Logic and Revolution: Wang Xiaobo’s “The Golden Age”
by Andrew Felsher
“Wang’s understated wit and distinctive tone is undeniable, conjuring up connections to Kafka’s logic-riddled restraint, Camus’s detachment, and Lu Xun’s dark humor.”
“Wang’s understated wit and distinctive tone is undeniable, conjuring up connections to Kafka’s logic-riddled restraint, Camus’s detachment, and Lu Xun’s dark humor.”
“What is the purpose of one culture translating another? One reason Slavic departments thrive during political crises would seem to be so that we can better understand the cultures of the post-Soviet East. Another reason, though, may be something more akin to the motives of the CIA in translating Doctor Zhivago.”
“The Symmetry Teacher and its Russian version have a different relationship than the traditional one of a translation to an original. The additions and augmentations alone suggest this. The Symmetry Teacher is a bilingual or interlingual novel. Perhaps translingual is the term for it, since the novel refers back to its previous versions.”
Albena Stambolova’s short, fable-like novel Everything Happens As It Does brings a whole new sensibility to the body of English translations from her native Bulgaria’s contemporary literature.
Step two: engage. Sozopol coverage continues with Molly Antopol’s conversation with Bulgarian author Miroslav Penkov and Lee Kaplan Romer’s meditation on writing as an act of defiance and grace.
Step One: Leave home. Three fellows from the Sozopol Fiction Seminar consider questions of travel, culture, and translation. Part I: John Struloeff on international diplomacy and collaboration, Jane E. Martin on finding home abroad, and Michael Hinken on how we rediscover home by leaving it. Later this week: Molly Antopol and Lee Romer Kaplan.
