The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the Best Translated Book Award-longlisted Commentary by Marcelle Sauvageot.
The Ugly Duckling Presse edition is the first English translation of this 1933 work. A 2004 French edition (or two) seems to have brought this to the fore again, leading to translations into various languages -- with English, as always, among the last on board.
This hasn't gotten much review attention in the US/UK (yet ?). Compare that to the Germans: never mind that they had already translated it back in 1939 (somebody brought this out in Berlin in 1939 -- under the Nazis, for god's sake ! -- and yet it takes 80 years for this to be translated into English ...); a new translation came out in Germany in 2005 and it looks like pretty much everyone -- all the major papers -- covered it. This edition, in the US/UK ? Not so much.
Yeah, for all the talk about new/more appreciation for literature-in-translation(-in-English): there's still a long, long way to go hereabouts. Getting the stuff published is half the battle, but if no one notices/cares, if it doesn't become part of the broader literary conversation ... (not the narrow literary conversation -- we've got that pretty well covered ... -- but the broader one) .....
The Ugly Duckling Presse edition is the first English translation of this 1933 work. A 2004 French edition (or two) seems to have brought this to the fore again, leading to translations into various languages -- with English, as always, among the last on board.
This hasn't gotten much review attention in the US/UK (yet ?). Compare that to the Germans: never mind that they had already translated it back in 1939 (somebody brought this out in Berlin in 1939 -- under the Nazis, for god's sake ! -- and yet it takes 80 years for this to be translated into English ...); a new translation came out in Germany in 2005 and it looks like pretty much everyone -- all the major papers -- covered it. This edition, in the US/UK ? Not so much.
Yeah, for all the talk about new/more appreciation for literature-in-translation(-in-English): there's still a long, long way to go hereabouts. Getting the stuff published is half the battle, but if no one notices/cares, if it doesn't become part of the broader literary conversation ... (not the narrow literary conversation -- we've got that pretty well covered ... -- but the broader one) .....