In category: Interview

How much do you know about Maltese literature? My own answer: embarrassingly little (all the more shameful given that I’m part Maltese). But that’s set to change this year, thanks to new micropublisher Praspar Press. I’m excited to bring you an interview with its founders, Jen Calleja and Kat Storace, who set up Praspar Press […]

I recently reviewed Guadalupe Nettel’s new collection, Bezoar and Other Unsettling Stories (tr. Suzanne Jill Levine, Seven Stories Press, 2020), and this week am delighted to bring you an interview with Guadalupe herself, offering insights into the themes and inspirations for Bezoar. All of the stories in Bezoar deal with obsessions – from seemingly innocuous ones to […]

Last week I reviewed María-Mercè Marçal’s The Passion According to Renée Vivien; I’m delighted to bring you today some intimate insights into the translation of this novel from Helena Buffery, who co-translated it with Kathleen McNerney. How did you discover this novel, and what made you want to translate it? Helena Buffery: The novel was one […]

In the final instalment of my mini-series of interviews about new Montenegrin novel Catherine the Great and the Small, I talk to translators Ellen Elias-Bursać and Paula Gordon about the importance of translating this book, its challenges and its joys. Catch up on my interviews with author Olja Knežević and publisher Susan Curtis, and order Catherine the […]

It’s my great privilege to bring you the second instalment in my three-part interview series about new Montenegrin novel Catherine the Great and the Small. Today author Olja Knežević talks about her book and its journey to publication in English with Istros Books (translated by Paula Gordon and Ellen Elias-Bursać). Catherine the Great and the […]

I was delighted to talk about the Translating Women project last week at Gŵyl, an online festival of literature in translation hosted by Caitlin Van Buren. We talked about how I choose books to read, why it’s important to read in translation no matter how many languages you speak, and the importance of intersectional feminism… […]

I’m excited today to bring you the first in a 3-part series of interviews about a new Montegrin book and its journey to publication. Olja Knežević’s Catherine the Great and the Small is a tale of four Montenegrin women navigating relationships with themselves, each other, their country and some pretty disappointing men as the Balkan […]

Nicci Praça has had a long and successful career in publishing: she was Head of Publicity for Quercus, where she launched MacLehose Press and did the PR for Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Then she moved to freelance work for independent publishing houses, starting with And Other Stories and then helping to launch Fitzcarraldo Editions, where […]

Charlotte Coombe has been translating for over twelve years: having started out translating creative texts in gastronomy, the arts, travel and tourism, lifestyle, fashion and advertising, her love of literature drew her to literary translation, with a particular interest in women’s writing. Her translation of Margarita García Robayo’s Fish Soup (Charco Press, 2018) is currently shortlisted for […]

Sophie Lewis is a translator from French and Portuguese. She has pursued a career in publishing alongside translation, running the UK office at Dalkey Archive Press, then working as Senior Editor at And Other Stories, and currently as fiction editor at the Folio Society. She is also a workshop leader for Shadow Heroes, organising creative […]