Jan Steyn
@jsteyn.bsky.social
Literary Translator | World Lit Scholar | Longdog Lover | Supporter of Losing Cricket Teams
Do you know who should be the next Translator in Residence at the U of Iowa? Tell them to apply!
February 10, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Do you know who should be the next Translator in Residence at the U of Iowa? Tell them to apply!
So it turns out China Miéville’s latest was co-authored by some guy called Keanu Reeves. Kinda fun. Best enjoyed after a grading marathon in front of your father in law’s wood stove.
December 22, 2024 at 9:17 PM
So it turns out China Miéville’s latest was co-authored by some guy called Keanu Reeves. Kinda fun. Best enjoyed after a grading marathon in front of your father in law’s wood stove.
Reading: The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin. Vibe: “Morning came in a thousand thousand minute gradations of blue-white upon blue-white.” Genre play: clever. Beautiful sentences: many. Body count: high. Reminds me of: The Red Dog by Willem Anker, trans. Michiel Heyns.
December 20, 2024 at 3:00 PM
Reading: The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin. Vibe: “Morning came in a thousand thousand minute gradations of blue-white upon blue-white.” Genre play: clever. Beautiful sentences: many. Body count: high. Reminds me of: The Red Dog by Willem Anker, trans. Michiel Heyns.
A hound watching the hound group. Game recognizes game.
November 28, 2024 at 6:10 PM
A hound watching the hound group. Game recognizes game.
Legs, too, is gripped by the dog show. But not the toy breeds…
November 28, 2024 at 5:39 PM
Legs, too, is gripped by the dog show. But not the toy breeds…
Breyten Breytenbach (1939-2024). My first love in poetry. The first writer who compelled me to translate (so that my English-speaking high school friends could understand). A brilliant, fearless unicum of a man.
November 26, 2024 at 1:25 PM
Breyten Breytenbach (1939-2024). My first love in poetry. The first writer who compelled me to translate (so that my English-speaking high school friends could understand). A brilliant, fearless unicum of a man.
Thursday Reading: The PEN 1969 Manifesto on Translation. The vibe: “Their names are usually forgotten, they are grotesquely underpaid, and their services, however skillfully rendered, are regarded with the slightly patronizing and pitying respect formerly reserved for junior housemaids.”
November 21, 2024 at 7:20 PM
Thursday Reading: The PEN 1969 Manifesto on Translation. The vibe: “Their names are usually forgotten, they are grotesquely underpaid, and their services, however skillfully rendered, are regarded with the slightly patronizing and pitying respect formerly reserved for junior housemaids.”
Thursday reading: Fiston Mujila’s Tram 83, trans. Roland Glasser. The vibe: “There are cities which don’t need literature: they are literature. They file past, chest thrust out, head on their shoulders. […] The City-State, an example among so many others — she pulsated with literature.”
November 20, 2024 at 7:13 PM
Thursday reading: Fiston Mujila’s Tram 83, trans. Roland Glasser. The vibe: “There are cities which don’t need literature: they are literature. They file past, chest thrust out, head on their shoulders. […] The City-State, an example among so many others — she pulsated with literature.”
Tuesday’s rereading (for teaching): China Miéville’s The City & The City. The vibe: “ We had stolen gudcop and badcop from English, verbed them.”
November 19, 2024 at 10:04 PM
Tuesday’s rereading (for teaching): China Miéville’s The City & The City. The vibe: “ We had stolen gudcop and badcop from English, verbed them.”
Sunday reading: Jen Calleja’s Goblinhood. The vibe: “AI is a goblin that wants to convince you that you can’t write […]; that you can’t write properly […]; and that you can’t learn a language …[and] foreign languages are just a terrible inconvenience and not linked to a culture or people”
November 17, 2024 at 10:09 PM
Sunday reading: Jen Calleja’s Goblinhood. The vibe: “AI is a goblin that wants to convince you that you can’t write […]; that you can’t write properly […]; and that you can’t learn a language …[and] foreign languages are just a terrible inconvenience and not linked to a culture or people”
This nonsense from a new Grammarly guide encouraging businesses to buy their AI products. Yet again translation gets smeared as the opposite of creative (and, oddly, strategic) ways to spend your time…
November 14, 2024 at 3:58 PM
This nonsense from a new Grammarly guide encouraging businesses to buy their AI products. Yet again translation gets smeared as the opposite of creative (and, oddly, strategic) ways to spend your time…