One for the Road: Journey to the Land of Flies

Apart from Playboy’s new travel-inspired book, One for the Road focused on international literary translations this week. And to wrap things up, here’s a final suggestion that I spied over at Critical Mass. The National Book Critics Circle blog is asking writers to recommend foreign translations in support of Reading the World, and yesterday’s interview unearthed another travel-related translation from an Italian writer:

Journey to the Land of Flies and Other Travels is a collection of stories by former architect and publisher Aldo Buzzi. These witty musings about food, philosophy and 19th Century Russian literature are not what some would consider traditional travel writing. But Buzzi’s journeys to places like Jakarta, Sicily and Moscow do evoke his experience of each particular place, as he ponders vodka, cabbage and cockroaches from these distinct corners of the globe. I really like the sound of this one. Thank goodness for translators–Ciao!

One for the Road: Japan – A Traveler’s Literary Companion

Whereabouts Press publishes a small but well-done series of literary guides for only a dozen countries (like Mexico, Chile, Israel) and a few cities (Amsterdam and Prague). A few months ago I devoured their 2006-released Japan edition: Japan: A Traveler’s Literary Companion is a magical collection of original works by Japanese writers that have each been translated into English.

The stories are organized geographically, taking readers along on journeys to places like Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Kumano, Okinawa and Tokyo. Donald Richie’s foreword points to the concept of “furusato”, a term that carries more meaning than its translation “hometown”. This theme of revisiting or returning weaves through all the stories, as each one paints a picture for the reader of the deep relationship that exists between person and place.

There seems no better way to explore the culture of another country (besides actually being there) than by reading literature from a variety of voices native to the land. This is an excellent place to begin any journey through Japan.

One for the Road: How to Travel with a Salmon

I realized after writing about foreign translations yesterday that I’ve actually read a few translated titles recently that are somewhat travel-inspired. First up is Umberto Eco’s How to Travel with a Salmon. This collection of witty parodies, published in 1995, gathers together a variety of satirical essays written by the Italian novelist between 1975 and 1991.

Eco’s short “diario minimos” have been translated into English by William Weaver, allowing a larger audience to enjoy his cleverly disguised complaints about the idiosyncrasies of travel, and life in general. These whimsical essays entertain readers with humorous advice on how one should eat in flight, travel on American trains, go through customs and take intelligent vacations.The chapter on how to buy gadgets might have some merit for travelers too, or at least keep ’em laughing.

One for the Road: Words Without Borders

One of the groups involved with The Reading the World program I mentioned earlier today is Words without Borders, who have just revamped their website with a fresh new look.

Since I last spoke of WWB, the group has grown substantially and gained worldwide praise for its first anthology of international literature, a groundbreaking collection of stories from Iran, Iraq, Korea and other “enemy nations.” Now WWB has released Words Without Borders: The World through the Eyes of Writers (March 2007), which features the work of more than 28 writers from almost 20 countries.

Short stories, poems, essays and excerpts from novels all appear in this volume for the very first time in English. Writers such as Ha Jin, Cynthia Ozick, Javier Marias, Wole Soyinka and Günter Grass are included. The website contains info about the writers, as well as the editors and all important translators too. Without their treasured language skills, these stories would remain unread by many.

Reading the World

For the third year in a row, June marks the beginning of Reading the World, a collaboration between publishers and booksellers to bring readers attention to a variety of global literary voices. Throughout the month, indy bookstores across the country will prominently display a selection of international books that have been translated into English. The forty books featured this year represent literature from Lithuania, Iraq, Norway, Chile and more.

I attended a session at Book Expo this year where I listened to the folks behind this program speak about the challenges of getting foreign translations published and available for larger audiences. Did you know that over 50 percent of all books in translation now published worldwide are translated from English, but only 6 percent are translated into English?! That’s a ton of stuff being written around the world that we just don’t have access to…unless we can read in other languages, of course.

Here’s the first part of an interview with the program’s manager, Chad Post. In it, he explains that the spirit of Reading the World is one that seeks to raise cultural awareness and showcase viewpoints and opinions from the international literature community, and does so by highlighting works originally written in a language other than English. Take a look at their list of suggested books, maybe you’ll find one written by an author from or about a place you may be visiting soon.