Yiddish to English
Kadya Molodowsky was one of the great Yiddish poets of the 20th century. Her translator, poet and professor Kathryn Hellerstein, talks about the challenges and pleasures of bringing Molodowsky's poems...
View ArticleGregory Rabassa on Translation
Kurt Andersen and America's most renowned translator, Gregory Rabassa, look at translation beyond literature, across art forms, and between cultures. Rabassa is a professor at Queens College and among...
View ArticleTranslating Judy Blume
Zarife Öztürk works at a publishing house in Istanbul. A few years ago she made it her mission to translate Judy Blume's children’s books into Turkish. Öztürk fell in love with Blume’s books when she...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Does Shakespeare Need an English Translator?
This week, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival announced that it is commissioning modern-English “translations” of all of Shakespeare’s plays. The meanings of English words have changed a lot over the last...
View ArticleEnglish
My story is about my adventures as a Spanish speaker in New York. I interview my principal, my English teacher, my friends and my mom.I am from Mexico and I know little English. It is difficult for me...
View ArticleWhy Translation Matters
Acclaimed translator Edith Grossman explains the cultural importance of translation. Her book Why Translation Matters looks at why translation is often ignored or misunderstood. She’ll be joined by...
View ArticleGained in Translation
When flipping open a favorite book, it's easy to skip over the small "translated by" line.But, in reality, translating is as much of an art form as writing an original work. The history of translation...
View ArticleLydia Davis on Her New Translation of Madame Bovary
Lydia Davis discusses her English translation of Gustave Flaubert’s acclaimed classic novel Madame Bovary, considered the first masterpiece of realist fiction. In this landmark translation, Davis...
View ArticleTove Jansson's Novel Fair Play
Sophia Jansson, niece of Finish writer Tove Jansson, and translator Thomas Teal talk about the new translation of Tove Jansson’s novel Fair Play. It tells the story of the intertwined lives of Mari and...
View ArticleLost in Translation? An Interpreter Speaks
Last week, Nafissatou Diallo — the hotel maid who has accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, of attempted rape — spoke to the media about the incident. She...
View ArticleDoes It Translate?
As Google Translate and similar programs gain traction, Princeton professor David Bellos talks about the art and science of translation and other communication challenges. Bellos is director of the...
View ArticleJonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander's New American Haggadah
Jonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander discuss The New American Haggadah, their take on a traditional Passover prayer book. The Haggadah recounts, through prayer, song, and ritual, the extraordinary...
View ArticleJonathan Safran Foer and Nathan Englander on their 'New American Haggadah'
The Haggadah, the Jewish religious text read at Passover, is 3,000 years old. It has been translated more than any Jewish book, from ancient times, to 14th-century Sarajevo, to the just-published "New...
View ArticleWalter Murch on the Work of Curzio Malaparte
Film editor Walter Murch, discusses translating the work of Curzio Malaparte, an Italian of German heritage who was a journalist, dramatic, novelist and diplomat whose writing attacked totalitarianism...
View ArticleBenjamin Stein's Novel, The Canvas
Benjamin Stein and Brian Zumhagen discuss The Canvas, written by Stein and translated by Zumhagen. Loosely based on the true story of Binjamin Wilkomirski, whose fabricated 1995 Holocaust memoir...
View ArticleApril's Book: Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Translated by Lydia Davis
Madame Bovary, one of the most celebrated novels ever written, defined the novel as an art form when it was published in 1875. Lydia Davis’s landmark translation of Flaubert’s work breathes new life...
View ArticleIn a City With Many Languages, NYPD Officers Rarely Use Interpreter Service
Months before Deisy Garcia and her two young children were murdered – allegedly by her husband – police showed up at her house in Queens to investigate a domestic incident.Police didn't arrest her...
View ArticleAdam Gopnik and Ann Goldstein on the challenges of translation.
Adam Gopnik and Ann Goldstein on the challenges of translation. Adam Gopnik and Ann Goldstein on the challenges of translation.
View ArticleTranslation
How close can words get you to the truth and feel and force of life? That's the question poking at our ribs this hour, as we wonder how it is that the right words can have the wrong meanings, and why...
View Article100 Flowers
When Douglas Hofstadter was 16, he read a poem. Just an innocent little poem, a few short lines, nothing special. But the poem burrowed deep into his brain, and many years later, he set out to...
View ArticleSerious
Gregory Warner, NPR's East Africa correspondent, tells the story of a brave Ethiopian reporter who asked U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry one very serious question that was seriously misunderstood.
View ArticleInterpreting The Front Lines
Nataly Kelly speaks more languages than most people have ever heard, she also writes about translation, teaches interpretation and works for an interpretation company. But before all of that, she had a...
View ArticleRadiolab en Español
Spanish speakers, we'd love some feedback. How does Radiolab sound in Spanish? Does it translate? Take a listen to the experiment above -- a translation of our Unraveling Bolero podcast produced by...
View ArticleNYC Middle School Directory Causes Problems for Non-English Speakers
Editor's Note: Article updated to reflect the release of translated materials on Oct. 23.Parents of New York City fifth graders have begun the search for middle school but some Spanish-speaking parents...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Musical Translations
While we were making the “Translation” episode, we started asking ourselves what we could do to make this dizzying swirl of stories feel cohesive. We did a listener call out for curses in other...
View ArticleTranslation Superstars Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky on The Brothers...
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) was born in Moscow. From 1849-54 he lived in a convict prison, and in later years his passion for gambling led him deeply into debt.The Brothers Karamazov, his last and...
View ArticleNew Study Shows Gaps in Translation Services for City Parents
The New York Immigration Coalition says the city's school system is failing to provide adequate translation services for parents. In a report released Tuesday, the coalition says more than half of the...
View ArticleDolphin Talk
Denise Herzing has been studying the same pod of wild dolphins for 30 years. Every summer, she and the dolphins are reunited. But this summer, things are a little different—this summer, with help from...
View ArticleTranslating the Untranslatable
On today’s Please Explain, we’ll attempt to understand what it’s like to translate the untranslatable! English audiences rely on translators for access to much of the world’s most important literature...
View ArticleYear-End Special #1
Radiolab wraps 2015 with a series of special episodes. First, Jad and Robert walk us through some particularly compelling moments from Radiolab's most-listened-to episodes. Then, the producers take...
View ArticleA Literary Translator Searches for a Mysterious Author in Brazil
When a famous Brazilian novelist mysteriously disappears, her translator - a young woman living in Pittsburgh - immediately embarks on a quest to find her in Ways to Disappear, the first novel by Idra...
View ArticleWar and Peace
For this edition of the Fishko Files, WNYC’s Sara Fishko sat down with a husband-and-wife team of star translators to talk (as quickly as possible) about a very, very long book — War and Peace. WNYC...
View ArticleSouth Korea Sets its Sights on the Nobel Prize in Literature
While South Korea has had enormous success exporting K-Pop, Samsung phones, and LG washing machines, it still lags where “serious” cultural commodities are concerned—like literature. No Korean has ever...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Poet Fatemeh Shams takes on politics in post-revolution Iran
Poet Fatemeh Shams. Photo courtesy of Fatemeh ShamsFatemeh Shams and Dick Davis have never met in person. She is a young Iranian poet living in London, a voice of Iran’s post-revolution dissident. He...
View ArticleElena Ferrante in Translation
Elena Ferrante is the pen name for an Italian author who doesn't do interviews, and whose true identity has been kept a secret – and eluded detection – for more than two decades. Ann Goldstein is the...
View ArticleTribute: Gregory Rabassa
Gabriel Garcia Marquez described Gregory Rabassa as “the best Latin American writer in the English language.” And he should know, as Gregory Rabassa brought the sinuous world of magical realism in One...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How bad translation by court interpreters can turn misunderstanding into...
A witness stand and judges bench in an American courtroom.Patricia Michelsen-King was observing the proceedings in a Chesterfield, Virginia, courtroom a few years ago when a man shouted in Spanish from...
View ArticleMilitarizing Local Police Departments, Jamie Lee Curtis, Stinging Insects
Director Craig Atkinson talks about his film, "Do Not Resist," which examines the militarization of the police in the United States, beginning in Ferguson, Missouri. Actress and author Jamie Lee Curtis...
View ArticleLove is the Universal Language, but Learning French Doesn't Hurt
Journalist Lauren Collins fell in love with a Frenchman named Olivier while she was living in London. She managed to avoid learning French until she and Olivier got married and relocated to Geneva with...
View ArticleHow Shakespeare Came Alive for Me — and Stays Alive Today
Shakespeare died 400 years ago this year. He was only 52. But in another way, he never really got old. He still packs ’em in at theaters and ruffles feathers like the best contemporary playwrights....
View ArticleTrump Said What?!?!
Washington Post reporter Samantha Schmidt joins us to discuss her article, “Make America big again’? The headache of translating Trump into foreign languages.” Schmidt looks at how Trump’s remarks -...
View ArticleLife in Turkey, Gaming for the Greater Good, Translating Trump
Kaya Genç, a novelist and essayist from Istanbul, joins us to discuss his book Under the Shadow: Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey. Asi Burak joins us to discuss his book, Power Play: How Video...
View ArticleTrump Lost in Translation; Post-Election Stress Continues; Historical Fiction...
On today's show you'll hear:Pierre-Yves Dugua, senior U.S. Business correspondent for Le Figaro and Radio France, discusses the difference approaches to reporting on President Trump for an...
View ArticleTrevor Noah on Growing Up under Apartheid, The Risks of Rolling Back Water Laws
Comedian and Daily Show host Trevor Noah joins us to discuss his memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri joins us to discuss her...
View ArticleJhumpa Lahiri Turns to Translation
Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri joins us to discuss her translation of Ties, a new novel by bestselling Italian novelist and screenwriter Domenico Starnone, winner of Italy's most...
View ArticleJhumpa Lahiri On Translating Another Writer's Work
Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jhumpa Lahiri joins us to discuss her translation of Ties, a new novel by bestselling Italian novelist and screenwriter Domenico Starnone, winner of Italy's most...
View Article
