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Translating the Untranslatable
Five years ago, Jacques Lezra was asked to translate a book of untranslateable words. “The project provided me, and my co-editors,” he writes, “with a vivid sense of the history of how people think, and how societies think differently from one another.” This week, the fruits of their labor were published by Princeton University Press, and to celebrate the occasion, the publisher has released six PDFs of sample entries: begriff, kitsch, media, polis, right, and saudade.
Dragged In
Most institutions that become an essential part of a local culture build up a collection of curios over the years. They collect as much evidence as they can of their proximity to major events. At the New York Public Library, for example, you can find a letter opener whose handle is made from the paw of Charles Dickens’s dead cat. (h/t The Paris Review Daily)
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The Sentences of one ZS.
Last night I went to see Zadie Smith read and chat at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. I wrote a little #LitBeat about it, which makes it officially NW day at The Millions, given today’s main page review.
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But just maybe you’ll beat the odds
If you find yourself in a sporting mood, you can place a bet on who will win the Nobel Prize for Literature. I personally like Alice Munro’s 20/1 odds for taking the award, though Haruki Murakami’s 10/1 make him the safer bet.
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Appearing Elsewhere
Over the past week, the work of three Millions staffers has been shown off for other publications: Mark O’Connell talks Lethem, Dyer and Batuman for Slate; Emily St. John Mandel talks noir for Beyond the Margins; and Garth Risk Hallberg names his selection for this year’s Pulitzer-less Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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“Writing isn’t entirely mental.”
“Writing isn’t entirely mental. You’re a physical being, and sometimes when your writing is broken, it’s your body that needs attention, not your mind.” Rebecca Makkai has some tips for breaking writer’s block and a very cool perspective on writing as a whole person. Pair with our interview with Makkai about her latest novel, The Hundred-Year House.
Cuba’s Newest Voices
Recommended Reading: Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo collected sixteen short stories from sixteen authors among Cuba’s “Generación Año Cero” (Generation Year Zero), which is a “movement of writers who began publishing in 2000.” The anthology, which is available for free online in both English and Spanish, features illustrations from Cuban artists El Sexto and Luis Trápaga.
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