Translation
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Global Voices Interviews
At LIT, we see translation as the essence of all writing – whether it’s translating across languages or transforming life into words, images, and sound. From the individual to the collective, from the intimate to the universal: in the end, it’s all about translation. We are thrilled to share this newest, brilliant installment of Global Voices from Indonesia.
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Five Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski
art by Grzegorz Wróblewski
Translated from the Polish by Peter Burzyński
Marathon
Intelligent cities are made on moons.
If you don’t get there first
Amazon lockers
will conquer it all.
After all, suicide pills
aren’t available yet.
There will be hordes of geezers and maniacs…
It’s just that it’s a terrible disease.
One which hapless doctors
inject you with reminders
to pay your bills.
We’ve been sent here
so that you can reach
a state of cosmic stability. -
Three Poems by Hendri Yulius Wijaya
photo by Giovanni Apruzzese
Translated from the Bahasa Indonesian by Edward GunawanFrankissstein
Victor Frankenstein goes on an excursion to the Cloud.
His scientist instincts never extinguish.Scavenging mutilated bodies:
Stomachs of the washboards, arms of gladiators,
Engorged eggplants and sumptuous melons.
A cornucopia. -
Five Haikus by Antonio Guzman Gomez
photo by Giovanni Apruzzese
Translated from the Maya Tseltal by Kiran Bhat
You open your eyes
and wake up the sun so that
a new day can start.
Wik’a asit
ya xojobaj talel k’aal,
ya sakub k’inal.
Abres tus ojos
y se levanta el sol,
despierta el d
Every morning
at the back of a mountain
the sun yawns awake.
Ta jujun sab,
ta yach’ te’tikil,
ya sjach’ ye te k’aale. -
Habors of Pain by Elhassan Ait Elamal
photo by Giovanni Apruzzese
Translated from the Arabic by Essam M. Al-Jassim
The moment his body was laid in the grave, it began constricting, his chest tightening against the suffocating confinement, as though he were being pulled upward into the sky. Comfort eluded him. He resolved to rise from the grave and return home, but the graveyard’s guardians posed a problem—they rarely allowed the dead to leave. When they did, it was only at certain times, and most often that was in the middle of the night.
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“Out of Sorts” by Muzzafer Kale Translated from the Turkish by Ralph Hubbell
Photo by Giovanni Apruzzese
When you come across someone in one place after only ever seeing him in another place, you’ll likely have trouble remembering how you know him; but that’s not how this was!
He comes in and takes a seat four or five tables away. I doubt he notices me. He looks preoccupied. One can get a little disheveled sometimes, it’s inevitable; somehow you can’t pull yourself together, which then makes it hard to notice whatever is going on around you. Or maybe he hasn’t woken up yet. There’s a fog in his head and it hasn’t even begun to clear.
