Sunday, January 27, 2013

Notable New Translations: The 2013 Edition

January seems like as good a time as any to start a list of translations scheduled for release in 2013… And “start” is the operative word: this alphabetical (by author surname) list truly is just a start since I still need to check in with a few translators and publishers. I’m placing a link to the list in the “Other Reading Ideas” section of the blog’s sidebar so it’s easy to find... it’s just below the freshly updated list for 2012.

A few caveats. Release dates and titles are subject to change. Wherever possible, I’ve linked to publisher pages (on the publisher’s name) and Amazon pages (on the book title). A few books on the list are reissues. This is a global list. If you have a book you’d like me to list (or, horrors, find an error that needs correction!), please send me a note. I already have a few titles for 2014, so I’ll be happy to take more of those, too.

Edit, January 28: Oops, yesterday I forgot to include a link to Daniel Kalder’s Publishing Perspectives interview with Peter Mayer of Overlook Press about the Russian Library project... the project will apparently go on for a decade or so. Here it is!
 
Enjoy the list: there’s a lot of variety!

Aleshkovskii, Petr: Stargorod, translated by Nina Shevchuk-Murray; Russian Life, February 2013.

Babiashkina, Anna: Before I Croak, translated by Muireann Maguire; Glas, August 12, 2013.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Crocodile, translated by S.D. Cioran; reissue, The Overlook Press/Ardis, out now.

Dovlatov, Sergei: Pushkin Hills, translated by Katherine Dovlatov; Alma Classics (UK), Counterpoint (North America).

Eldin, Mikail: The Sky Wept Fire: My Life as a Chechen Freedom Fighter, translated by Anna Gunin; Portobello Books, November 7, 2013.

Frei, Max: The Stranger's Shadow: The Labyrinths of Echo, translated by Polly Gannon and Ast A. Moore; The Overlook Press, May 16, 2013.

Gazdanov, Gaito, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf, translated by Bryan Karetnyk; Pushkin Press, June 2013.

Gelasimov, Andrei, The Lying Year, translated by Marian Schwartz; AmazonCrossing, out now. (I’ve read several of Gelasimov’s books: this is my favorite.)

Gelasimov, Andrei: Gods of the Steppe, translated by Marian Schwartz, AmazonCrossing, September 3, 2013.

Grossman, Vasily: An Armenian Sketchbook, translated by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler; New York Review Books, February 19, 2013. (I’ll be writing about this book relatively soon…)

Kharms, Daniil: "I Am a Phenomenon Quite Out of the Ordinary": The Notebooks, Diaries, and Letters of Daniil Kharms, selected, translated and edited by Anthony Anemone and Peter Scotto; Academic Studies Press, February 2013.

Khodasevich, Vladislav: Selected Poems, translated by Peter Daniels; Angel Classics, September 2013, and The Overlook Press, January 2014.

Kozorezenko, Peter: Viktor Popkov: A Russian Painter of Genius, translated by Arch Tait; Unicorn Press, June 2013.

Krzhizhanovsky, Sigizmund: Autobiography of a Corpse, translated by Joanne Turnbull; New York Review Books, October 2013.

Kurkov, Andrey: a translation of Садовник из Очакова (literally, The Gardener from Ochakov, though the book may be titled differently), translated by Amanda Love Darragh; Harvill Secker, August 2013.

Leskov, Nikolai: The Enchanted Wanderer: and Other Stories, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky; Knopf, March 26, 2013. (Over 600 pages of Leskov, wow!)

Lorchenkov,Vladimir: The Good Life Elsewhere, translated by Ross Ufberg; New Vessel Press, November 2013.

Marshak, Samuil: The Circus and Other Stories, translated by Stephen Capus; Tate Publishing, June 2013.

Martinovich, Victor: Paranoia, translated by Diane Nemec Ignashev; Northwestern, March 31, 2013.

Mayakovsky, Vladimir: Selected Poems, translated by James H. McGavran III; Northwestern, June 2013.

Nekrasov, Vsevolod: I Live I See: Selected Poems, translated by Ainsley Morse and Bela Shayevich; Ugly Duckling Presse, June 1, 2013.

Nikitin, Alexei: Istemi, translated by Anne Marie Jackson; publisher Peter Owen, May 1, 2013.

Pavlov, Oleg: Captain of the Steppe, translated by Ian Appleby; And Other Stories, April 16, 2013.

Pavlov, Oleg: Asystole, translated by anonymous; Glagloslav, December 1, 2013.

Petrushevskaya, Ludmilla: There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories, translated by Anna Summers; Penguin, out now.

Pilnyak, Boris: The Naked Year, translated by A.R. Tulloch; reissue, The Overlook Press/Ardis, June 25, 2013. (A grad school favorite…)

Polonskaya, Anzhelina: Paul Klee's Boat, translated by Andrew Wachtel; Zephyr Press. 

Prokhorova, Irina, ed: 1990: Russians Remember a Turning Point, translated by Arch Tait; Quercus, March 28, 2013.

Sadulaev, German: Maya Pill, translated by Carol Apollonio; Dalkey Archive Press, November 2013.

Saltykov(-Shchedrin), Mikhail: The Golovlyov Family, translated by S.D. Cioran; reissue, The Overlook Press/Ardis, out now. (A dysfunctional family before we knew the term… almost scarily claustrophobic, very good.)

Savelyev, Igor: Mission to Mars, translated by Amanda Love Darragh; Glas, summer 2013. (I brought this book back from Moscow and plan to read it soon…)

Sen-Senkov, Andrei: Anatomical Theater, translated by Ainsley Morse and Peter Golub; Zephyr Press, December 2013. A bilingual edition.

Shargunov, Sergei: A Book Without Photographs, translated by anonymous; Glagoslav, May 27, 2013.

Sharov, Vladimir: Before and During, translated by Oliver Ready; Dedalus, June/July 2013. (This sounds like an interesting book... and I just have to add that Dedalus also has an anthology of Lithuanian literature coming out as well as The Dedalus Book of Vodka, by Geoffrey Elborn.)

Shishkin, Mikhail: The Light and the Dark, translated by Andrew Bromfield; Quercus, February 28, 2013. (A more literal translated title would be Letter-Book.)

Shklovsky, Viktor: A Hunt for Optimism, translated by Shushan Avagyan; Dalkey Archive Press.

Snegirev, Alexander: Petroleum Venus, translated by Arch Tait; Glas, out now.

Sologub, Fyodor: The Little Demon, translated by Ronald Wilks; Penguin Classics, July 2013. (This appears to be a rerelease with a new introduction rather than a new translation but I love this book so much that I'm going to include it anyway!)

Tsypkin, Leonid: The Bridge Over the Neroch: And Other Works, translated by Jamey Gambrell; New Directions, February 13, 2013.

Vachedin, Dmitry: Snow Germans, translated by Arch Tait; Glas, April 16, 2013.

Vishnevetsky, Igor: Leningrad, translated by Andrew Bromfield; Dalkey Archive Press, October 3, 2013.

Vvedensky, Alexander: An Invitation For Me To Think, edited and translated by Eugene Ostashevsky, with additional translation by Matvei Yankelevich; New York Review Books, April 2, 2013.

Yuzefovich, Leonid: Harlequin’s Costume, translated by Marian Schwartz; publisher Glagoslav, the ides of March.

Various: Red Spectres, short stories translated by Muireann Maguire; The Overlook Press, April 18, 2013, though already out in the UK. (Muireann selected and translated eleven stories from writers including Valery Bryusov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, and Aleksandr Chayanov... I’m looking forward to this one!)

Various: Relocations: Three Contemporary Russian Women Poets, poetry by Polina Barskova, Anna Glazova, and Maria Stepanova, translated by Catherine Ciepiela, Anna Khasin, and Sibelan Forrester; Zephyr Press, August 13, 2013. (This book is in a series called In the Grip of Strange Thoughts... it is apparently a bilingual edition.)

Various: Moscow Tales, short stories translated by Sasha Dugdale and edited by Helen Constantine; Oxford University Press, October 2013. This collection contains new translations of old classics, including Nikolai Karamzin's "Poor Liza," plus contemporary stories that have never been translated. I'm looking forward to it!

Various: New Russian Plays, translated by Noah Birksted-Breen; Sputnik, April 2013.

Disclaimers: The usual, with too many specifics to list: I’ve met, worked on paid projects, discussed translation and specific projects, chatted and shared meals with, and/or otherwise been in contact with numerous individuals and entities mentioned in this post. I received review copies of some books listed. Amazon links are affiliate links.

9 comments:

  1. Very useful, as always! A question: You give the author of Before I Croak as Anna Babiashkina, as does the Amazon page, but Russian sites give the author of Прежде чем сдохнуть as Анна Леонидова. What's the story? And what year was the Russian book published? I can only find information about the prize online.

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    1. Thanks for the questions, Languagehat! Answers:

      Name: The Debut Prize site reports that Babiashkina is the author's pseudonym and maiden name. (Some of that information is available in English, here.)

      Book: It appears that Прежде чем сдохнуть will be published for the first time in a 2013 collection available online here. Debut

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    2. (The hanging "Debut" there means nothing!)

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  2. Ah, several I'm looking forward to. The Lying Game sounds interesting. *sigh* More to read...

    Also, I believe Glas will be releasing an ebook combo of Anatoly Mariengof's Cynics and A Novel Without Lies...both available in way-back issues already, but should be good together. (Can't find anything at their site yet)

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    1. Thanks for the note on Mariengof, Dwight. I asked Natasha Perova of Glas about new books for 2013 and she didn't mention Mariengof... then again, I didn't ask about ebooks!

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  3. wow, impressive list! I had no idea so many Russian books were being translated. that's good

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    1. Thanks for the comment, wordsandpeace.com! I have to admit I was also a little surprised the list came out so long... particularly since I know it will grow during the year.

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  4. Thanks for a cool list, Lisa! I'm excited first and foremost about the Tsypkin novel. I preordered it on Amazon. He's such an interesting neglected writer. I translated a sample of something else he wrote back in the beginning of my translating days for a literary institute that eventually decided not to fund the translation. That novel is I think still untranslated (forget it's title, something related to Mt. Ararat?) and I think even unavailable in Russian, at least it was eight years ago when I worked on it. And of course Summer in Baden-Baden is such a gem of a book.

    I've owed you a response for so long I think I need to write you a whole new email! Motherhood has made me such a terrible correspondent. I did appreciate what you had to say and things are going well with MT now -- I think he trusts me and has come to understand why I ask the questions I do. Almost finished with "The Ocean Hotel", maybe you could read it when I'm done?

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    1. Thanks for checking in, Andrea G! I'd forgotten you're a big Tsypkin fan... I read just a tiny bit of him years ago and should look for something else.

      I'm glad all's going well with translation!

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