Welcome to Hopscotch Translation

The 이야기 I’ve written in this collection are a little different from the ordinary kind. These stories have neither inciting incident nor conclusion. Nor do the individual sentences stand in ordinary causal relationship to one another. Each story is a “leaning in to whisper.” An intimate gesture to convey the vastness of the field that is the human heart, an unfathomable universe impossible to encompass… READ MORE

Unlike the twins Tweedledum and Tweedledee, who remain forever frozen in time, all translations, as we know, must eventually grow old. Philippe Jaworski’s translation for the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade is brand new; no doubt it, too, will age one day, but that day is a long way off. For now, the translation feels free and inventive. It seems to spring from the translator’s enduring love for Alice… READ MORE

Two years prior to Good & Safe, Ujvary published a collection of unofficial dissident poetry she’d smuggled out of the Soviet Union, and she certainly shares in the dissident’s joy of slipping one by the authorities, even if those authorities constitute the self. Her poems, which are largely lists or list-like assemblages, read like self-inventories of codes that, as if by their Eigendynamik, are allowed to subvert themselves… READ MORE

I work very carefully on the language of my texts. I read aloud and compose with a sense of musicality as well. I wouldn’t say it’s painful or unpleasant work, but it is labor-intensive, and that means it takes time—many revisions and a slow process. It’s not something that can be done quickly, and that runs counter to the speed-driven demands of modern life. But a kind of work like this simply can’t be done at high speed… READ MORE