In poems that are precise, frank and finely tuned,award-winning Argentine poetLaura Wittner explores the specificities of parental and familial love, life after marriage, and the re-ignition of the self in middle age.
The 'things' of life
bus journeys, potted plants, thunder at night, coffee-stained books, fleeting conversations and the rest
are made full through Wittner's ability to pinpoint in them the consequential, and even the metaphysical, manipulating language with a translator's delicate skill. There are funny, moving pen-portraits of Wittner's two children, suddenly grown, as well as bell-clear descriptions of the task of writing. For this is also a collection about language itself
as an interface, as a surface, and as vital communication.
Translation of the Routeedition, Wittner's first collection available in English translation, have been translated by the Mexican-Scottish bilingual poet and translator Juana Adcock, acclaimed author of Manca and Split.
By:
Laura Wittner
Translated by:
Juana Adcock
Imprint: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Bilingual ‘facing page’ edition
Dimensions:
Height: 216mm,
Width: 138mm,
Spine: 13mm
ISBN: 9781780376998
ISBN 10: 1780376995
Pages: 128
Publication Date: 12 February 2025
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
I. TEN REAL ANSWERS TO FICTIONAL QUESTIONS Why we women get oven burns 8 Why on bad days we look at holiday photos 10 Why it shouldn’t rain on Sunday nights 12 Why we talk when we talk about love 14 Why it’s urgent to get out on the road 16 Why remedies over time betray us 18 Why it is advisable to read in bars 20 Why we must reconstruct ourselves all the time 22 Why when I like a song a lot I need to print the lyrics 24 Why if they knock me down a thousand times I get up 26 II. THE IMPERFECT IS OUR PARADISE Kayak 30 Love poem 32 To a god unknown 34 The taxi stops at the lights 36 Rothkos 38 Sunday noon 40 Shadow 42 Good morning, Kenneth 44 I wake up at 6 46 Month 48 Iguazú 50 Iguazú: says my daughter 52 You are here 54 To be in a museum 56 Reading DL on the 108 58 They zoom into photos in a chat 60 They walk seven blocks to the subway 62 They are blinded for a second whilst correcting a poem 64 They try out things on holiday 66 They make their voices vibrate at 6 68 They interrupt our talk to do something urgent 70 They peer into potted plants and confirm their beliefs 72 III. TRANSLATION OF THE ROUTE Ma 76 Thursday, nighttime 78 I once again held a lemon in my hand 80 We turned onto Libertador 82 Dinner 84 The origin 86 What is that lovely book 88 The dark things 90 The fragile things 92 My daughter likes the wind 94 In front of the bay of San Juan in Puerto Rico 96 Clearing 98 Reminder from sanity 100 My baby 102 Down Loíza Road (with Mara and Nicole) 104 Scene 106 Late in the afternoon 108 Far from home 110 Williams and me 112 So much depends 114 How it is 116 My son tells me his dream on our way to school 118 When we travel, time expands: 120 Translation of the route 122 About the authors 126
Laura Wittner is an award-winning poet and translator from Argentina. Her books of poetry include El pasillo del tren (1996), Los cosacos (1998), Las ltimas mudanzas (2001), La tomadora de cafe (2005), Lluvias (2009), Balbuceos en una misma direccin (2011), La altura (2016), Lugares donde una no est (2017) and Traduccin de la ruta (2020). She has also published more than 20 books for children, most recently Cual para tal (2022), Y comieron perdices? (2023) and Se pide un deseo (2023). Translation of the Route, Juana Adcock's translation of Traduccin de la ruta is published by the Poetry Translation Centre with Bloodaxe Books in a dual language Spanish-English edition in 2024. As a literary translator Wittner has translated books by Leonard Cohen, David Markson, M. John Harrison, Cynan Jones, Claire-Louise Bennett, Katherine Mansfield and James Schuyler, among many others. She lives in Buenos Aires. Juana Adcock is a Mexican poet, translator and editor based in Scotland. She is the author ofManca(Tierra Adentro, 2014),Vestigial(Stewed Rhubarb, 2022) andSplit(Blue Diode, 2019), which was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was included in theGuardian's Best Poetry of 2019. She is co-editor of the anthology of poetry by Latin American womenTemporary Archives(Arc Publications, 2022), and her translation of the Me'ph poet Hubert Matiwa'sThe Dogs Dreamt(Flipped Eye, 2023) received a PEN Translates award.
Reviews for Translation of the Route: Traducción de la ruta
'Wittner's poems in Adcock's deft translation fold entire but only half-seen narratives into brief glimpses, like interior lives flashing past the window of a moving train. They are delivered with a misleading directness – a garrulous voice at your ear, its utterances appearing quotidian but imbued with the weird and cryptic. We sift for clues. How to decipher a particular coffee stain, the distant tinkle of broken glass, arcane road signs, a particular shade of fallen leaf, the shadows cast by dancing laundry? Wittner is alert to these strange messages, curious about them all, and willing to embrace the not-knowing. I could read these poems every day and still find the new in them. -- Martha Sprackland Poems of the radiant everyday. In Juana Adcock's warm translation, Laura Wittner's chatty, witty voice comes through with gorgeous clarity. Reading this book is like listening to a wise, beloved friend over coffee. -- Clare Pollard 'What I really love about these poems is their clarity. They give a luminescence to the most concrete of objects. They show us how individual moments in a normal day can be the occasion for celebration, or reflection on a whole lifetime. They make me look again at the cup in my hand or the view from my window that I thought I knew. -- Sarah Hesketh
