The Center for Science and Society at Columbia University is organizing an online event with the author and self-translator Jhumpa Lahiri on Tuesday, 6th October 2020 at 8 pm local time (2am CET). Registration is required but free: https://scienceandsociety.columbia.edu/events/jhumpa-lahiri-new-languagesold-worlds-self-translation
Pulitzer-Prize-winning author and translator Jumpha Lahiri writes in English and Italian. At first, she was reluctant to translate her own work, after translating a short-story for the New Yorker from Italian to English, she decided to give it a try with her next novel. Whereabouts will be published in English self-translation next year by Bloomsbury.
Links:
- Her self-translated short story "The Boundary": https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/29/the-boundary
- Short interview where she talks about this experience: https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/fiction-this-week-jhumpa-lahiri-2018-01-29
- Interview with Asymptote about giving self-translation a try: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2018/04/16/asymptote-book-club-in-conversation-with-jhumpa-lahiri/
- Her self-translated novel "Whereabouts": https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/whereabouts-9781526629951/
Event description by the organizers
New Languages/Old Worlds: the Self in Translation
Join novelist Jhumpa Lahiri, in a conversation about her experience as a self-described “linguistic exile”. As someone who grew up in the interface of two disparate languages, Jhumpa Lahiri has elected to read and write exclusively in a new one: Italian. Though her mother tongue was Bengali, she moved from London at the age of two to Rhode Island, and went on to conduct the entirety of her extensive education in English. Despite her academic background and the fact that almost all of her acclaimed literary achievements to date have been in English, she now only reads and writes in Italian and has said: “English denotes a heavy burdensome aspect of my past. I’m tired of it.” Ms. Lahiri will speak about her linguistic odyssey and her conscious and at times arduous adoption of an entirely new language.
2 comments:
Dear Eva,
My name is Juanita :) I am a Doctoral student in Sweden in poetry translation and I found your blog by chance. I have found very useful the blog mostly because of the bibliography!!!! and of course the self-translated oriented calls. Such a great idea to navigate more easily the open sea of the internet.
Very happy I did and be able to get in contact. I was thinking on organizing in collaboration with other people interested in translation/self-translation a seminar to discuss poetics behind them. I have more or less an idea that we could maybe discuss over email if you were interested.
My mail will appear hopefully for you to get in contact. I would like to hear other perspectives and ideas!
All the best,
Juanita
Dear Eva,
My name is Juanita :) I am a Doctoral student in Sweden in poetry translation and I found your blog by chance. I have found very useful the blog mostly because of the bibliography!!!! and of course the self-translated oriented calls. Such a great idea to navigate more easily the open sea of the internet.
Very happy I did and be able to get in contact. I was thinking on organizing in collaboration with other people interested in translation/self-translation a seminar to discuss poetics behind them. I have more or less an idea that we could maybe discuss over email if you were interested.
My mail will appear hopefully for you to get in contact. I would like to hear other perspectives and ideas!
All the best,
Juanita
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