Delighted to see that @joannapocock.bsky.social's GREYHOUND is the book of the week in THE WEEK.

‘Michel de Montaigne had it right: companionship’s only value is itself. Seek out company because of its usefulness to you, and it is not companionship you will be getting. When asked what makes a true friendship, Montaigne said: “because it was he; because it was me”.’

Every time there's a breaking story about a celeb's treatment of women, everyone in the book world asks, "Is it finally Walliams?" Well, it finally is.

Hero.

And last but not least, Anna Claire Weber, Marketing and Communications Manager, picked THE LACK OF LIGHT by Nino Haratischwili (tr. @cctranslates.bsky.social & @dances-with-voles.bsky.social ) @harpercollins.bsky.social bookshop.org/a/169/978006...

The Lack of Light by Nino Haratischwili, translated by @cctranslates.bsky.social and @dances-with-voles.bsky.social is a captivating tale of friendship, loss, & redemption set against Georgia's turbulent history. Join Nene, Ira, Dina, & Keto as they navigate love, betrayal, and life's complexities!

I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.

Next we have the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for translations into English of full-length German works of literary merit and general interest.

Really delighted to find myself on the @societyofauthors.bsky.social Schlegel-Tieck Prize shortlist for both DARKENBLOOM and THE GRANDDAUGHTER! And to see my friends and colleagues @racheltranslates.bsky.social and @roesch6-alex.bsky.social there with me. 🤗 societyofauthors.org/prizes/trans...

If you’re anything like us and Radio 4 is the background soundtrack to your existence, listen in at 3.45 today. I wrote a short story for Short Works about a wild boar release, rural ideologies and searching for balance in an environment that is intrinsically off-kilter www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Yep. And to think that so many people think this man is some sort of hero is such a sign of our twisted times.

It's just occurred to me that, in my pre-German days, I thought the piano piece was called 'Fur Elise'. I don't think I *ever* wondered why. Even more bizarrely, I pictured fir trees. I think this belongs with 'what nonsense have you unthinkingly chirped when singing along to pop songs'.

It is a beautiful formulation

Nino!! 😲 Ich bewundere dich.

It has been such a great honour to be one of Krasznahorkai's interpreters into English (since 2008), along with George Szirtes and John Batki. I also have to mention the visionary New Directions and my beyond stellar editor Declan Spring 🧡 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/b...

I took this picture of Olga and László in London in 2018. Congrats to Krasznahorkai and his translators, including George Szirtes and @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social, and long live a Central Europe free of dictators (foreign and domestic) and full of magnificent minds like these!

Annual reminder that without literary translators, most Nobel Prize-winning authors couldn’t be read by the committee/readers, so celebrate them too. Congrats @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social et al! This isn’t taking away from the author, it’s adding recognition of the miracle/labour/skill of translation.

Shout out to all of Krasznahorkai's #translators who have made it possible for readers all over the world to access his work and his worlds. Congratulations especially to @ottiliemulzet.bsky.social and George Szirtes, for their translations (from Hungarian) into English.

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

Next Thurs, I'll be talking to co-translators @cctranslates.bsky.social and @dances-with-voles.bsky.social as part of the @societyofauthors.bsky.social #SoAatHome events. We'll be talking translation & celebrating the release of their co-translation of Nino Haratischwili's "The Lack of Light".

Happy International Translation Day! Here’s part of my translation manifesto, which can be found in full at the end of Fair: The Life-Art of Translation. (Written out in replies)

How AI is undermining learning and teaching in universities: Prof Leo McCann and Prof Simon Sweeney say student misuse of generative artificial intelligence is widespread and we must be sceptical of its usefulness www.theguardian.com/technology/2... via @theguardian.com

National epics aren't written so often these days, but Georgian author Nino Haratischwili has made them her stock-in-trade. This weekend's WSJ Fiction Chronicle leads with her big, operatic, immersive latest, 'The Lack of Light,' a story of friendship in a broken country. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Nino Haratischwili and Morgan Leigh Davies discuss her new novel “The Lack of Light,” nostalgia for hard times, and post-Soviet corruption. buff.ly/ATHw5ba

I just read my tenth #COVID19 research study in the past month or so that demonstrates COVID infections cause brain changes that may accelerate Alzheimer's disease, are associated with cognitive decline, and cause fatigue, memory impairment, and sleep disorders. (1/?)

“Wide-eyed, we stared at our friend as she stood between two worlds.” Read from Nino Haratischwili’s novel The Lack of Light, translated by @cctranslates.bsky.social and @dances-with-voles.bsky.social.

🎉 We are delighted to announce the longlists for the 2025 National Translation Awards (NTA) in Poetry and Prose! 2025 marks the 27th year for the NTA, and the 11th year to award separate prizes in poetry and prose. View the lists here: buff.ly/PJoX7du

„Europa, wach auf!“ heißt das neue Buch der deutschsprachigen Autorin Nino Haratischwili. Darin enthalten ihre Reden und Essays über Freiheit, Werte und Demokratie. Durch Putins Imperialismus, seinen Krieg gegen die Ukraine und auch seinen steigenden Einfluss in Georgien 8/22

My op-ed in the @chicagomaroon.bsky.social on the University of Chicago’s appalling plans to gut the humanities and possibly eliminate the South Asian studies department chicagomaroon.com/48353/viewpo...

“Can you draw? Does that make you an artist? Can you sing? Does that make you a singer? Can you write? Does that make you a novelist? Speaking two languages does not make you a translator.” 👏👏

“I am worried that a reliance on ChatGPT will erode people’s ability to use their brains. I do believe that the creative imagination in particular is a muscle, and one that is rewarding to exercise.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Zdena Salivarová, deceased at age 91, is underappreciated in the general public. But literary circles are well aware of her accomplishments. Her novel Honzlová [Summer in Prague, tr. Marie Winn] is one of the best works of 20th-century Czech literature. english.radio.cz/without-her-...

This year’s Sebald Lecture on literary translation will be given by Elif Shafak 📣 Shafak is an award-winning British-Turkish novelist with 21 published books, 13 of which are novels translated into 58 languages. Presented in association with @britishlibrary.bsky.social events.bl.uk/events/the-w...

Time for a reality check: Britain cannot be a big global player unless we speak more languages www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... via @theguardian.com @sophiasgaler.bsky.social

UGH. "The quality of translations across the board...stands to decline, with AI output...often being homogeneous, blind to local details, or flat-out wrong. Nuances about places and cultures, recognizable to a knowledgeable human interpreter risk disappearing, sanded down by blunt-force automation."

For shame. I wouldn't be weeping over a particularly knotty Georgian paragraph at this very moment were it not for UChicago. What a ridiculous thing. I mean.

More A-levels taken in PE than in French, German and classical languages combined! on.ft.com/3Hw6eq3

Fed up with the exhausting process of finding the perfect publisher for your translation? At @wwborders.bsky.social, check out this tongue-in-cheek essay by translator from French Laura Vergnaud about the dos and don’ts of searching for a publisher: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

Translators - the excellent journal Exchanges run out of the stellar mfa program in translation at Iowa is now on Bluesky @literaryexchanges.bsky.social. They’re also open for submissions for what sounds like a cool themed issue on in/fidelity in translations. Give it a look!

why AI should not replace human translators #38265073 "A striking example from Prof Federici's research showed the risks of unchecked machine translation of cancer information, with "Don't stay at home if you develop a fever" being translated as "Do stay at home" www.ciol.org.uk/ai-translati...

A little trailer for the new US edition of Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage, available now at asterismbooks.com/product/pilg...

Publishers: please credit translators on the cover and on your website! Authors: please mention translators when talking about translations of your book! Reviewers: please name the translator in your review!

If you do book reviews on a blog or Booktube and happen to pick up a translated novel please, please, please name the translator! You might be experiencing the author's story but it's the translator's prose you're reading. #namethetranslator #booktube #booktwt

Private Eye hits the nail on the head

When it comes to memoir, what is ‘truth’? What do editors and lawyers do (or not)? And how is the process different for fiction? If today’s Salt Path story makes you want to know more….you might enjoy this series I made: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Just listened to “Watership Down” on BBC Sounds. A long time since I read it. I’d forgotten the rabbits’ beautiful euphemism for death: “He has stopped running.” I find this infinitely preferable to, and more expressive than, “he passed”.

Launched! And out in bookshops tomorrow - please read this beautiful meditation on migration, home, what it means to leave and to stay. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blur...

#DARKENBLOOM is on NPR's pick of 2025 fiction! "The book succeeds on multiple levels – it's a gossipy small-town satire that's laugh-out-loud funny but also a historical mystery." One to get your teeth into on holiday... #EvaMenasse www.npr.org/2025/06/25/n...