Well, I finally got a little smarter and decided not to post
the year’s translation list until late December – it’s amazing how much cleaner
the data are that way! I won’t be striking entries for years to come this time
around. I can also say for certain that the list has hit an all-time high: 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 books. But watch for changes! I’m sure I’ve missed some books. As always.
As in past years, I have to credit ongoing grant programs from
the Institute of Translation and the Prokhorov Fund’s Transcript Program for
helping to fund many new translations on the list. Sometimes a listing from grant
reporting leads to lots more books, as happened with a title from Holy Trinity Publications
that received funding from Transcript: I checked Holy Trinity’s site for that
book and found several more that came out this year. Checking a title on the University
of Wisconsin Press’s site also started a chain reaction; they published three
translations this year.
I think what’s most encouraging about this year’s list is
that it’s the most varied I’ve seen since I started keeping track of new
translations. There’s a nice blend of fiction and nonfiction, with some
children’s books and art books thrown in. Another positive bit of news: I’m already
seeing lots of listings for 2019.
Since I’m posting so late in the year, I’ll modify my
caveats from years past. This list is just a start; I’m always happy to add
books I’ve missed. Please e-mail me with changes/errors or additions; my
address is on the sidebar. As last year, this is a global list that includes
new translations and some retranslations. I’ve linked titles on the list to
publishers’ pages wherever possible. I’ll place a link to this post on the
sidebar of the blog for easy reference. I’m taking names and titles for 2019
now, so please start sending them in. Finally, don’t forget the Self-Published
Translation post: If you have a book to add, please add it in a comment on that
page, here,
and I’ll approve it.
All that’s left to say now is happy holidays – enjoy the list
and your reading!
Akunin, Boris: Black City, translated by Andrew Bromfield; W&N, November 2018.
Amelin, Maxim: The Joyous Science: Selected Poems of Maxim Amelin, translated by Derek Mong and Anne O. Fisher; White Pine Press, September 2018.
Amelin, Maxim: The Joyous Science: Selected Poems of Maxim Amelin, translated by Derek Mong and Anne O. Fisher; White Pine Press, September 2018.
Arseniev, Pavel: Reported Speech,
translated by Thomas Campbell, Cement Collective, Jason Cieply, Ian Dreiblatt, Ronald
Meyer, Ainsley Morse, Ingrid Nordgaard, Anastasiya Osipova, and Lia Na’ama Ten Brink; Cicada Press, late 2018. I enjoyed Arseniev’s
Slavist convention reading very much and am looking forward to reading more.
Averky (Taushev): The
Epistles and the Apocalypse, translated by Nicholas Kotar and Seraphim
(Rose); Holy Trinity Press, 2018.
Aylisli, Akram: Farewell,
Aylis: A Non-Traditional Novel in Three Works, translated by
Katherine E. Young; Academic Studies Press, 2018.
Belyaev, Roman: How Does a
Lighthouse Work?, translated by Maria Kulikova; b small
publishing, 2018. For ages 4-12.
Berggolts, Olga: Daytime Stars: A Poet's Memoir of the Revolution, the Siege
of Leningrad, and the Thaw, translated by Lisa A. Kirschenbaum;
University of Wisconsin Press, August 2018.
Buksha, Ksenia: The Freedom Factory,
translated by Anne Fisher; Phoneme Media, December 2018. This novel won the
2014 National Bestseller Award.
Chekhov, Anton: Chekhov:
Stories for Our Time, translated by Constance Garnett, Ilan
Stevens and, Alexander Gurvets, illustrated by Matt McCann, with an
introduction by Boris Fishman; Restless Books, June. (previous
post) I liked this edition a lot!
Chizhova, Elena: Little Zinnobers,
translated by Carol Ermakova; Glagoslav Publications, December 2018. (Note: I
didn’t find this book on Amazon.com on 12/22/2018 so am unsure about the actual
release date.)
Chudakova, Marietta: Mikhail
Bulgakov: The Life and Times, translated by Huw Davies;
Glagoslav Publications, December 2018. (Note: I didn’t find this book on
Amazon.com on 12/22/2018 so am unsure about the actual release date.)
Dorosheva, Sveta: The
Land of Stone Flowers, translated by Jane Bugaeva; Chronicle
Books, 2018. This is a beautiful, fun, and funny book – I very much enjoyed translating
excerpts of this book but am thrilled that Jane Bugaeva translated the whole
thing!
Dyachenko, Sergey and Marina: Vita Nostra,
translated by Julia Meitov Hersey; Harper Collins, November 2018.
Eisenstein, Sergei: Beyond
the Stars: 1. The Boy from Riga, translated by William Powell;
Seagull Books, 2018.
Eisenstein, Sergei: Beyond
the Stars: 2. The True Paths of Discovery, translated by William
Powell; Seagull Books, December 2018.
Ganieva, Alisa: Bride and Groom,
translated by Carol Apollonio; Deep Vellum, April 2018. (previous
post)
Gazdanov, Gaito: The Beggar
and Other Stories, translated by Bryan Karetnyk; Pushkin Press,
April 2018.
Gnedov, Vasilisk: Alphabet
for the Entrants, translated by Emilia Loseva and Danny Winkler;
Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018.
Gnilorybov, Pavel: Moscow Grows: A Book about Moscow
-- Past, Present, and Future, translated by Elizabeth Adams,
Shelley Fairweather-Vega, Jesse Irwin, and Katherine E. Young, with a foreword
by Mikhail Afanasyev; B.S.G.-Press, 2018.
Golomstock, Igor: A
Ransomed Dissident: A Life
in Art Under the Soviets, translated by Sarah Jolly and Boris Dralyuk; I.B.
Tauris, 2018.
Gorenstein, Friedrich: Redemption,
translated by Andrew Bromfield; Columbia University Press/Russian Library,
2018.
Grinëv, Andrei Val’terovich: Russian
Colonization of Alaska: Preconditions, Discovery, and Initial Development,
1741-1799, translated by Richard L. Bland; University of Nebraska
Press, November 2018.
Gumilev, Nikolai: Nikolai
Gumilev’s Africa, translated by Slava I. Yastremski, Michael M.
Naydan, and Maria Badanova; Glagoslav, August 2018.
Ivanov, Andrei: Hanuman’s Travels,
translated by Matthew Hyde; Vagabond Voices, October 2018.
John of Tobolsk: The
Sunflower: Conforming the Will of Man to the Will of God, translated by
Nicholas Kotar; Holy Trinity Publications, 2018.
Kabakov, Ilya: On
Art, translated by Antonina Bouis; University of Chicago Press,
2018.
Kabysh, Inna: Blue
Birds and Red Horses, translated by Katherine E. Young; Toad
Press, 2018.
That Third Guy: A Comedy from the
Stalinist 1930s with Essays on Theater, translated by
:
Kudryavitsky, Anatoly: The
Flying Dutchman, translated by Carol Ermakova; Glagoslav
Publications, 2018.
Mandelstam, Osip: Journey
to Armenia, translated by Sydney Monas, Clarence Brown, and
Robert Hughes; Notting Hill Editions, September 2018.
Mandelstam, Osip: Concert
at a Railway Station. Selected Poems, translated by Alistair
Noon; Shearsman Books, 2018.
Mandelstam, Osip; Mayakovsky, Vladimir; Vinokur, Val: Relative Genitive,
translated by Val Vinokur; Poets & Traitors Press, 2018. This edition also
includes original poems by Vinokur as well as his translations of Mandelstam
and Mayakovsky. The description sounds very interesting.
Mayakovsky, Vladimir: Mayakovsky Maximum Access, translated by Jenny Wade; Sensitive Skin Books, 2018. A bilingual edition with stress marked in the Russian, plus notes.
Nikolaeva, Olesia: Ordinary
Wonders: Stories of Unexpected Grace, translated by Alexandra Weber;
Holy Trinity Publications, 2018.
Novikova, Liudmila: An Anti-Bolshevik Alternative: The
White Movement and the Civil War in the Russian North, translated by
Seth Bernstein; University of Wisconsin Press, 2018.
Ozerov, Lev: Portraits
Without Frames, translated by Maria Bloshteyn, Robert Chandler,
Boris Dralyuk, and Irina Mashinski; New York Review Books, November 2018.
Pushkin, Alexander: Lyrics (first volume of four), translated by a team led by Robert Clarke; Alma Books, 2018. (Volumes two and three were published in 2020; volume 4 comes out in 2021.)
Rzhevskaya, Elena: Memoirs
of a Military Interpreter: From the Battle for Moscow to Hitler’s Bunker,
translated by Arch Tait; Greenhill Books, 2018. This sounds especially
interesting.
Sergiev, Ivan Ilyich: My
Life in Christ: The Spiritual Journals of St John of Kronstadt, translated
by E. E. Goulaeff, revised by Nicholas Kotar; Holy Trinity Publications, 2018.
Shalamov, Varlam: Kolyma
Stories, translated by Donald Rayfield; New York Review Books,
May 2018.
Sharov, Vladimir: The Rehearsals,
translated by Oliver Ready; Dedalus Books, 2018. Oliver won the 2018 Read
Russia Award for contemporary literature for this translation.
Shrayer-Petrov, David: Doctor Levitin,
translated by Arna B. Bronstein, Aleksandra I. Fleszar, and Maxim D. Shrayer;
Wayne State University Press, fall 2018. (Aleksandra Fleszar was one of the
group/faculty leaders for the summer study abroad program that brought me to
the USSR in 1983!)
Smoliarova, Tatiana: Three
Metaphors for Life: Derzhavin’s Late Poetry, translated by
Ronald Meyer and Nancy Workman, edited by Workman; Academic Studies Press,
2018.
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: Between
Two Millstones, Book 1, Sketches of Exile, 1974-1978, translated
by Peter Constantine; Notre Dame Press, October 2018.
Starobinets, Anna: In the Wolf’s Lair: A
Beastly Crimes Book; translated by Jane Bugaeva; Dover Publications,
September 2018.
Strugatskys, Boris and Arkady: The
Snail on the Slope, translated by Olena Bormashenko; Chicago
Review Press, 2018. (Total tangent: I couldn’t help but notice that this
translation is part of a Rediscovered Classics series that also includes
Kathleen Winsor’s Forever Amber, a
huge 1940s bestseller that was banned in Boston – I particularly loved it for
including plague.)
Sverdlik, Anna: How
Our Emotions and Bodies are Vital for Abstract Thought,
translated by Shelley Fairweather-Vega; Routledge, 2018.
Tarkovsky, Andrei: Time
within Time: The Diaries, 1970-1986, translated by Kitty
Hunter-Blair; Seagull Books, December 2018.
Tolstaya, Tatyana: Aetherial
Worlds, translated by Anya Migdal; Knopf, March 2018. Longlisted
for the 2019 PEN Translation Prize; fingers crossed for the shortlist!
Trudolyubov, Maxim: Private Life, Ownership and the Russian State, translated by Arch Tait: Polity Books, 2018.
Tseytlin, Yevsey: Long Conversations in Anticipation of a Joyous Death, translated by Alexander Rojavin; Three String Books/Slavica, 2018.
Tsvetaeva, Marina: Five Hard Pieces: Translations and Readings of Five Long Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated by Diana Lewis Burgin; University of Massachusetts Press, 2018.
Utkin, Alexander: The King of the Birds translated by Lada Morozolva; Nobrow, 2018. The first in a series of folktale-inspired graphic novels for kids.
Vail, Pyotr and Genis, Alexander: Russian Cuisine in Exile, edited and translated by Angela Brintlinger and Thomas Feerick; Academic Studies Press, 2018. (There’s even a chapter called “Salad and Salo,” making this almost sound like a “don’t miss it” sort of book.)
Vakar, Irina: Black
Square, translated by Antonina Bouis; Buchhandlung Walther König,
2018.
Various: Ten
Poems from Russia, edited and introduced by Boris Dralyuk,
translated by Dralyuk, Peter France, and Robert Chandler; Candlestick Press and
Pushkin Press, May 2018.
Various: Slav
Sisters: The Dedalus Book of Russian Women’s Literature, please
click through for the list of writers and translators!, edited by Natasha
Perova; Dedalus Ltd., January 2018.
Various: Four
Russian Short Stories: Gazdanov & Others, translated by
Bryan Karetnyk; Penguin, February 2018. Stories by Gaito Gazdanov, Nina
Berberova, Galina Kuznetsova, and Yury Felsen. Émigré stories.
Various: Russian
Cosmism, edited by Boris Groys, translated by Ian Dreiblatt and
others; MIT Press, February 2018. (Please click through on the title link for
the list of article authors.)
Various: Russians On
Trump, edited by Laurence Bogoslaw, translated by what I am told
is a band of scrappy, valiant, and conscientious, but anonymous translators;
East View Press, 2018.
Various: Mirror Sand:
An Anthology of
Russian Short Poems in English Translation, edited and
translated by Anatoly Kudryavitsky; Glagoslav, 2018. A bilingual edition.
Various: Fabergé:
Treasures of Imperial Russia: Faberge Museum, St. Petersburg,
translated by Antonina Bouis; Rizzoli, 2018.
Various: A
Smolny Album: Glimpses into Life at the Imperial Educational Society of Noble
Maidens, edited by Nancy
Kovaleff, translated by Karen L. Freund and Katherine T. O’Connor; Academic
Studies Press, 2018. Bilingual edition. The six photos on the Web page make me
want to buy the book. (!)
Various: The Tchaikovsky Papers, edited by Marina Kostalevsky, translated by Stephen Pearl, adapted from the Russian edition, compiled, and edited by Polina E. Vaidman; Yale University Press, 2018.
Various: The Tchaikovsky Papers, edited by Marina Kostalevsky, translated by Stephen Pearl, adapted from the Russian edition, compiled, and edited by Polina E. Vaidman; Yale University Press, 2018.
Vodolazkin, Eugene: The Aviator,
translated by Lisa Hayden; Oneworld Publications, April 2018. (And I just
noticed that the paperback comes out in early January in the UK!)
Vodolazkin, Eugene: Solovyov
and Larionov, translated by Lisa Hayden; Oneworld Publications,
November 2018 in the UK; May 2019 in the US.
Yakovleva, Yulia: The
Raven’s Children, translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp; Puffin
Books, May 31, 2018.
Yuzefovich, Leonid: Horsemen of the
Sands, translated by Marian Schwartz; Archipelago Books, 2018.
Zoshchenko, Mikhail: Sentimental
Tales, translated by Boris Dralyuk; Columbia University
Press/Russian Library, 2018.
!*!*! And a bonus book, because I loved the Georgian pavilion at the Frankfurt Book Fair so much, because there was an event there about this author, and because so little literature is translated from the Georgian into the English:
The Death of Bagrat Zakharych & Other Stories, by Vazha-Pshavela, translated by Rebecca Ruth Gould, available from Paper + Ink.
Up next: Alisa
Ganieva’s Offended Sensibilities, Ludmilla
Petrushevskaya’s Kidnapped. The History
of Crimes, and Yulia Yakovleva’s most recent detective novel. Plus a trip
report from the ASEEES/Slavist convention, which was ridiculously fun.
Disclaimers: The
usual.
Thanks for this roundup, comprehensive and tantalizing as usual! I have to say, I find "Gazdanov & Others" odd; I'm sure Gazdanov is better known than Kuznetsova and Felsen, but has Nina Berberova really been forgotten to that extent? She used to be a Big Name!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Languagehat! Yes, I wondered about Berberova, too. (Perhaps she has better name recognition in the US than in the UK?)
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