Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa
Station of the Year
NZ Radio Awards 2009
19 March, 2010
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Literary translation: Art or Echo?
- Literary translation: Art or Echo? 1 - What is literary translation anyway?
- Writer Kurt Vonnegut once said: "All I require of a translator is that he or she be a more gifted writer than I am in at least two languages, one of them mine." Amelia Nurse visits Jean Anderson, director of the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation and Marco Sonzogni, senior lecturer in Italian at Victoria University of Wellington. (duration: 11′50″)
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- Literary translation: Art or Echo? 2 - Can poetry be translated?
- English writer George Borrow once said, "Translation is at best an echo." Amelia looks at four wildly different translations of a single poem by Russian poet Anna Akhmatova with Jean Anderson, director of the New Zealand Centre for Literary Translation. Marco Sonzogni, senior lecturer in Italian at Victoria University offers additional commentary and Ray Henwood provides some dramatic readings. (duration: 12′08″)
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- Literary translation: Art or Echo? 3 - Can Culture be Translated?
- English writer Anthony Burgess once said, "Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture." Amelia talks to Jean Anderson, director of the NZ Centre for Literary Translation, Marco Sonzogni, senior lecturer in Italian at Victoria University, Julia Marshall of Gecko Press, freelance translator Sally-Ann Spencer, and Noel Murphy, CEO of the NZ Book Council. (duration: 12′37″)
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- Literary translation: Art or Echo? 4 - The author/translator relationship: love or hate?
- Many critics, no defenders,
translators have but two regrets:
when we hit, no one remembers,
when we miss, no one forgets.
(Anonymous)
Amelia talks to Jean Anderson, director of the NZ Centre for Literary Translation, to poet Bill Manhire and to Marco Sonzogni, senior lecturer in Italian at Victoria University, who has translated Bill Manhire's collection Lifted into Italian. (duration: 11′55″) - Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3
Information
A four part New Zealand Society feature series looking at the role of the literary translator and the role of translations in society.
Produced and presented by Amelia Nurse.