Tag Archives: translation

The diary of a writer-publisher: 35

13 October 2025 There were a number of letters in The Times earlier this month describing butterflies that the authors had witnessed turning up at funerals and even settling on the coffin. The point was that people found it mysterious and strangely … Continue reading

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Joseph Brodsky: ‘October madrigal’

No stuffed gull on our mantelpiece but a darling quail. Grandfather ticking at his pace soothes each evening our battered drums. Outside, the tree is a candle with the glums. Four days now sea has pounded on its wall. Lay … Continue reading

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Joseph Brodsky: ‘I put my arms…’

I put my arms around these shoulders, glanced at what lay behind her back, and saw a displaced chair that faded into the brightness of the wall. The light bulb’s filament was too intense for furniture so ripe, which meant … Continue reading

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Source?

Can anyone identify the text below? If so, please leave the answer in a Comment, explaining how you arrived at it! A free copy of George Calderon: Edwardian Genius or Anton Chekhov: A Short Life will be yours if you … Continue reading

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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 31

20 December 2024 Yet another pair of new M&S cords on which the button hole in the fly flap is too small for the button it is meant to go over! What has gone wrong at M&S about this? Have … Continue reading

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‘Lady with a Little Dog’ (Continued)

III Back home in Moscow, everything already felt like winter: the stoves had been lit, and when the children were getting ready for school and drinking tea in the morning, it was dark and Nanny lit the lamp for a … Continue reading

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‘Lady with a Little Dog’ translated by Harvey Pitcher

I Word went round that a newcomer had turned up on the Promenade: a lady with a little dog. Dmitrii Dmitrich Gurov had already spent a fortnight in Yalta and become used to its ways, and he too had begun … Continue reading

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‘The world’s best short story’: A new translation

Long-term followers of Calderonia may recall my post five years ago devoted to Harvey Pitcher, in a series called ‘Inestimable Russianists’. I quoted Harvey saying at the time (he was then in his eighty-third year) that he was just putting … Continue reading

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Susette speaks

  For the context of this poem by Friedrich Hölderlin, see here © Patrick Miles, 2024 ADVERTISEMENT SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS  ‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, … Continue reading

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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 27

16 January 2024 I translated a few poems as a teenager and student (Rilke, Brecht, Hölderlin, Pushkin, Tiutchev, Mayakovsky, Yevtushenko, Brodsky), but bothered to see only a couple published. The fact was, I didn’t take verse translation very seriously. I … Continue reading

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Guest post by Jim Miles: Call My Agent!

One of my jobs is teaching English at a language school in Cambridge. I have students varying in age from teenagers right up to retired adults, and from countries all over the world. This makes the work very interesting but … Continue reading

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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 20

16 December 2022 The Times has a long piece today entitled ‘Putin’s absence fuels rumours of Noah’s Ark plot’. It reports Putin cancelling his annual ice hockey match on Red Square, his annual press conference, and his annual ‘conversation with … Continue reading

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War and woof poetry

Judging by allusions and quotations in his speeches, Volodymyr Zelensky either has a good knowledge of literature himself, or his team does. Unlike Putin, he speaks in a cultured manner, beautifully clearly and expressively, with a literary turn. In an … Continue reading

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Some Calderonian footnotes to ‘Women in Love’

George Calderon was public-school, Oxford, backed by his wife’s unearned income, rather patriotic, perceived as conservative; D.H. Lawrence was a miner’s son, self-supporting and often penurious, rather oikophobic, perceived as revolutionary. What could they possibly have had in common? They … Continue reading

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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 7

27 December I was given this book for Christmas and have consumed it by the end of today. To begin with, I was rather disappointed. Three and a quarter thousand Rugbeians fought in the War. An appendix lists the 637 … Continue reading

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From the diary of a writer-publisher: 6

6 December Our post office is inside the local supermarket, and next to the queue is a stand with all the British newspapers. In an Orwellian spirit of studying what people across the whole political spectrum are thinking, I occasionally … Continue reading

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