Welcome to Hopscotch Translation

I work very carefully on the language of my texts. I read aloud and compose with a sense of musicality as well. I wouldn’t say it’s painful or unpleasant work, but it is labor-intensive, and that means it takes time—many revisions and a slow process. It’s not something that can be done quickly, and that runs counter to the speed-driven demands of modern life. But a kind of work like this simply can’t be done at high speed… READ MORE

I think this is quite an exciting moment for the translation of African writing. There are more and more translations being published by a wider variety of presses… And several series being launched by other university presses that focus on translations from Africa in one way or another. But we felt from the beginning that it was really important to have a series that focused on translations into English of texts originally written in African languages… [READ MORE]

Considering his extraordinary talents and qualifications, his exceptional command of and sensitivity to language, Nabokov’s Pushkin might have become a standout, an achievement setting a new and unsurpassable standard among the many translations of Eugene Onegin into English. From the outset, though, his version was mainly judged a serious failure… READ MORE

Any translation naturally has to be mindful of prosody in the sense of cadence, rhythm, tempo, meter, and other aural effects. Poetry in particular deploys its acoustical properties to underpin and even enact the content. Here, however, the acoustical element dominates to the exclusion of every other, and while folly rejoices in the self-contained quality of its play, no reader—or at least not this one—can help asking what the Zukofskys’ animating principle might have been… READ MORE