Marian Schwartz » presentations

Behind the Line

mbs — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:47:55 +0000

Thanks to Kyle Semmel of the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, who has posted an interview with me about Russian literature, Olga Slavnikova’s 2017, and how I translate.

Lizok’s Bookshelf Reviews Olga Slavnikova’s 2017

mbs — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:29:04 +0000

Lizok’s Bookshelf (written by Lisa Hayden Espenschade) has posted an interview with me about some recent translations of mine and even a cheerful thought on the future of foreign literature publishing in this country.

Creating translations that are faithful, not literal

mbs — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 19:46:21 +0000

On the heels of the publication of Olga Slavnikova’s 2017 (Overlook) and the paperback edition of Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov (Yale), an interview with me in the Boston Globe.

Upcoming Workshop on One Small Piece of the Translator’s Craft

mbs — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:19:22 +0000

In less than a couple of weeks—Saturday, March 20, in fact--I’ll be giving a workshop on literary translation for the Center for the Art of Translation and the Northern California Translators Association, focusing on some of the nuts and bolts of the profession and demonstrating the process with a passage from Federico Sorrentino’s “Habits of the Artichoke.”

Two Lines, the CAT blog, has posted a piece giving a taste of my demo here.

The Translator’s Toolkit

mbs — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:55:29 +0000

Ahead of the workshop I’m giving for beginning literary translators at the Center for the Art of Translation and the Northern California Translators Association in San Francisco on March 20, I made this contribution to CAT’s Translator’s Toolkit series, which appears on their blog, Two Words:

A few years ago I attended ATA’s national conference—not a regular stop on my annual rounds—specifically to hear and meet Michele Berdy, an American expat who has lived in Moscow for decades and who writes a fine column for The Moscow Times explicating Russian vocabulary, idioms, and usage for English speakers. She was giving a workshop and delivering the Slavic Division’s keynote speech. Both performances were stellar, yielding multiple insights and new information but also a fabulous tidbit (assuming tidbits can be fabulous). Berdy told of a CD that collected vast quantities of Russian literature from the eleventh to the early twentieth century. Virtually everything by virtually every writer you ever have and haven’t heard of. And it was searchable.

For the whole article, click here.

Open Letter Posts Video of Fall Roundtable

mbs — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:07:53 +0000

Last fall, as part of its Reading the World Conversation Series, Open Letter Books invited me to be part of this Translators Roundtable, which brought together four literary translators—who work in a variety of languages and genres—to discuss their experiences. The conversation explored a number of different topics, from how they got started as translators, to the obstacles of retranslating classic works, to translating film scripts during the writers’ strike, etc.

Also taking part were translators Michael Emmerich (translating from Japanese), Edward Gauvin (French), and Martha Tennent (Spanish and Catalan).

To see the video of the event, click here.

Olga Slavnikova’s “Substance”

mbs — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:14:14 +0000

Subtropics has just published my translation of Olga Slavnikova's "Substance," one of twelve stories loosely connected by a train theme written for Russian Railroads and recently published by AST in a single volume as Liubov' v sed'mom vagone (Love in Train Car No. 7).

More on Retranslation, This Time at UCLA

mbs — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:45:14 +0000

On Tuesday, November 23, 2008, I’ll be at UCLA talking to the literary translation workshop of renowned translator Michael Henry Heim on retranslation, in particular, retranslations of Anna Karenina. What are our reasons for producing new translations of the classics, and are those reasons valid? Do these translations serve the author, the translator, the publisher, the reader, or some combination of all four?

Discussing White Guard at University of Texas, November 19, 2008

mbs — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:14:40 +0000

The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREES) has invited me to discuss my new translation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s White Guard and the art and politics of retranslation on Wednesday, November 19th, at 2 PM, in the Asian Culture Room, Texas Union 4.224.

The public is very much invited.

Leonard Lopate Interview on WNYC

mbs — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:35:00 +0000

Leonard Lopate interviewed me this summer about my new translation of Yuri Olesha’s 1927 novel Envy for his “Underappreciated” series:

“When it was published in 1927, Yuri Olesha's Envy was celebrated by the Soviet establishment as a condemnation of the bourgeois psyche. But two years later Olesha came under suspicion when Communist officials realized that the novel was a satire. Marian Schwartz, who translated Envy for the New York Review Books imprint, tells us why Olesha's forgotten masterpiece deserves a second look.”

Listen to the podcast here.