Thursday, October 19, 2006

Books bought at the translation conference

2 copies of the new edition of W.S. Merwin's translations of the aphorisms of Antonio Porcia, from Copper Canyon Press. I was so excited by seeing this! I love these so much, but the older editions of course only had the English and the selection was much narrower. This book makes me very happy! (The second copy is for a present. Happy Birthday, Dad!)

Joseph Bednarik gave me a copy of So What: New and Selected Poems 1971-2005 by Taha Muhammad Ali, translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin, and I promised to review it here on this blog in future.

I bought a copy of Violet Twilights by Edith Södergran - translated by Daisy Aldan and Leif Sjöberg. I love her poetry and am a huge fan of the Cross-Cultural Communications Chapbook series.

For my father-in-law I got Because of the Rain: Korean Zen Poems, translated by Won-Chunk Kim & Christopher Merrill; also My Innocent Uncle by Ch'ae Man-shik, Translated by Bruch and Ju-Chan Fulton, Kim Chong-un, and Robert Armstrong -- part of a really nice looking series called "The Portable Library of Korean Literature".

Of course the nicest thing about buying books as presents is that you get to read them first - quickly and carefully, and most definitely not in the bathtub or while eating soup.

"You'll be back," the bookstore clerk from U. of Washington bookstore predicted. "We'll sell everything out by the last day." I'm afraid she's right.

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