February 2003 Chronicle
Focus: Literary Translation

Message from the President
Message from the President-elect
Message from the Executive Director

International Certification Study: Mexico
By Jiri Stejskal

The Best Secrets Are Those Well Kept—Or Are They?
By Robin R. Randolph and Roslyn C. Famous
A program where small clases, intensive faculty/student interaction both inside and outside the classroom, and a sense of team spirit and community keeps students on their toes.

On Publishing the Literary Short Story: Some Advice & Reflections
By C.M. Mayo
Beginning writers often imagine that publishing their short story will be a glamorous event, but for most writers, it's an experience on par with, say, folding laundry.

One, If By Land, And, Two, If By Sea: Translators And Literature Encyclopedias
By Marilyn Gaddis Rose
There are potentially disturbing issues behind the anecdotes of ATA members who took on assignments for literature encyclopedias. Are U.K. critics uneasy about U.S. English? Are library archives or reading rooms? Do retranslations matter? And can editors control literary history?

Translating an A-Grammatical Contemporary German Poet into English
By Ronnie Apter and Mark Herman
In the 20th century, some poets began employing an extreme form of word play, breaking the usage norms of the language itself. The resultant poetry is difficult even for source-language readers and hearers to construe.

Navigating Literary Translation Choices: The Case of the Polyphonic Text
By Cynthia T. Hahn
An overview of some polyphonic literary text shows how such material presents distinct challenges to the translator in terms of establishing consistency in both form and content.

Cultural Tensions in Multilingual Fiction: Examples from African and Caribbean Francophone Novels
By Carrol F. Coates
An exploration of the multilingual discourse in Haitian Jacques Stephen Alexis's novel, L'espace d'un cillement (1958) and Ivoirian Ahmadou Kourouma's En attendant le vote
des bêtes sauvages (1998).

The Languages I Didn't Learn
By Paulo Rónai, translated by Tom Moore
The late translator, linguist, and lexicographer Paulo Rónai (1907-1992) describes the impedimenta which prevented him from adding even more languages to his stock-in-trade.

Current Issues in English Bible Translation
By Peter J. Silzer
After 2,000 years of Bible translation, there is still controversy about what makes a translation good. Recent discussions about "gender-neutral" or "gender-accurate" English translations provide an example of these current debates.