Homage
 

Amateurs borrow, professionals steal, and this month we're accessories after the fact, presenting a collection of pieces based on, alluding to, and just plain pinched from the work of others. Our contributors target writers from a variety of countries and eras to mimic and riff on, and subvert plots, characters, and the authors themselves. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, these subjects receive the most honest compliment of all.

Elsewhere, we consider contemporary Polish poetry after Miłosz, with new poems by a group of young writers selected by the critic Grzegorz Jankowski.

Requiem
By Slavko Zupcic
Translated from the Spanish by Jeremy Osner
I was the one who killed Borges. more>>>

Bonsai
By Guadalupe Nettel
Translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey
If I was a cactus, what kind of plant was Midori? more>>>

Never Any End to Hemingway
By Eduardo Halfon
Translated from the Spanish by Daniel Hahn
"Come now, Hemingway,” she teased, “you really don’t know this gentleman’s stories?” more>>>

For Álvaro Pombo
By Juan Antonio Masoliver Ródenas 
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee
Because we lived in brothels / and in dungeons more>>>

For Antonio Gamoneda
By Juan Antonio Masoliver Ródenas
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee
Maestro, I said, tell me, / reveal to me the secret of poetry.more>>>

For Eugenio Montejo
By Juan Antonio Masoliver Ródenas
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee
That night / Of Greek drunkenness/ In a Berlin tavern more>>>

from A Garden in the North
By Michael Kleeberg
Translated from German by David Dollenmayer
He recommended Valium and a trip to London. more>>>

On Tao Qian
By Nachoem Wijnberg
Translated from Dutch by David Colmer
He writes the way someone who is no longer impatient speaks.more>>>

Su Dongpo and the Trick He Says He Learned from Tao Qian
By Nachoem Wijnberg
Translated from Dutch by David Colmer
More to see left and right than he can list. more>>>

Du Fu
By Nachoem Wijnberg
Translated from Dutch by David Colmer
Every word Du Fu uses, he read somewhere. more>>>

Marcel Proust's Last Three Days
By Lúcia Bettencourt
Translated from Portuguese by Kim Hastings
And you need to promise me one thing: don’t let them give me any injections. more>>>

The Other Letter
By Muharem Bazdulj
Translated from Bosnian by John K. Cox
He gave me a very serious look and said there would not be any more murders. more>>>

Double Fishing
By Mohamed Magani
Translated from French by Alison Anderson
If he and I had been able to exchange space and time, he might well have become Trout Fishing in America. more>>>

Timoniad
By Christopher Kontonikolis
Translated from Ancient Greek by Andrew Barrett
Hard as he tried, he could not save himself. more>>>

Timon vs. Newton
By Christopher Kontonikolis
Translated from Ancient Greek by Andrew Barrett
By Zeus, do you know how to bring owls to Athens! more>>>

Polish Poetry

Alterity
By Jacek Dehnel
Translated from Polish by Benjamin Paloff
There’s no such thing as comfort for unhappy men. more>>>

I Wish I Had a Master
By Julia Fiedorczuk
Translated from Polish by Benjamin Paloff
for one stray word/would mean the fall of kingdoms more>>>

[only I am]
By Justyna Bargielska
Translated from Polish by Katarzyna Szuster
only i am cruelty-free more>>>

Old-Fashioned
By Edward Pasewicz
Translated from Polish by Benjamin Paloff
And then she died on us, utterly. more>>>

Adjectival Poem
By Piotr Sommer
Translated from Polish by W. Martin and Christian Hawkey
Amazing spring, warm, humid / and full of backlit trees. more>>>

Eavesdropping
By Piotr Sommer
Translated from Polish by W. Martin and Christian Hawkey
All the hazel eyes are rotting now underground. more>>>

Utensils Shrink
By Piotr Sommer
Translated from Polish by W. Martin and Christian Hawkey
Verbs swell before your eyes or / burst their seams. more>>>

Book Reviews

Sergio Chejfec's My Two Worlds
Reviewed by Jennifer Croft
Technology, for one, has begun to batter life’s perfect syntax more>>>

Raymond Roussel's Impressions of Africa
Reviewed by Stefanie Sobelle

Imagine an extravagant pageant during which a marksman shoots off the top of a soft-boiled egg more>>>

Events
Lit Crawl NYC: Down and Dirty Round the World
September 10, 2011 11:19 am
Lolita Bar
266 Broom Street
New York, NY

Down and Dirty Round the World returns to Lit Crawl NYC with a new batch of Words without Borders’ top translators presenting their favorite hard-boiled, pulpy, and erotic international literature. Chip Rossetti, Edna McCown, Alison Dundy, and Anna Kushner will introduce us to slumming Egyptians, murderous Austrians, impotent Congolese, and naughty Cubans . . . Hope to see you there!

Recent Dispatches

On Being Translated: To Be Written in English
by Frederik Bjerre Andersen
There he was. The Main Character. The description of him. All the words, verbs, nouns, pronouns, syllables. I knew them all. Already. But only in Danish. Not this way around.

Because here he was, The Main Character, in English. So much the same. But still so different.

In some ways much more classy—but in some ways way more simple. more>>>

 Reimagining Hölderlin: A Discussion between Writers and Translators
By Katherine Sanders
In a courtyard gathering at NYU’s Deutches Haus, Martin Rauchbauer and Deike Benjoya sat down with Ross Benjamin, Alfed Goubran, and Richard Sieburth last month to discuss the life and work of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843). The idyllic setting of trees, birds, food, wine, and of course, books, was a perfect backdrop to discuss this Romantic writer. more>>>

 The Graffiti of Benghazi
By Ethan Chorin
Six months after the February uprising, there are several major differences in the physical appearance of Benghazi, Libya’s rebel capital. The city is unmistakably cleaner, the result of a few pre-uprising civic works (including the cleaning of Benghazi’s putrid central lake) as well as the newfound civic pride that has compelled citizens to sweep up in front of apartment buildings and storefronts. The streets are festooned with the ubiquitous red, black, and green of the Monarchy flag.  Many of the burned-out, Italian colonial-era buildings, such as the Cinema Qureena on Maidan Al Shajara (Tree Square), have been either boarded up or cordoned off. more>>>

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