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...

I once had a fight with my publisher's lawyer over what constitutes "fair use." He said reprinting 4 lines of a poem without the poet's explicit permission was too much. But AI gobbling up whole books now counts as "fair use." Something is definitely wrong with US copyright law.

A rare opportunity for a permanent lectureship in German in our fabulous School! Please circulate to your networks. @ucfl-eca.bsky.social @ucflangs.bsky.social

This beautiful novel, located between Iran and Germany, came out in the UK last week. 'The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran' ... what savagely ironic timing. Look at this gorgeous writing by author Shida Bazyar and translator Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social. Please read it. shorturl.at/P0tz8

someone should invent a Nighttime Internet, like a child lock but for that last hour before bed when you sort of want to pleasantly scroll for a bit but without getting confronted with The Constant Horrors

The people who say they 'only' use chatgpt for brainstorming are completely missing the point on what brainstorming is. It's not about having the end idea, it's the process on which you come up with ideas. The process of discarding ideas. The process of exercising your brain and exploring thoughts.

Whoop whoop! Coming soon: #NinoHaratischwili 's #TheLackOfLight, tr. Charlotte Collins & Ruth Martin. HarperVia: "This immersive, character-driven epic is one to get lost in, especially for fans of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, Isabel Allende, and stories that centre female friendship."

🚨We are surrounding Parliament right now. 🚨 Holding the line. And telling PM Keir Starmer loud and clear: Starving children is a red line. Stop arming Israel. #RedLine #StarmerActNow #ArmsEmbargoNow #SanctionIsrael

Preach. (See Zoe's preceding tweet for an example.) Solidarity, colleagues. Stand firm, for all our sakes.

I’m sorry to have to post this, in many different ways: A great musical friend of ours needs everybody’s help. He’s looking for a match for stem cell donation, the test required is just a non-intrusive swab, would be very grateful if you considered it. Here’s a message from his wife Petra:

My @irishtimes.com fiction in translation column is now online for subscribers. Fiction in translation: The Deserters traverses 20th century and brims with interesting ideas www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

There's a very funny story Matt Frei tells about reporting on Helmut Kohl live on air: MF: '...he's been speaking for around five minutes now..' Studio: 'what's he saying?' MF: 'I've no idea, he hasn't got to the verb yet..'

BIG BOOK klaxon: this 725pp epic will be out in September, translated by @cctranslates.bsky.social and me. More info here: www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

Oh yeah nice one kid hook that hope for humanity right into my veins

Just to be clear - the difference between B1 and B2 is quite significant. There’s absolutely no need for people to have that level for many jobs. I didn’t speak any German when I came here, and am now a fully integrated, self-employed, German citizen. smartergerman.com/blog/german-...

TANK vs TESLA "We've crushed fascism before and we'll crush it again" - ⁠WW2 veteran Ken, 98, in the tank

The devastating, shortsighted attack on literature continues. List from Magic City Books. Who'd they miss? Note: the small publishers selected here for financial attack include (among other very worthy and important presses) @transitbooks.bsky.social, publisher of 2023 Nobel laureate Jon Fosse.

You wonder whether, after films, Trump will go after ‘foreign’ books next. He already has. NEA funding for many small presses specializing in international literature has been cancelled, as their projects ‘no longer align with the administration’s priorities’. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Looking forward to moderating Teresa Präauer and Eleanor Updegraff launching the publication of "Cooking in the Wrong Century" out with @pushkinpress.com 19 May at ACF: www.acflondon.org/events/book-...; see also 22 May at Waterstones Putney www.waterstones.com/events/teres... @ilcs.bsky.social

Buy books. But not from Amazon. Buy them from Bookshop.org, the independent site. This move by Amazon is shameful. Here is a link to my book on Bookshop.org. bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

"The Georgian government is doomed, no matter what it does, with Putin next door; if they work with him, they are corrupted but if they say no to him, they’ll be attacked. I am profoundly unhappy with what is happening in #Georgia today." - Donald Rayfield shorturl.at/Nsr4f

UK academia’s lack of language skills ‘imperils research integrity’ www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...