The Translation Studies Hub at the University of Washington in Seattle--together with UW's department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies--cordially invites you to the following virtual event focused on the work of translating the contemporary Ukrainian author Serhiy Zhadan:
Oct 20, 6 pm Pacific (8 pm Central) on Zoom
Free and open to all.
Translations that Sound Right: On Rendering the Ukrainian Writer Serhiy Zhadan into English
With translators Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
Details here; register here (required).
The need to address a constellation of competing goals is one of the most challenging aspects of literary translation. Among the most intractable of those challenges is rendering semantic content without sacrificing the aesthetic value of aural qualities of the original such as rhyme and alliteration. Of equal importance are the cognitive “rhymes” produced by recurring images and phrasings, which serve to reinforce a book’s moods and preoccupations. Translators Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler will discuss their experience of preserving these effects in their work on two novels by the great contemporary Ukrainian author Serhiy Zhadan, Mesopotamia and The Orphanage.