Tag: translation

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Lytton Smith collaborates on essay exploring poetry in translation

Assistant Professor of English Dr. Lytton Smith has just published a collaboratively-authored essay, written with Dr. Katherine Baxter, on the poetry of Chamoru poet Craig Santos Perez and Maori poet Robert Sullivan.

“Writing in Translation: Robert Sullivan’s Star Waka and Craig Santos Perez’s from unincorporated territory” is the first comparative study of these poets’ works, and it makes an argument for translation as a “kinetic space” defined not by a movement from “source” to “target” language but as a means for allowing “multiple idioms and registers to co-exist, displaying a range of power structures and social hierarchies simultaneously.”

The article appears in Vol 2.2 of Literary Geographies, an interdisciplinary open-access e-journal that provides a forum for new research and collaboration in the field of literary/geographical studies.

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Lytton Smith and Jón Gnarr at UR bookstore April 23

Update (April 20, 2015 at 7:17 a.m.): Dr. Smith’s translation of The Indian has been praised as “beautifully translated” and “hypnotic and heartbreaking” in a pre-publication review by Michael Schaub of NPR Books. You can read an excerpt of The Indian here.

07_27_2014_525x825_indian4Professor Lytton Smith will appear at the University of Rochester bookstore this Thursday, April 23, at 6 p.m. with Jón Gnarr, former punk rocker, mayor of Reykjavík, sitcom star, and author of The Indian, which Smith has translated into English for publisher Deep Vellum.

There will be a conversation between Smith and Gnarr, a reading from the book, and a chance to ask questions. The event is free and open to the public.

192px-Jon-gnarr-2011-ffm-098The Indian is a novel/memoir of Gnarr’s uncomfortable childhood, telling in black humor his isolation and his misdiagnosis as backwards because of his severe dyslexia and ADHD. Subjected to constant bullying, young Gnarr sets his bedroom on fire (accidentally), tries to fit in by self-piercing his ears at a Grease-themed school dance, and attempts to sail across the Reykjavík bay, almost washed out into the ocean.

The Indian is the first novel in a trilogy on Gnarr’s youth, and resonates with young readers as much as with parents of children with emotional and learning issues; The Indian is taught in schools throughout Iceland, resonating with readers of all ages. The Indian is out May 5th and Deep Vellum will publish the full trilogy throughout 2015-2016.