japanese control since 1895. Aoyama encounters a complex society, with Japanese “mainlanders” like herself in the top stratum. A second stratum consists of Japanese locals like Hiyoshai Sagako, who in the introduction discusses the ambiguous status of Taiwanese-born Japanese. Aoyama’s first allocated guide, Mishima, belongs to this stratum.
The third stratum is composed of populated by ethnically Han (Chinese) locals like Aoyama’s main guide and companion, Ông Tshian-hóh, known as Ō Chizuru in Japanese but referred to in the novel by Aoyama’s affectionate nickname for her, Chi-Chan. The Han population is itself diverse, as Aoyama learns. At one point Chi-Chan introduces Aoyama to a barely explored bottom layer, Taiwan’s First Peoples, impressing Aoyama by her erudition in talking about them as “indigenous” (yuanzhu zhongzu, as opposed to tuzhu, or “natives,” for example).
Aoyama, the reader soon learns, is taller than most Japanese men. Her towering presence in the novel is a metaphor for the overweening presence of a colonial power. Chi-Chan is tiny by comparison — comparable in height to the sparrow-like schoolgirl Tân Thsiok-bi, who like herself is the love object of a robustly built Japanese. Since Taiwanese were on average taller than Japanese in this period, the metaphor is slightly strained but the author, writing for a Taiwanese readership, can probably depend for credibility on historical impressions of Japanese power.
The novel is a love story of sorts, with the developing romance between Aoyama and Chi-Chan tenderly evoked. The two women share a consciousness of the restraints placed on women by a society that doesn’t allow them to casually eat by the roadside or drink in a bar, and in which heterosexual marriage is an expectation that they will have to meet. Physical contact between them is never more than tentative.
As a story about attraction between women and linked issues of living in a patriarchal society where women are fated to be married off to men, this novel is worth comparing with its shortlisted competitor, Bulgarian writer Rene Karabash’s debut novel She Who Remains. Karabash takes up the baton from Ismail Kadare, winner of the inaugural International Prize in 2005, with a story set, like Kadare’s Broken April, among blood-feuding families of Albania’s Accursed Mountains. There is a love story in the novel, again between two women, but it is fleeting. The main protagonist, a “sworn virgin” who has adopted a male persona in accordance with the grim Kanun code, embodies the problem of the socio-sexual regime of which not only she but also her male family members are victims. It is plainly a novel about patriarchy.
Taiwan Travelogue, by contrast, is unmistakably a novel about colonialism. The love story is foregrounded but the main theme could easily have been developed with a heterosexual relationship at its core. Writing the love story is a way of writing, critically, about power extended by the “mainland” (neidi, in this case Japan) over Taiwanese. For Karabash, the national context is immaterial. She is not interested in Albania per se; the Accursed Mountains are merely an opportune setting. Yang Shuang-zi, on the other hand, is undoubtedly writing about Taiwan. Hers is not a story that could easily be transposed.
Aoyama herself is not a conscious agent of Japanese imperialism. She has never been a fan of the Imperial Japan’s Great Southward Expansion and resists being caught up in the propaganda war supporting it. She is critical of an imperial project that threatens to destroy the existing ways of life of the colonised peoples. At the same time, she is an intellectual who assumes the right to know, love and explain the colonised territory, simultaneously seeking to know, love and explain Chi-Chan. She is the Japanese “Orientalist” par excellence.
The journey is a gastronomical one. Aoyama has a gargantuan appetite, voraciously consuming every meal or snack that comes her way, generally because it is provided by Chi-Chan. A metaphor for colonialism is again evident. The book’s chapters are organised by foodstuff or dish, beginning with the simplest of local foods, melon seeds, and working up to the most complex, the twelve-dish full menu and its distillation in a “leftover soup.” Food is a teacher and a mediator.
By the fifth chapter, when Aoyama is introduced to braised minced pork in its different iterations, northern and southern, she has begun to think about cultural erasure as a problem in Japanese colonialism. In the eighth chapter, she accommodates Chi-Chan’s food preferences by making Japanese sukiyaki with pork instead of the customary beef. Cultural accommodation is underway, although it is not evenly balanced. In the same chapter Chi-Chan wears a kimono to please Aoyama, but she wears it under sufferance.
In the course of her travels Aoyama is presented with a dizzying array of dishes and ingredients, which even in a world of fusion cooking will probably be lost on most readers of the translation but must be deeply meaningful to Taiwanese readers. In a place where the difference between being Chinese and being Taiwanese is a work in progress, food has become a touchpoint of difference. Yang Shuang-zi exploits this trope to the full. Not every dish or ingredient she mentions is peculiar to Taiwan, but taken as a whole, the cuisine has its own grammar. A local argot of food terms is one means Yang has found for writing Taiwan into the inflexibly Chinese text.
The narrative proper concludes on poignant note with a single bowl of fruit and jelly ice shared by Aoyoma and Chi-Chan. By this time, Aoyama has been helped to a deeper understanding of her relationship with Taiwan and with Chi-Chan by her original guide, the ethnically Japanese Mishima, in an unexpected and wonderfully timed turn in the novel as it approaches its conclusion.
After the war, Taiwan passed from Japanese to Chinese hands. The Japanese mainland (neidi) was replaced by a Chinese mainland (dalu). By using the term “mainland” in her translation, Lin King keeps the parallel in the reader’s mind. The difference between these two mainlands is the difference between past and present. Taiwan has come to terms with its Japanese colonial past and accepts its Japanese legacy. China, by contrast, is a present threat.
Taiwan Travelogue deals with this time gap by shifting the entire framework back in history. Just as the Japanese legacy is plain in contemporary Taiwan, so too was the Chinese cultural legacy in Japanese Taiwan in the 1930s. Chi-Chan loves classical Chinese literature. She owns to a Chinese ethnicity by wearing a qipao (or cheongsam). It is the Japanese present she finds challenging.
But just in case anyone thinks a Chinese legacy too obviously entitles the People’s Republic of China to some sort of prior ownership of Taiwan, King sedulously avoids the terms China and Chinese in the text. For the name of the country, she employs the Japanese term “Shina,” expressed in characters deployed for their sound, not their meaning. For the word Chinese in a literary sense she uses the term han, a synonym for the English term “Chinese” in many contexts.
In a note at the end of the book, King explains her decisions about translating in a way that sustains the illusion of a Japanese urtext and supports the historical context of the story. The strategies she adopts are true to the tenor of Yang Shuang-zi’s writing. They are consistent, too, with a Taiwanese nationalist historiographical trend towards identifying “China” as the modern state that emerged in the twentieth century as the Republic of China, following an historical trajectory completely separate from Taiwan’s own.
There are costs to clarity for an English-language readership. Decisions about the rendering of names and terms have yielded a cluttered text that is more difficult to read in translation than in the original. The original has footnotes built in as part of the fiction of translation from the Japanese, and many more footnotes again have been added to the English translation. Japanese names with diacritical marks sit alongside Mandarin terms with tones superimposed, with Taiwanese (Hokkien) words in italics. English-language readers are presented with orthographically complex terms they cannot begin to understand unless they are well versed in the histories, languages and romanisation systems of three different East Asian territories.
Historical context apart, persuasive translation into English is rendered challenging by differences in literary conventions and cultural dispositions. It takes a while to get used to a character who “dimples” as much as Chi-Chan does. “Dimples” is not a word easily deployed in serious fiction. Rosamond in Jane Eyre has dimples, but Rosamund is definitely not the woman with whom Rochester falls in love. Yet King had limited translation choices here. Chi-Chan was endowed with dimples by the author. There are no synonyms for dimples.
Particularities of time, place, and language complicate the text but don’t impede enjoyment of it. Aoyama’s journey of discovery never ceases to be interesting. Dialogue between Aoyama and Chi-Chan carries it along lightly. From melon seeds to jelly ice, the story follows a compelling narrative arc. Not unexpectedly, Taiwan Travelogue proves to be a book for its time, a work of historical fiction set on an island with a difficult past and an uncertain future, a country that is recognised by no great power but that is refusing simply to go away. •
Taiwan Travelogue
By Yang Shuang-zi | Translated by Lin King | Scribe | $32.99 | 320 pages"
https://insidestory.org.au/journey-to-the-interior/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Translating a People Is Lion-Sized
Jul 3, 2026, 12:36 PM
What do I have in common with illustrious writer and translator, Yardenne Greenspan? I live in Japan while she’s in NYC. Yardenne holds her corner of the world with translation from Hebrew to English. I speak almost none. She is a transmitter of story that should be, could be, and must be told. This is no small thing. She becomes a translator of a people.
Highly accomplished in her own right, she is also the wife and partner of Shai Davidai. Yardenne wears a T with the words, “Accidental Activist” on the front, which, of course, I ask about.
Yardenne says that she regards her translation work as a form of activism. “I think bringing Israeli voices to the world, especially now, is really important. So many people don’t really know Israel; they don’t know Israelis; they don’t know what we’re about.”
Of course. Yardenne has written about book stores declining to show or stock Jewish or Israeli authors, and journals skittering in how they support long-time Jewish/Israeli/Zionist contributors.
Yardenne is all of this, translating the works of some of the most heralded modern Israeli writers. Take her newest work: her second linguistic collaboration with Yishay Ishi Ron–-Girl Who Rode the White Lion, published just recently, June 2027, is her sixteenth-full-length translation.
Her first work of translation with Yishay Ishi Ron was Dog, also from Soncata Press, a tender dive into the world of PTSD from the perspective of an elite combat soldier. This is new terrain for many non-Israelis, that, with Yardenne’s expertise in translation, is suddenly open.
Of course, I have my own experience with soldiers who come on their big trip to us here in Tokyo. I’ve had the sweetest young men tell me with embarrassment that they need to change their bunk sheets each day because of their bad dreams and night sweats. Or the too-many-stickers-on-the-wall here of friends they each know and carry across Japan, Vietnam, or Laos. How much more would the world respond with understanding and goodness if they read contemporary and more historical Israeli authors about their realities of peace and war.
Girl Who Rode the White Lion, Yardenne’s masterful translation, shares Ron’s historical fiction of a family that hid Jews from death during the Holocaust—not in their closet, attic, or barn, but in their circus.
With lions.
I eagerly await my copy of Girl Who Rode the White Lion, refreshing the tracking function each day, as it slowly makes it way to Asia. I anticipate grim realities of such hiding and the horrendous realization, still, if they had no hiding place. I also anticipate hope and beauty in the words–both in Ron’s and Greenspan’s. Together, it’s the Hebrew and English I am after, but what about everyone else who would never have such a window and thus stay disconnected?
Not every American Jew has 11-plus beds set up every night to host Israelis. Not everyone gets to sit with officers fresh out from their longest service and relax over Japanese potato chips and Bamba. I know what a gift this is. But also, not every one of my guests has the most sophisticated English lexicon. Even when they do, how much I miss when they speak from their second language, and not the one learned in school, not their mother tongue from speaking with grandparents and hearing searing conversation, carrying deep memory and all they experience.
I rely on those around me to help bridge those gaps. It’s how I can better care and know our guests. It’s also my way into knowing Israel.
In our chat, I ask her about the kind of translation she is drawn to these days, especially after October 7th, 2023.
“At the moment,” Yardenne replies, “I am hungry to translate anything that shows the fullness of being an Israeli.”
“At the moment,” Yardenne replies, “I am hungry to translate anything that shows the fullness of being an Israeli.”
She goes on, “The fact that in a single sentence people will utter a mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Arabic. The fact that they will have relationships with people of different religions, that they will fight side by side with people who not just voted differently from them, (that’s putting it mildly)–people who think the other person’s politics are abhorrent, but they will fight together, anyway. The millions of little contradictions, like how, you know, we’re strong and resilient, but we’re also so… I mean, I can’t speak; I’m not living in Israel right now, but I’m talking to my family and friends, and it’s so vulnerable right now, even while at the same time, they’re exhibiting this amazing resilience.”
Yardenne tells me about a translator who was frustrated seeing Israeli authors write about their mundane, everyday lives when “war and conflict were the reality and should have been reflected”. She tells me about a growing wave of people writing what you could call bourgeois novels set in Israel, books with characters dealing with careers, marital strife, and middle-age crises. This other translator was upset, saying, “I don’t understand how Israelis can’t see that while we’re in this emergency, how can they be writing about anything but the conflict?”
Yardenne told her, “You know, on the one hand, I completely understand what you’re saying.” Of course.
“I truly understood her point”, Yardenne says to me, “but at the same time, I couldn’t help but also argue that there’s something dehumanizing about limiting our experience just to war and conflict.”
She goes on, “If we want people to understand Israelis, that means also understanding all the ways in which we’re kind of like everyone else–how you sit in traffic on your way to work and get frustrated, and then you have conflict with your boss, so you go home, and you are short with your children, and then regret it. So life. I’m hungry for all of it”.
Agreed.
After October 7, she translated everything she could– a Nova survivor’s memoir, biographies for a memorial website at Kibbutz Be’eri, and work to help coin language for describing the atrocities of that day. Grief and expression. Translation became her activism and something she could do.
“There was so much helplessness”, Yardenne says, “especially in the first few months after the 7th. So to, to be able to actually do something, to give someone a voice, to help, like, create a little bit of memory to validate what happened, I was honored to do it”.
For me, too. In hosting Israelis, I know to listen, as well as write their stories of survival, their stories of loss and heartbreak, and simply, life. I’m hungry for all of it, too.
Me, too.
In hosting Israelis, I know to listen, as well as write their stories of survival, their stories of loss and heartbreak, and simply, life. I’m hungry for all of it, too.
What if I was so fixated on only hearing stories of my guests’ and friends’ heartache? I’d miss the joy! I’d have no part of it with them, and I’d certainly be inaccurate in any way of portraying them. I’d miss the humor. I’d miss it all.
And if I gloss over tragedy? Impossible. In my first podcast episode of what became Tokyo Shishi, I make matbucha with my guest. He tells me his best friend’s funeral is happening today–on the same day we are in my home cooking. There in our time of tomatoes, paprika, and spice, he tells me, and we becmme far closer because of it.
And this is what I’m also after as a reader. I’m here to listen and see complex people. Protagonists with nuance. Language so beautiful that you want to underline each word and cry. To all of this, I owe a great thanks, a “toda” and “arigato gozaimasu” to Yishay Ishi Ron and to Yardenne Greenspan.
So sure, maybe more and more, some of the lit coming out of Israel may seem like the mundane–and for me, too, as I clean our guest space upstairs. Sinks get clogged. So much laundering. We have seemingly ordinary moments of transition within living in nearness with our guests, day-to-day—in grocery shopping, running into my Israeli guests on their way to the gym in my modest Japanese neighborhood, where they are the only ones working out in Teva or in a sports bra and Lululemon bike shorts. We run into each other in favorite cafés or speak passionately about travel, their Psikhometri test that awaits, and all kind of life when they’re waiting for the shower or telling me we need more toilet paper.
I see them vulnerable when they are not feeling well and missing their mothers. I see concern in them, grief, and also pride and hope. I am with them cooking and hearing them on the phone with their mothers. Recognizing their voices outside on the stairs and getting to share them with a wider world is everything.
It’s also my accidental, and quite intentional, activism.
I reflect on our chat and Yardenne’s shirt. There is something similar in translating events, people, and encounters–moments that change us. I reflect on the cover of this newest book, and how lucky I am to read and receive such stories from Israel into the port of this whole world. It is no small thing; it is lion-sized."
Melissa Uchiyama is an author and writing mentor to young people. She's an American Jew who's made Japan her home for nearly 20 years...
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/translating-a-people-is-lion-sized/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"Ulysses in isiZulu: why an African translation of the classic Irish novel matters in today’s world
Published: July 2, 2026 3.22pm SAST
Every year on 16 June, readers around the world celebrate Bloomsday, the annual commemoration of Irish writer James Joyce’s landmark 1922 novel Ulysses.
The date marks the single day on which the novel unfolds: 16 June 1904, when its protagonist, Leopold Bloom, wanders through the city of Dublin. What began as a literary observance has become a global celebration of reading.
In 2026 the festivities in Johannesburg had a special South African quality to them. At the centre of the event was South African writer and translator Sandile Ngidi’s isiZulu rendering of the character Molly Bloom’s famous soliloquy, the concluding episode of Ulysses.
As a scholar of African literatures, I am interested in how literary ideas travel. My research has shown how writers from very different contexts can grapple with similar political and artistic questions. Ngidi’s translation opens up one of the most challenging works of literature to new readers.
Simon & Schuster
The isiZulu translation represents only a small portion of this vast and notoriously difficult novel. Ulysses is based on one ordinary day in the lives of three characters who live in Dublin. It uses their experiences to explore identity, memory, desire, and modern life in early 20th-century Ireland.
Since its publication, Ulysses has been formally translated into more than 40 languages, mostly within Europe. Its journey into isiZulu reminds us that literature travels most powerfully when it crosses linguistic and cultural boundaries and returns us to the urgent questions of our own time.
Translation as an act of imagination
Bridge Books, a community-centred bookshop in inner city Johannesburg, hosted the Bloomsday event, which also included readings from South African writers Ivan Vladislavić and Terry-Ann Adams.
By holding a multilingual Bloomsday celebration in parts of the city where anti-immigrant groups have been marching, the organisers underscored a simple but powerful point: the civic imagination at the heart of Joyce’s work remains relevant wherever diverse communities claim space through stories and conversation.
Ulysses is really about random and seemingly mundane interactions. Molly Bloom is one of the main characters, an opera singer who spends the day mostly in bed. Bloomsday is named after her and her husband, who is also a main character. He’s wandering the city remembering the death of their son, and stewing in the knowledge that Molly is having an affair. This is the universal drama of human life.
Molly Bloom’s monologue in a French staging of Ulysses. Sigoise/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY
Ngidi’s translation matters. It challenges assumptions about which languages are considered suitable for conveying the so-called world literature. African languages are not peripheral to global literary culture but active participants in it, capable of carrying, reshaping and reinterpreting some of the most demanding works ever written.
In fact, reading Joyce in isiZulu raises larger questions about literary inheritance. Who owns a literary classic? Joyce himself was deeply concerned with the relationship between language and power.
Writing from a colonised Ireland, he grappled with the complexities of expressing Irish experience through English, the language of imperial rule. His work repeatedly explores tensions between local identity and global influence, between inherited forms and new possibilities.
James Joyce for everyone
The concerns in Joyce’s fiction have become even more pertinent. Across many parts of the world, debates about belonging have become increasingly fraught. In both Ireland and South Africa, questions of migration, national identity and cultural inclusion have generated political tensions and, at times, hostility towards foreigners.
Joyce is often regarded as a writer for specialists and university students. His novels have a reputation for difficulty that makes them seem inaccessible. Yet events like the one in Johannesburg suggest a different story. Joyce survives because readers continue to reinvent him, finding new contexts, new languages and new communities in which his work can live.
Translation, in this sense, is more than a literary exercise. It is an act of imagination that allows readers to encounter familiar questions from a different vantage point. Rather than simply reproducing Ulysses, the translation creates a new reading experience that illuminates both Joyce’s novel and the expressive possibilities of isiZulu.
Read more: Wretched of the Earth has been translated into South Africa’s Zulu language – why Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary book still matters
By carrying Joyce into isiZulu, Ngidi expands not only the readership of Ulysses but also the range of perspectives through which the novel can be understood.
The translation demonstrates that African languages are not simply vehicles for local experience; they are capable of engaging the most complex works of world literature while bringing new meanings to them."
https://theconversation.com/ulysses-in-isizulu-why-an-african-translation-of-the-classic-irish-novel-matters-in-todays-world-285381
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Ismail Kadare was an incredibly important figure in modern Albanian literature whose work has been translated into 45 languages. To mark two years since his passing, this blog post digs into Kadare’s life, his role in Albanian literature, and his works in translation through an interview between Nevila Pahumi, the Reference Specialist for Albania, Cyprus, and Greece, and translator John Hodgson. This is another entry into the International Collections’ Conveyances blog series.
NP: What steps do you take in representing Kadare’s style— carrying it over from the Albanian into English? Growing up in Albania, I read Kadare’s Kronikë në Gurrë (Chronicle in Stone). Reading your translations today, I was particularly struck by how easily I recognized Kadare’s style in your own representation of your work. It reads like him. How do you manage to bring as much of his language into your own translation?
JH: Well, I think as I’ve come to translate book after book by Kadare, I think there is an unconscious process whereby I have come to understand how his mind works. And if I’ve been successful, I think it is because I think he has his personal mannerisms and personal style. I’ve come to recognize this and gradually acquire a repertoire of ways of turning that into English. If we are talking about Ismail Kadare’s style, the first thing to say is that he is also someone who has shaped the modern Albanian literary language. He is really the first professional novelist to really use the modern Albanian language as a fluent literary idiom. He has also tried to introduce words he likes, over the years, tried to introduce…bring back old words into modern currency and to influence the shape of the language. Some of his innovations catch on, and some don’t. He is very much an agent in linguistic development.
NP: His work spans a variety of genres. … His most recent work, A Dictator Calls, is about the infamously brief but well-known phone call between Stalin and Boris Pasternak. What do you think Kadare, the writer, was trying to accomplish in this last novel?
JH: I’d like to say something about Kadare’s relationship with Russian, because he studied there during the Dr. Zhivago affair. And he loved Moscow… He found it a much wider world than Tirana. And this is perhaps somewhat surprising to a reader who grows up in the West. But the atmosphere in Khruschev’s Soviet Union was much more liberal and open than in Enver Hoxha’s Tirana. So, he has this deep rapport with Russian literature. But what I believe he’s doing in A Dictator Calls is that he is looking at the relationship between Stalin and Pasternak and the opposition between the two. There is by that view of things, Kadare’s own relationship to Hoxha; he is looking at the power of the artists… They have the ears of the public, the hearts of the public. They have their own stature, their own empires.
Gjirokastër’s Stone Houses. Photo by Nevila Pahumi
NP: To transition from him to you, you’ve also published your own work about your life there.
JH: During the pandemic, I wrote a short book about my life in Kosovo in the 1980s—A Future in the Past. It describes life in Kosovo in the 1980s. I thought it was worth describing. It is inevitably a book of limited nostalgia, because no one would want to see certain elements of Kosovo life revived. It was a poor society, a patriarchal society with limited opportunities… And of course, it was a tense time in Yugoslavia, more broadly. I moved away from Kosovo in 1989 and lived in Tirana for four years until 1992. Hope and democracy were in the air. Materially it was a difficult time, but people were very optimistic about the future. That was the best time to be in Tirana.
NP: I’ve lived through the same time period, as a seven-eight year old. I have fond memories of the hope and the sanguinity that my parents’ generation carried with them.
JH: You would have been as old as Kadare was when he describes the events of a Chronicle in Stone.
NP: In addition to Kadare, are there other authors whose work you enjoy and might recommend to American readers? As a reference librarian, this is the kind of thing that informs my work.
JH: I have also translated another prominent Albanian writer, Fatos Lubonja. He has written very movingly about his time in Enver Hoxha’s prisons and labor camps, and he also wrote a book which I translated as The False Apocalypse about the year 1997, when Albania almost totally collapsed into anarchy following the collapse of the pyramid schemes. He has been very much engaged with Albanian history. I have translated these two writers, who are famously not quite on good terms. This takes a bit of diplomacy on my part. Besides Kadare, readers should read Fatos Lubonja.
But I think your question really is about younger writers. Both these two are now quite advanced in age. It is true that the younger generation of Albanian writers are not interested in their topics. Their parents’ generation was effectively traumatized by communism, and the generation born after does not want to hear about it at all. There is a lot of experimental writing. There is a lot of fantasy writing, and experimentation going on… I think time will tell!
"The 2027 judging panel for the Bukhman International Booker Prize, the world’s most influential award for translated fiction, has been announced
Critically acclaimed and Booker Prize-shortlisted author Katie Kitamura chairs the judging panel and is joined by Booker Prize-longlisted writer, translator and Professor of French and Comparative Literature Patrick McGuinness; filmmaker and Sunday Times bestselling author Caleb Azumah Nelson; celebrated writer, translator and International Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist Olga Ravn; and award-winning film, television and stage actor and producer Tessa Thompson.
This year’s judges are looking for the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 May 2026 and 30 April 2027.
A longlist of 12 or 13 books will be announced on Tuesday, 16 March 2027 with a shortlist of six books to follow on Thursday, 15 April 2027. The winning book will be announced at a ceremony in May 2027.
Grant-giving organisation Bukhman Philanthropies has made a generous commitment to fund the next 10 years of the International Booker Prize, following its support of the prize in 2026. In recognition of the decade-long partnership, the prize will be named the Bukhman International Booker Prize. As part of Bukhman Philanthropies’ dedication to celebrating and rewarding the vital art of translation, the prize fund for the winning title will double in value from £50,000 to £100,000, to be split equally between the author and translator/s. Each shortlisted title will continue to be awarded a prize of £5,000: £2,500 for the author and £2,500 for the translator/s.
Katie Kitamura, Chair of the 2027 prize judges, comments:
‘The International Booker Prize is a visionary prize, one that has consistently celebrated the best fiction from around the world. It has shaped me as a reader and a writer, introducing me to new books, authors, and schools of writing. As the prize marks its tenth anniversary and looks ahead to its next decade, I am honoured to be chairing this year’s panel of judges.
‘Translation represents a dialogue between two minds. The Bukhman International Booker Prize offers readers the opportunity to experience the profound encounter between author and translator. As a prize, it is exemplary in the way it recognises the work of both participants. The celebration and support of this intrinsically human collaboration feels particularly vital right now.
‘I feel especially fortunate to embark on this year of reading in the company of my fellow judges, artists and thinkers I have admired for many years. I am looking forward to learning with and from them, to having my mind changed, and to sharing in the thrill of discovery.’
The Bukhman International Booker Prize 2027 judges: Caleb Azumah Nelson, Olga Ravn, Katie Kitamura, Patrick McGuinness, Tessa Thompson.
Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, adds:
‘We are incredibly grateful to Bukhman Philanthropies for their extraordinary commitment in funding the next 10 years of the International Booker Prize, and to Daria Bukhman for her personal support for translated work. When we launched this incarnation of the prize a decade ago, we did so in the hope that more great work from other languages and cultures would reach anglophone readers. We hoped to join publishers, agents, scouts, booksellers and others in a global-thinking enterprise, and to become a collective force for good.
‘The results after 10 years have been hugely gratifying: in the UK, sales of translated fiction have risen by 31 per cent – driven largely by readers under the age of 35. Beyond the UK, the rights to the original editions of International Booker-nominated books have been sold in dozens of other territories as a result of the light shone on them by the prize. And the knock-on effect of an International Booker Prize win in the author’s home country has been exponential, with, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of copies of the original edition reprinted as a result. Though the prize is designed to reward an individual book, it often draws attention to an author more generally: we’re very proud that five International Booker Prize winners or nominees have gone on to win the Nobel Prize for their body of work.
‘As we look towards the next decade of the prize, we do so with a deep sense of responsibility and hope. Bukhman Philanthropies’ commitment has the power to reshape not only the future of the prize, but the landscape of literature itself—elevating writers and translators whose stories connect us more deeply to one another across cultures, borders, and experiences. At a time when the world feels increasingly divided, this gift represents something profoundly optimistic: an investment in understanding, in curiosity, and in the belief that great literature can help us imagine one another’s lives.
‘We could not have found a better group to lead the charge than this year’s judges. They are phenomenal: each of them has a rich background in collaboration, international enquiry and creative work, and they will, I’m sure, be all the more brilliant for thinking together under Katie’s aegis. I’m deeply excited to listen to their conversations.’
Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation © Neo Gilder for the Booker Prize Foundation
The 2027 judges
Katie Kitamura
Patrick McGuinness
Caleb Azumah Nelson
Olga Ravn
Tessa Thompson
About the judges
Katie Kitamura (Chair of the Bukhman International Booker Prize 2027)
Katie Kitamura is the author of five novels. Audition was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2025, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and was one of President Obama’s Favourite Books of 2025. It was also a finalist for the Gotham Book Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Carol Shields Prize. It is being adapted for film by director Lulu Wang, with Lucy Liu and Charles Melton starring.
Her novel Intimacies was one of the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2021. It was longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was one of President Obama’s Favourite Books of 2021. In France, it won the Prix Littéraire Lucien Barrière, was a finalist for the Grand Prix de l’Héroine, and was longlisted for the Prix Fragonard. A Separation (2017) was a finalist for the Premio von Rezzori and longlisted for the Prix Meilleur Roman Points; it was also a New York Times Notable Book. It is being adapted for film by director Jonas Carpignano.
Kitamura’s two previous novels, Gone to the Forest (2013) and The Longshot (2009), were both finalists for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award. Kitamura is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize. She was the 2025 Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellow at the Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library, and has received fellowships from the Lannan, Santa Maddalena and Jan Michalski Foundations. Her work has been translated into 29 languages. She has written for publications including the New York Times, the Guardian, Harper’s Magazine, and Frieze, and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at New York University.
Katie Kitamura, Chair of the Bukhman International Booker Prize 2027 judges © Clayton Cubitt
Translation represents a dialogue between two minds, at a moment when the celebration of human collaboration feels particularly vital
Katie Kitamura
Patrick McGuinness
Patrick McGuinness was born in Tunisia and brought up in the Belgian Ardennes. His first novel, The Last Hundred Days, about the fall of communism in Romania, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2011. His second novel, Throw Me to the Wolves, was published in 2019 and won the Encore Prize. He is also the author of three books of poetry, the most recent being Blood Feather (2023); a memoir, Other People’s Countries; a book about Oxford, the city behind the university (Real Oxford, 2021); and several books on French literature, including works on modern French theatre and on politics and poetry in fin de siècle France. His most recent book is Ghost Stations: Essays and Branchlines (2025).
McGuinness has translated from French (Stéphane Mallarmé, Hélène Dorion, Guillaume Apollinaire), Spanish (Jorge Manrique) and Catalan (Andreu Vidal). His recent translation, with Stephen Romer, of Gilles Ortlieb’s Selected Poems, won the 2025 Scott Moncrieff Prize for translation.
McGuinness is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Oxford University, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Patrick McGuinness, Bukhman International Booker Prize 2027 judge
Literary translation allows languages to reach readers on equal terms – from those with a few thousand speakers to those with hundreds of millions – the translator’s art doesn’t just expand the world, it adds to it
Patrick McGuinness
Caleb Azumah Nelson
Caleb Azumah Nelson is a British-Ghanaian writer and filmmaker, living in South-East London. His debut novel, Open Water, was a number one Sunday Times bestseller, won the Costa First Novel Award 2021 and Debut Fiction Book of the Year at the British Book Awards in 2022. It was longlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Gordon Burn Prize, shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year 2021 and selected as a Waterstones Paperback of the Month in 2022. Nelson’s second novel, Small Worlds, was a Sunday Times bestseller and won the 2024 Dylan Thomas Prize. He was selected as a National Book Foundation ‘5 under 35’ honoree by Brit Bennett.
The TV adaption of Open Water, an eight-part series for which Nelson is the lead writer, director and executive producer, is currently in production and will air on BBC One in 2027. He is also working on an original feature, The Last Stop, with Heyday and Film4. His short film Pray, starring David Jonsson, premiered at Locarno Film Festival and has since been shown at numerous festivals, including London Film Festival.
Caleb Azumah Nelson, Bukhman International Booker Prize 2027 judge
Works in translation are a true gift: they allow us to put a careful ear to the music of other languages. The stories which emerge are vital to forging connections between cultures, between each other
Caleb Azumah Nelson
Olga Ravn
Olga Ravn is one of Denmark’s most celebrated contemporary authors. In Danish, she has published four novels, two poetry collections and an artist’s book. Her novel The Employees, translated by Martin Aitken, was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021 and the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize, and longlisted for the National Book Award and the Dublin Literary Award. It has been published in 26 territories.
Her novel My Work won the Politiken’s Literature Prize in 2021 and led to changes in Denmark’s maternity laws. It was published in English in September 2023 to great critical acclaim in a translation by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell.
Ravn’s most recent novel, The Wax Child, was published in English in 2025 in a translation by Martin Aitken. It was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2026. The novel prompted the Telegraph to call her ‘the strangest – and best – young novelist in Europe’ and is being published in 20 territories.
As a translator, Ravn has translated Joan Didion and Sylvia Plath, among others, into Danish. As an editor she played a central role in the relaunch of Tove Ditlevesen’s work. In addition, she has written shorter pieces for the New Yorker, The Paris Review and Granta. She lives in Copenhagen.
Olga Ravn, Bukhman International Booker Prize 2027 judge © Nina Subin
By reading literature from outside of our respective home countries, our consciousness and understanding of not only the world but of language and literature itself is deepened
Olga Ravn
Tessa Thompson
Tessa Thompson is an award-winning actress with an extensive and diverse history of working across film, television and stage. In 2019, she featured on the cover of Time magazine as a ‘Next Generation Leader’. In 2020 she cemented her status as a formidable producer with the launch of her production company, Viva Maude.
Thompson has starred in a number of films and TV series adapted by or inspired by literature, including His & Hers, released on Netflix earlier this year and adapted from Alice Feeney’s novel of the same name; Nia DaCosta’s film Hedda, inspired by Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress; and Rebecca Hall’s film adaptation of Nella Larsen’s classic novel, Passing. All three were produced or executive produced by Thompson.
In April this year Thompson made her Broadway debut opposite Adrien Brody in The Fear of 13, written by Lindsey Ferrentino and directed by David Cromer. The play, based on a 2015 documentary, had its world premiere at the Donmar Warehouse in London and tells the true story of Nick Yarris, who spent more than two decades on death row before being exonerated by DNA evidence.
In 2017 Thompson originated the role of Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok opposite Chris Hemsworth. The Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster, directed by Taika Waititi, grossed over $800 million worldwide. She reprised the role in the fourth Thor instalment five years later. She and Hemsworth collaborated again when she played Agent M in Men in Black: International. Thompson has also starred in all three instalments of the Creed trilogy, opposite Michael B Jordan, and as Charlotte Hale in the Emmy-nominated hit HBO drama series Westworld. Executive produced by J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan, and inspired by writer-director Michael Crichton’s 1973 feature of the same name, the series garnered a total of 43 Emmy nominations from its first and second seasons combined.
Thompson’s numerous other notable performances include roles in Alex Garland’s Annihilation and Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, the voicing of the titular character in Disney’s live-action re-imagining of Lady and the Tramp, and her portrait of civil rights activist Diane Nash in Ava Duvernay’s Oscar-nominated film Selma, produced by Brad Pitt and Oprah Winfrey.
Thompson is set to star in the upcoming suburban thriller series Next Door, created by Sam Boyd and A24 and due to air on Netflix. Her production company, Viva Maude, currently boasts a wide-ranging slate of over twenty feature films and television projects in various genres, encompassing narrative, documentary, and unscripted content. She and Viva Maude have joined as executive producers on Brittany Shyne’s documentary, Seeds, which won the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize in 2025. Seeds showcases a portrait of Black generational farmers in the American South, and has been selected for the shortlist for the 98th Annual Academy Awards.
Tessa Thompson, Bukhman International Booker Prize 2027 judge © Cibelle Levi
Translation gives us access to lives and histories we’d otherwise perhaps never reach, and counters a narrow worldview – building a broader, truer kind of empathy and curiosity
Tessa Thompson
Submissions for the prize
Enter the Bukhman International Booker Prize
On this page you’ll find the rules, eligibility criteria, deadlines and submissions process for entering the Bukhman International Booker Prize
Read more about translated fiction
Young, urban and male: who is reading translated fiction in the UK now?
‘Spinning an illusion’: what exactly do literary translators do?
How independent publishers have become the cornerstone of the International Booker Prize
The best International Booker-nominated translated fiction, as chosen by celebrities
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https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/international/2027
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"
CNSLT/O26/011 - Consultancy for Translation Messages
Organization
Plan International
Posted
2 Jul 2026
Closing date
9 Jul 2026
About Plan International
We strive to advance children’s rights and equality for girls all over the world. With a bold purpose of ensuring “All Girls Standing Strong Creating Global Change” and as an independent development and humanitarian organisation, we work alongside children, young people, our supporters, and partners to tackle the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood and enable children to prepare for and respond to crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national, and global levels using our reach, experience, and knowledge. For over 80 years, we have been building powerful partnerships for children, and we are active in over 75 countries.
Plan International Nigeria was registered as a National Organisation in 2014 in Nigeria, and since then, our intervention has been focused on basic education, Nutrition, Health services, and strengthening youth and citizens’ participation in governance, livelihood, and creating economic opportunities for vulnerable people and building resilient communities through our humanitarian and development response in Nigeria. Plan Nigeria works with communities, civil society organisations, development partners, government at all levels, and the private sector. With its country strategy, “Girls are empowered to take action and drive change,” Plan International Nigeria is committed to reaching 20 million girls during the strategy period of 2023 to 2028, covering all 36 states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Project Background
In Nigeria’s Northeast region, specifically across Yobe and Adamawa States, the intersection of climate change and protracted humanitarian needs has left thousands of households increasingly vulnerable to devastating seasonal flooding. Despite the availability of technical meteorological data, a significant information gap persists. Vulnerable communities often lack access to reliable communication platforms, and where information does exist, it is frequently too technical or linguistically inaccessible to trigger life-saving anticipatory action. This "vagueness" in early warnings often results in community paralysis rather than proactive preparation.
Plan International maintains a robust presence in these states, committed to enhancing community resilience through the ZCRA Project. Recognizing that technical forecasts alone do not save lives, Plan International is bridging the gap between data and action. By partnering with major telecommunications providers, MTN, Airtel, and Glo, the project ensures that localized, trusted risk information reaches at-risk populations directly on their mobile devices.
The transition from a technical forecast to a community-led response requires a deliberate, nuanced approach to communication. A message development will be contracted for;
- Translation and Localization: By engaging a consultant, the project ensures that messages are not merely translated but are culturally adapted into local languages that resonate with the residents' daily realities.
- Action-Oriented Design: message focuses on converting "vague" warnings into clear, actionable guidance. This ensures residents know exactly what steps to take before, during, and after a flood event.
- Validation: the messages developed will be tested by Plan staff in various communities. Feedback will be shared with the consultant so it can be integrated into the final draft of the messages.
Overview
To identify a consultancy firm or a consultant that will review flood messages on flood early warning, preparedness, adaptation, resilience, and post-flood occurrences, which will be used on different platforms (sms, jingles, posters), for the Climate Resilience ZCRA Project.
Deliverables
In Nigeria’s Northeast region, specifically across Yobe and Adamawa States, the intersection of climate change and protracted humanitarian needs has left thousands of households increasingly vulnerable to devastating seasonal flooding. Despite the availability of technical meteorological data, a significant information gap persists. Vulnerable communities often lack access to reliable communication platforms, and where information does exist, it is frequently too technical or linguistically inaccessible to trigger life-saving anticipatory action. This "vagueness" in early warnings often results in community paralysis rather than proactive preparation.
Plan International maintains a robust presence in these states, committed to enhancing community resilience through the ZCRA Project. Recognizing that technical forecasts alone do not save lives, Plan International is bridging the gap between data and action. By partnering with major telecommunications providers, MTN, Airtel, and Glo, the project ensures that localized, trusted risk information reaches at-risk populations directly on their mobile devices.
The transition from a technical forecast to a community-led response requires a deliberate, nuanced approach to communication. A message development will be contracted for;
- Translation and Localization: By engaging a consultant, the project ensures that messages are not merely translated but are culturally adapted into local languages that resonate with the residents' daily realities.
- Action-Oriented Design: message focuses on converting "vague" warnings into clear, actionable guidance. This ensures residents know exactly what steps to take before, during, and after a flood event.
- Validation: the messages developed will be tested by Plan staff in various communities. Feedback will be shared with the consultant so it can be integrated into the final draft of the messages.
Objectives:
1. Localized Alert Design: Generic warnings often fail to trigger a sense of personal risk. By aligning NiMET (Nigerian Meteorological Agency) predictions with specific local landmarks and historical flood levels, alerts become tangible. Tailor messaging to local livelihoods, such as providing specific advice for farmers regarding livestock or fishermen regarding vessel safety.
2. Information Integrity & Verification: In the vacuum of official communication, rumors thrive. Establishing a "Single Source of Truth" is critical to preventing panic and ensuring trust. The messages designed will utilize a multi-channel approach, including SMS, verified WhatsApp groups, posters, and jingles, to bridge the gap in accessing reliable information. Additionally, this will create a rapid-response system to debunk misinformation before it scales, ensuring that community members know exactly where to look for reliable information.
3. Linguistic Accessibility: Science is only useful if it is understood. To move from awareness to action, alerts must be stripped of technical jargon and delivered in the heart language of the community. Translate NiMET forecasts into local languages (e.g., Hausa, Fulfulde) to ensure zero ambiguity. Also, text will be supplemented with culturally appropriate icons or color-coded flags (Green/Yellow/Red) for those with varying literacy levels.
4. SOP Integration: messages will move from providing just a warning to prompting actions. General warnings cause indecision, but having a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) drives results. By providing a clear checklist, the community transitions from "knowing" to "doing." This will help households to clearly define roles so that every household knows its immediate task once an alert is triggered.
6. Feedback mechanism: a top-down communication often ignores cultural nuances that can make or break compliance. A participatory approach ensures the system is built with the community, not just for them. After the message testing exercise, feedback from community members will be integrated into the final draft.
Safeguarding and PSHEA
In Plan International, one of our priorities is to keep the children and programme participants we work with safe and protected (‘Safeguarding’) from all forms of abuse, including sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse as described in our Safeguarding Children and Programme Participants and PSHEA Policies.
These policies demonstrate our commitment to holding ourselves accountable for ensuring that no child, young person, programme participant, community member, or staff member is subjected to harm or placed at risk as a result of their association with us. These policies govern the behaviours of Plan International staff, associates, and visitors who are obliged through Plan International’s staff and non-staff Codes of Conduct to behave appropriately with all people.
Safeguarding and PSHEA are quality requirements for all of our Programmes, Influencing and Communication work. The outcome of this message development workshop will therefore be designed and delivered in a manner that is safe for children and programme participants in all their diversities, which will require an in-depth Safeguarding and SHEA risk assessment, with the necessary level of resources and the flexibility to implement mitigation measures safely and adhere to safeguarding standards throughout and after the assessment.
Requirements for an M&E Consultant
Consultant(s) should submit a competitive itemized budget, covering the following aspects:
Consultant Fees: Including daily rates, number of working days, and expected costs for team members.
Social and Medical Insurance: Coverage for consultants and enumerators working in remote or high-risk areas.
Translation and Interpretation Costs: If applicable, for any multilingual data collection or reporting.
Miscellaneous Operational Costs: Any other costs related to the successful delivery of the assignment.
The payment will be made in instalments and subject to the delivery of the agreed outputs, as detailed in the Deliverables section.
Further information on the advert, including all referenced annexes, can be accessed via the link below: https://tinyurl.com/4dteemxn
How to apply
Interested Consultants are to send all requested documents in Annex A to this email - Nigeria.procurement@plan-international.org no later than 9th July, 2026 with the email subject title-
CNSLT/O26/011 - Consultancy for Translation Messages
Female Consultants are strongly encouraged to apply.
Job details
Country
Nigeria
Source
Plan International
Type
Consultancy
Career category
Advocacy/Communications
Years of experience
5-9 years
Theme
Disaster Management"
https://reliefweb.int/job/4218880/cnslto26011-consultancy-translation-messages
"“Images of Estonia(nness) in Estonian-Russian Literary Translation Flows Since 1991”
24 Aug 2026
10:15–12:15
Lossi 3–328
Doctoral defence
On 24 August 2026 at 10:15, Irina Siseykina will defend her doctoral thesis “Images of Estonia(nness) in Estonian-Russian Literary Translation Flows Since 1991” for obtaining the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Language and Literature.
Supervisors:
Luc van Doorslaer, University of Tartu
Sirje Kupp-Sazonov, University of Tartu
Opponent:
Philipp Hofeneder, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Summary
The Ph.D. thesis “Images of Estonia(nness) in Estonian-Russian literary translation flows since 1991” encompasses the publications from 1991 to 2023 and focuses on sociological and imagological aspects of the flow. The sociological approaches to translation flows draw on the ideas of Bourdieu, Latour, and Luhmann, and help to trace the nature and structure of the flow, the form of capital transferred through translation, the translation policies applied, and the translation network involved, as well as identify the main actors, i.e., publishers, authors, translators, and editors, and their functions. The imagological approaches required the analysis of metatexts associated with imagologically relevant titles to detect the recurring images and narratives of the flow.
The study is based on two corpora gathered from four translation databases: the Estonian Literature Center (ELIC), the Estonian National Library, Index Translationum, and the Estonian electronic bibliography. The two corpora are Estonian-Russian translations (426 titles) and Russian original titles (117 titles), which were analyzed to identify the most active publishers (KPD, Aleksandra, Avenarius, Kite, and others), translated authors (Eno Raud, Andrus Kivirähk, Leelo Tungal, Arvo Valton, Edgar Valter, and others), and translators (Vera Prohorova, Marina Tervonen, Maia Melts, and others). Selected actors were interviewed to obtain detailed information on the dynamics of the translation flow and the roles and functions of various actors, including periodicals.
The majority of Estonian-Russian translations are published in Estonia, and the majority of actors are Russian-speaking residents of Estonia, including Russian authors, who have integrated into Estonian culture and have made significant efforts to promote Estonian cultural capital among Russian readers in Estonia, Russia, and worldwide. The Estonian-Russian literary translation flow from 1991 to 2023 was the largest among translations to other languages.
A core image of the Estonian peasant, a sacred spiritual connection between Estonians and Estonian nature, the national traumas of German dominance and Soviet occupation, and the discussion of Estonia's self-identification are the tropes and narratives that are transferred through these translations."
https://ut.ee/en/event/doctoral-defence-irina-siseykina-images-estonianness-estonian-russian-literary-translation
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
"This study conducts a systematic stylistic investigation of three seminal English translations of Han Feizi, an important work of Chinese Legalist philosophy. Employing Douglas Biber’s multidimensional analysis (MDA), the research compares the stylistic profiles of W. K. Liao (1939, 1959), Burton Watson (1964), and Joel Sahleen (2003). Results reveal particularly striking differences across four key dimensions: Liao’s translation exhibits high informational density and extreme abstraction, Watson’s version balances narrative clarity with accessibility, while Sahleen’s rendering demonstrates an involved, overtly persuasive, yet rigorously abstract style. These divergences are most salient in the dimensions of Informational vs. Involved Production, Narrative vs. Non-narrative Discourse, Overt Persuasion, and Abstract vs. Non-abstract Information, highlighting how micro-level linguistic choices generate distinct macro-level rhetorical effects that transcend the source text’s inherent heterogeneity. By demonstrating that translators function as visible agents who reframe the source text in ways shaped by specific institutional and pedagogical norms, this study contributes quantitative empirical evidence to debates on translator visibility. It also validates MDA as a robust methodology for comparative translation studies, offering insights into how evolving translational norms reshape the stylistic re-presentation and transmission of Chinese classics in the Anglophone world."
Published: 02 July 2026
Investigating translator’s style in English translations of Han Feizi: a multidimensional analysis
Chang Yin, Chunyang Cao & Guangyuan Yao
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2026) Cite this article
Abstract
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-026-08122-x
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
“AI seems to struggle in three main areas: rendering metaphor, decoding complex sentence structure and creatively conveying mood or emotion,” writes Shandilya
"The Art of Literary Translation Exposes the Limits of AI, Says Professor Krupa Shandilya
The Conversation – “AI seems to struggle in three main areas: rendering metaphor, decoding complex sentence structure and creatively conveying mood or emotion,” writes Shandilya, a professor of sexuality, women’s and gender studies at Amherst. She uses a work by 20th-century Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz as an illustrative example.
“I worked closely with Adeeba Shahid Talukder, an award-winning poet and translator, to write this piece and to translate the 1953 poem ‘Mulāqāt,’ or ‘Meeting,’” Shandilya continues. She contrasts their translation against one generated by ChatGPT, pointing out where the chatbot fails to capture nuances, to parse intricate grammatical constructions, and to take into account relevant information about Faiz’s life and Urdu poetic traditions.
“A machine with no bodily experience of being human cannot meaningfully perceive a poem so enmeshed in human experience,” the professor writes. “Chatbots, in other words, are a poor substitute for the literary translator, and they bolster the assertion of the late Indian poet, scholar and translator A.K. Ramanujan that ‘only poems can translate poems.’”
Amherst College
Amherst, MA 01002
Contact Info
(413) 542-2000
Contact Info
Map & Directions"
https://www.amherst.edu/news/amherstinthenews/node/945118
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
On Preserving and Protecting the Original Translation of the Novel
"Why Soledad Acosta de Samper’s Dolores is a Unicorn in the Practice of Translation
Soledad Acosta de Samper spoke English, traveled the world, wrote every day, and saved the newspaper clippings in which her novels appeared to turn them into albums. She married for love, had four daughters—one of them, a nun and a poet, published the version of the Novena de Aguinaldos that is sung during the nine days leading up to Christmas in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador—founded five magazines, established herself as a journalist and historian, fought for women’s place in society, and resisted the censorship imposed on her most renowned female protagonist today in Latin America: Dolores.
Acosta was one of the most prolific writers of her time among both male and female writers. She wrote “twenty-one novels, forty-eight short stories, four plays, forty-three social and literary studies, twenty-one historical treatises, and founded and directed five newspapers (in which she herself contributed the majority of the fiction and nonfiction texts); she also produced numerous translations.” Like many women writers of the nineteenth century, she was censored and later forgotten. Her generation was one of thinkers, politically committed to defining how individuals were to be shaped as citizens of a civilized nation. This included, of course, the place of women, who were constantly relegated to silence and submission and assigned responsibility for the home and children. Acosta’s writing was politically engaged and openly opinionated.
Dolores is something of a unicorn in the practice of translation for several reasons.
The 1980s, fortunately, brought with them a feminism committed to revisiting and recovering the literary canon of women writers. Acosta was recovered during that decade by pioneering scholars such as Monserrat Ordóñez and Carolina Alzate, whose teachings paved the way for this translation project, through which I hope to continue filling the gaps in literary production and scholarship surrounding the author. It must have been difficult to situate her within a tradition in her own time, but, like so many others, she was writing—as the reader can now see in this book—for the future. Her portrayal of social customs appears almost fantastical in light of the transformation undergone by her protagonist.
Dolores, titled after its heroine, was written in 1847. It tells the story of a young woman from nineteenth-century Bogotá who discovers a family secret that gradually leads to her decline. Through her letters and diary we enter her inner world, full of reflections on the meaning of death and love, religion and nature, illness and youth. The book was published in the same year as María by Jorge Isaacs, a novel that has since been recognized as Colombia’s foundational novel and has appeared in more than 150 editions (while Dolores has had only four over the past 150 years). Although it was perhaps not recognized for its brilliance at the time of publication, Dolores is today the most studied and critically reviewed of Acosta’s works.
Dolores is something of a unicorn in the practice of translation for several reasons. To start with, there exists an English translation produced in New York in the late nineteenth century. We do not know the translator’s name or the exact date of their work, since neither appears in the printed version. It is rare for a modern translator to have access to a version produced in the same period as the original work, and this access offers unique opportunities. On the one hand, the translation serves as a source for the idioms of nineteenth-century English; on the other, as evidence of the ideas that the translator held about a Colombian woman writer.
For instance, there are passages in the English version in which Dolores’s complexion is described as “pure” or “white,” words that do not appear in the Spanish manuscript, although the latter does portray her with rosy cheeks and beautiful skin. In other moments, when Acosta devotes several sentences to describing the customs of Bogotá at the time—many of them employing words now obsolete—the nineteenth-century translator opts for a mixture of approximate equivalents and Spanish words explained (sometimes, though not always) through footnotes.
I decided to preserve the anglicisms and nineteenth-century syntactic structures used by the original translator whenever they did not alter the meaning of the source text.
Yet this is not the most interesting feature. In the original English translation of Dolores, the entire third part of the novel is omitted. The book is a framed narrative: although Dolores is the protagonist, she is not the narrator; her story is told by her cousin Pedro. In the first part, his voice predominates; the second combines his words with the letters Dolores sends him. The third section—the one eliminated in the nineteenth-century translation—consists entirely of the protagonist’s diaries, in which her voice, previously mediated through letters and recounted conversations, comes through directly, with marked intensity. This structure is a way of circumventing the public’s preference for a male narrator and allowing Dolores to have the final word in her own story, without Pedro having to speak for her, as Alzate notes—a reading I share.
Though the absence of the third part of the book is striking, the most fascinating aspect of the manuscript comes from an act of coauthorship that corrects it: Acosta de Samper herself translated, by hand, the omitted third part. Or rather, she revisited it (not to say rewrote it). Every writer knows the temptation to keep revising a text indefinitely, as well as the experience of rereading a book long after it has been published. Time, distance, and experience turn us into editors and expanders. Translation, moreover, offers the possibility of giving a text something like a parallel life, in which it can exist in another register. That is precisely what Acosta de Samper did upon returning to her novel Dolores. In her English version, the final section abounds in paraphrases and in beautiful added passages that do not appear in the original Spanish text.
All of these reasons make Dolores a particularly fascinating challenge for a contemporary translator. This is how I chose to approach the text: I decided to preserve the anglicisms and nineteenth-century syntactic structures used by the original translator whenever they did not alter the meaning of the source text. Naturally, I did not include explanations unnecessary for a modern reader, nor did I add comments regarding race or femininity that are absent from the original.
Whenever possible, I kept Spanish words that have no direct translation and included their meanings in the glossary, following Alzate’s definitions in the 2021 edition published by the Universidad de los Andes, which presents the authorized text. As for the stimulating—yet challenging—third part, in which Acosta de Samper restores what is missing, but also resorts to paraphrasing in order to adapt the long sentences of Spanish syntax to the English version, I left them almost intact. Where I encountered passages of particular beauty and poetic force, which also add a layer of complexity to the story and to the psychology of the character, I retained them, while carefully marking the beginning and end of these additions in the footnotes for curious readers who may wish to trace the transformations of the text.
Finally, I would like to extend my deepest thanks to Jessi Haley and Juliana Castro Varón for making Cita Press possible and for giving a home to thousands of women writers who, like Soledad, do not always find a place in truly feminist and democratic publishing circuits. I dare say the author would be delighted to see Dolores reach so many readers around the world. Thank you, thank you.
_________________________________
From Dolores by Soledad Acosta de Samper, published by Cita Press."
Via Cita Press
Sara Abadía Alvarado
July 1, 2026
https://lithub.com/why-soledad-acosta-de-sampers-dolores-is-a-unicorn-in-the-practice-of-translation/
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus
|
"7 reasons to read the Odyssey
The new Catalan translation, by Pau Sabaté, claims the strength and validity of the classic, which tells the adventures of Odysseus and the longed-for return to Ithaca
This is how the new Catalan version of Homer's Odyssey begins, one of the foundational epic poems in the history of literature, translated by Pau Sabaté and just published by Bernat Metge Universal, a label from Abacus. The classic tells the journey of the heroic and cunning Odysseus (or Ulysses, depending on the version), after the Trojan War – an episode dealt with in the Iliad, Homer's other literary monument–, with the aim of reaching the island of Ithaca, reuniting with his wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus, and reclaiming his throne. It is one of the books "most known and influential, subject to countless readings, rewrites and interpretations," comments the editor in the preface of the volume, Roger Aluja. Why does it continue to amaze readers and motivate new adaptations, such as the one that filmmaker Christopher Nolan is about to premiere, almost three thousand years after its conception?
1.
A foundational and enigmatic text
"Homer is the great child poet. The world is born and Homer sings it. He is the bird of that dawn". These words by Victor Weber in the first chapter of his essay William Shakespeare (1864) serve to illustrate the foundational element of the Odyssey. Composed and recited orally since the 9th century BC and fixed in writing during the 8th century BC, it is one of the first epic poems in the Western literary canon. Divided into 24 cantos and comprising more than 12,000 hexameters, it has been praised by writers as diverse as Dante Alighieri, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce –who offered a very personal reinterpretation in Ulysses–, Mercè Rodoreda, Jorge Luis Borges, and Margaret Atwood. "Whether the Odyssey is Homer's work or not adds a mist of mystery that seems secondary to me. What is important is that we have two great poems attributed to this name", comments Roger Aluja.
In the essay The Scar of Ulysses, included in Mimesis (1946) and recently recovered by Acantilado in Spanish, Erich Auerbach (1892-1957) praised "the joy of sensory existence that becomes present" when reading the Odyssey: "We don't care to know if it's a legend, if it's all lies – he adds–. Homer doesn't need to insist on the historical truth of his narrative, his reality is solid enough. Homer seduces us, traps us in the reality he describes, and that's enough for him. In that real world, which exists in itself, and to which we as readers have been brought as if by magic, there is nothing else. The Homeric poems hide nothing, they contain no teaching or secret second meaning".
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2.
Resonates in the past of any reader
Classics can be fascinating on a personal level – and end up in the "unforgettable" books drawer – or blend into the collective unconscious, as Italo Calvino recalled in Why Read the Classics (1981; in Catalan at Edicions 62). Youthful readings are so important, for Calvino, that he recommends rereading them at least once in a lifetime. “As we grow older, we change and our encounter with texts is totally different,” he writes: every rereading of a classic is, in reality, a reading as initiatory and surprising as the first.The love for Pau Sabaté and Roger Aluja's Odyssey
began in adolescence and has been transforming. "The first time I read it, I was 15 years old – Sabaté recalls. We had the second translation by Carles Riba at home [published between 1947 and 1948]. It amazed me. When you overcome the barrier of the splendid language it uses, it becomes very seductive and interesting." Homer influenced Sabaté in his decision to study Greek and, later, classical philology at the University of Barcelona (UB). In 2019, he inaugurated the lavish Bernat Metge Universal collection with his translation of the Iliad, and six years later he repeats with the Odyssey. His editor, Roger Aluja, was also captivated by the same book as Sabaté when he was in high school. "My research project consisted of comparing various versions of the sixth canto – he explains. Riba's, which was the first I read, but also the one in prose by Joan Alberich [La Magrana, 1998], and a couple or three in Spanish." When he was studying classical philology at the UB, Aluja coincided in the classroom with the Hellenist Jaume Pòrtulas: "He is one of the foremost specialists in the world in Homeric poetry. Professor Pòrtulas ended up directing my doctoral thesis, which is an aesthetic commentary on the eleventh canto of the Odyssey".
Pau Sabaté and Roger Aluja, translator and editor of Homer's 'Odyssey', during the interview at Casa Abacus, on Peu de la Creu street in Barcelona.XAVIER BERTRAL
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3.
It goes beyond being an adventure book
"TheOdyssey" is a book of travels, without travels –assures Dolors Miquel in the epilogue of the new edition of the Bernat Metge Universal–. A tale that a shepherd or a peasant would tell by a fire or on a summer evening. Or someone from distant lands. It would seem that the author is telling us that the only great and possible journey is that of the logos, that the most penetrating Odyssey of all is that of the imagination."
It is Odysseus himself who, transformed within the work into an aede –a term that designated Greek rhapsode poets–, is in charge of narrating his adventures, among which are the deception of the cyclops Polyphemus, the song of the Sirens –who have the head of a woman and the body of a bird–, the sacrifice of the Sun's cows, and his relationships with Nausicaa, Circe, and Calypso. "Although Calypso offers him immortality if he stays with her on the island where she lives, Odysseus prefers to return to Ithaca to reunite with Penelope and his son Telemachus –says Sabaté–. At first glance, the most striking and attractive part of the Odyssey is the adventures, but the cantos that take place in Ithaca are fundamental. For the adult reader, perhaps they are even more interesting." In relation to highlighting the adventures in the epic poem, Carles Riba considered it, in the prologue to his second translation, an attempt to bring the classic "to the marketplace," and added: "To snatch the Odyssey" from the monopoly of more or less learned Hellenists, all right; but as much as delivering it to the insensitivity and banality of mere novel devourers [...] it is difficult to resign oneself to it".
4.
Allows rediscovering a different hero
Odysseus represents "a type of heroism different from that of Achilles, the great protagonist of the Iliad", says Aluja. He shares with Achilles skill on the battlefield, but unlike him, "he does not give up other war tactics, such as ambushes, camouflage, or the use of the bow, which for warriors of strength is the weapon of cowards".
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"Odysseus is a master of dissimulation and deception", comments Sabaté. The fact that he is a man "of great cunning" –according to Riba–, "of a thousand faces" –in the translation by Joan F. Mira in 2011 for Proa– or "very versatile" –in Sabaté's version– allows him to overcome all obstacles, human and divine, during the ten years that separate him from the end of the Trojan War and his arrival in Ithaca. "When he wakes up on the beach of Ithaca, Athena [or Athena], his protector, transforms him into a miserable beggar, so that he remains unnoticed by everyone, friends and enemies alike –writes Jaume Pòrtulas in the prologue to the latest reissue of the Odyssey translated by Carles Riba in the Bernat Metge Essencial in 2019–. Finally, already at home and among his own, the man who had been [...] No one will manage to recover, thanks to a series of measured and successive recognitions, the different facets of his personal and social self. He thus returns to the fullness of himself. We could say that he rebuilds himself: he rebuilds himself as the father of Telemachus, as the husband of Penelope, as the son of Laertes, and also as the king of Ithaca".
Detail of Odysseus's route map that leads him from Troy to Ithaca, included in the Proa edition of the book.Proa
5.
The excellence of Catalan translations
There are three versions of the Odyssey by Carles Riba: between the first, published by Editorial Catalana in 1919, and the last, by Alpha – from the Col·lecció Bernat Metge – in 1953, more than three decades passed. "The mark it has left on contemporary Catalan literature has been important, although perhaps more in the realm of poets, translators, and other writers than for the average reader," admits Jaume Pòrtulas. When Joan F. Mira published his Odyssey in 2011 with Proa, he aimed "not to embellish the text, nor to try to improve it, nor to pretend to make it more poetic and more elevated". Like Riba and Sabaté, but unlike Joan Alberich's version, he translated it in verse. "Translating Homer in prose is entirely respectable, but it can never be read, perceived, or felt like a translation in verse – Mira argued at the time –. Never, in any way. And translating Homer in verse means, if it is materially possible (in some languages it certainly is not), reproducing the hexameters of the original".
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Pau Sabaté has wanted to follow "Riba's path": "I have tried to capture the passion for genuineness. Riba is sometimes even colloquial. He also has the aspiration to be very literal, to convey the strangeness of the original Greek text, which sometimes seems like an incantation. I have tried not to emphasize this point". The translator has avoided "modernizing the language of the Odyssey to the extreme". The reader interested in a sound prose version – made from the English adaptation by Samuel Butler, author of Erewhon, in 1900 – can turn to the recent edition by Blackie Books, which features the translation by Xavier Pàmies.
6.
A poem full of women that announces patriarchy
As Dolors Miquel points out in her epilogue, the Dolors Miquel points out in her epilogue, the Odyssey opens and closes with the goddess Athena. Throughout the poem, women have "a more relevant role than in the Iliad", says Aluja. "Although Calypso wants to keep Odysseus on the island, she eventually lets him go, and it is Circe who explains all the obstacles he must overcome to reach Ithaca — she adds—. Penelope awaits him there, who has managed to postpone the decision to choose a suitor with the cunning of undoing at night what she weaves during the day. Until the work is finished, she will not remarry." Miquel explains that beneath this female presence beats "the beginning of a phallocentric truth obsessed with hiding what is mysterious, what is feminine, uterine and unique". She recalls that Greek thought, appealing to the philosopher and psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray, transmits a "world that man has constructed to supplant adhesion to the maternal world, to assert himself against the mother, against participation in her world". In the Odyssey
7.
It will allow you to go down to hell and come back
In addition to proposing a journey through various Greek islands and allowing the reader to learn about their fauna, the Odyssey is a poem rich in mentions of trees and plants. "The names of animals and plants are always a thorny issue when translating ancient literature –comments Pau Sabaté–. The flora and fauna of the eastern Mediterranean, even if not radically different from ours, do not entirely correspond to that of the western shores either. A second problem is that the temporal distance and the limited nature of the sources have made certain denominations confusing." Wracking his brains, Sabaté has reached the conclusion that the "double thicket" under which Ulysses shelters on the island of the Phaeacians is formed by a part of olive tree and another that, instead of being broom or wild olive, must be oleaster. "A wild olive and an olive tree growing together do not quite make a "}double thicket" –he adds–. The usual cultivation technique for olive trees was to graft them onto oleasters to make them fruit faster.
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One of the riskiest adventures posed by the epic poem is the journey to Hades, the name by which hell was known in ancient Greece. "Odysseus goes there twice. The first time is explained in the eleventh canto, and among the most memorable passages is the reunion with Achilles, the hero of the Iliad", recalls the translator. Achilles laments having had to pay the price of death to achieve glory among the living: "Do not try to console me about death, Odysseus, do not comfort me! / I would much rather earn a day's wage on earth / by hiring myself out to a man without inheritance or much to live on / than be the king of all the dead, of those who have finished." Odysseus learns his lesson and ends up returning home."
Jordi Nopca
12/06/2026
https://en.ara.cat/culture/7-reasons-to-read-the-odyssey_130_5767086.amp.html
#metaglossia
#metaglossia_mundus