Synopses & Reviews
Beyond Words offers the eclectic musings of a group of translators from eight countries working in seven languages specializing in a variety of genres, translating both contemporary authors and the modern world's great classics. Their ruminations on the world that lies "beyond words" make for fascinating reading for lovers of literature near and far.
Review
"Writers, translators, and readers of more than one language will consider this book both a treat and a tool, which, for this reviewer's part, hopefully translates to a 'must read'." Peter Worden, Alberta Views
Review
"Edited by Susan Ouriou, Beyond Words: Translating the World brings together essays from literary translators whose commonality derive primarily from their participation in a summer residency at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre in Alberta, Canada over a span of several years. Resisting strict organization into the book's four sections, 'Translating the World,' 'Translating Poetry,' 'The World of Translation,' and 'Translating Prose,' the essays are as diverse as the authors. Such loose structure prevents the book from being easily used as a translating manual or a systematic text of historical and critical practice. That being said, Beyond Words is a set of working papers, in the best sense of those words. Contributors, unhampered by a rhetorical overlay, freely offer their personal quarrels and victories with the text and themselves, allowing readers to experience vicariously conference high points." Maryanne Hannan, Cerise Press (Read the entire Cerise Press review)
About the Author
In 2009, Susan Ouriou won the Governor General's Award for Literary Translation. She is a former founding member and advisory member of the BILTC council, as well as faculty both for BILTC and The Banff Centre's Emerging Aboriginal Writers residency. Ouriou specializes in the translation of works from French and Spanish into English. She has taught translation at the University of Calgary, helped to create and edit a bi-annual national translation anthology, TransLit, and is the editor of an anthology of BILTC translators writing on translation, Beyond Words: Translating the World. She is also an award-winning fiction writer.