Goodbye to Nelson Mandela, Alice Munro’s Nobel interview, and a 3D printed book cover
This week, we said goodbye to a towering worldwide figure: Nelson Mandela. As a champion of peace, equality, and worldwide education, he touched the lives of many people around the world. A heartfelt tribute from Nadine Gordimer, longtime friend of Mandela, is included in the links below.
News, Reviews, and Interviews
Physically seeing a language—in terms of mapping it out—can actually help people retain it better compared to other methods of language learning.
Nadine Gordimer wrote a moving tribute to Nelson Mandela this week at the New Yorker.
Even though the Manchu people number over 10 million strong in China, their ethnic language is slowly being wiped out.
This week marks the fifth anniversary of Chinese political dissident Liu Xiaobo’s imprisonment. The PEN American Center posted two new translated poems by Liu’s wife, Lia Xia, who has been under house arrest in China since 2010.
Though she was not able to attend due to her health, Nobel Prize laureate Alice Munro appeared in an interview in lieu of a live speech at this week’s award ceremony.
What does it mean to be a poet today? In a new podcast from the Royal Society of Literature, four poets answer this question and more.
For Your Calendar
New Books in German is looking for six German-English translators for their Emerging Translators Program. Applications are due in early January.
Fun Finds and Inspiration
Is it possible that emoticons are the future of language?
Wondering what to get that special reader in your life this holiday season? Perhaps they would like the Two Lines Press Bundle of Joy, which includes a subscription to their 2014 titles and a few extra literary goodies.
Leo Tolstoy might have died over 100 years ago, but we can still learn valuable life lessons from his life and works.
Riverhead Books and 3D printing company Makerbot have teamed up to create amazing 3D printed cover art for Chang-rae Lee’s forthcoming novel, On Such a Full Sea.
Translator Frank Wynne shared a few translation tips at the English PEN blog this week. (For more on his translation work, read our 2012 interview with him on the WLT blog.)
