French | Mauritius | Poetry (excerpts)
September, 2017Khal Torabully’s language is playful, inventive, and peppered with neologisms, which makes it especially challenging to translate. Another challenge I have faced when translating Torabully is to honor the music infused in his poems. I map the sounds of the original text (assonance and alliteration), and try to replicate patterns (though not necessarily exact sounds, nor placement in stanzas) in my translation.
After the NEA awarded me a literature translation fellowship, they interviewed me concerning my “sound mapping” technique, in NEA Arts.
- Nancy Naomi Carlson
The Brooklyn Rail welcomes you to our web-exclusive section InTranslation, where we feature unpublished translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Published since April 2007, InTranslation is a venue for outstanding work in translation and a resource for translators, authors, editors, and publishers seeking to collaborate.
We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry: Manuscripts of no longer than 20 pages (double-spaced).
Plays: Manuscripts of no longer than 30 pages (in left-justified format).