Not Lost in Translation

Print |

Reprint/License |

Subscription |

RSS |

By Meg McCaffrey -- School Library Journal, 04/01/2004

Comment
on this article

Words Without Borders (www.wordswithoutborders.org) is a free online magazine best described as a window into other worlds. With the goal of increasing understanding of other cultures, the e-zine offers English translations of foreign literature and commentary and is worth a look by librarians and teachers who work with students in grades 6–12. Visitors may search the site by continents or environments, which include everything from cities to deserts.

Recent issues feature translated poems and stories by writers from Argentina, North Korea, India, Iran, China, the Middle East, and Africa, and they illuminate another perspective. "The other day I was reading the work of an Iraqi writer who described in vivid detail life there," says Dedi Felman, Words Without Borders' editor. "Suddenly this nation came alive for me, and not like it has on the TV news."

Felman, whose day job is acquiring social science and current affairs books for Oxford University Press, works with other publishing professionals, writers, and translators to produce Words Without Borders, with help from a National Endowment for the Arts grant.

Alane Salierno Mason, a senior editor at W. W. Norton & Company, founded the e-zine in 2001 because she was troubled by a "dangerous imbalance" in publishing. Statistics show that 50 percent of all books in translation are translated from English, but only six percent are translated into English. Those interested should go to the site and click on "Get New Issues by E-mail."