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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 17h

That does make perfect sense and is the way I'm leaning too. It requires some sentence-wrangling to escape excessive/confusing use of they/them, but I think it's worth the effort

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 19h

Dear AI book-marketing spammer,
You're right, The Coral Merchant does deserve more readers - but I regret to inform you that Mr Roth has been dead since 1939 and is unlikely to respond to your cheery, "Hi Joseph!"
At least this one made me laugh.

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 22h

Nothing to lose! This is a very good point. I'll be bold.

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 22h

Yes I think I might reconsider that as well - though this is a more philosophy-related headache

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 1d

I think I agree: it wouldn't have been read as sexist as the time, so in a way it would be changing the reading experience to let it be sexist now? Maybe.

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 1d

It's "der Mensch" but essentially all the hypothetical people in this text are masculine. My general strategy is readability because I feel like the older translations have other aspects covered and most are out of copyright. So.

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 1d

2/2 Now i'm thinking, "Are we, as humans, spiritually free beings?" - but is this just me imposing my own standpoint on an old text? Should I give in to the masculine singular to reflect the period when it was written, or think more about modern readers?

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 1d

Retranslation dilemma: several existing translations of a text from 1894 ask, "Is man a spiritually free being?" (The latest, from 1986, adds a translator's footnote saying sorry about the "man" thing, we don't have a gender-neutral option in English, try to ignore it). 1/2

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Reposted by Ruth Martin

Ian Giles @iangiles.bsky.social · 7d

Next Thurs, I'll be talking to co-translators @cctranslates.bsky.social and @dances-with-voles.bsky.social as part of the @societyofauthors.bsky.social #SoAatHome events. We'll be talking translation & celebrating the release of their co-translation of Nino Haratischwili's "The Lack of Light".

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 13d

This a great public service, thank you

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 13d

Quiet reading evening at the bookshop. Tea, snacks, comfy chairs, bit of a chat afterwards about what we're reading and life in general. More of this sort of thing!

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 18d

Great review of BLURRED in the TLS! www.the-tls.com/literature/f...

Borrow, but don’t return

Even though she was born and raised in Romania, the Nobel laureate Herta Müller learnt the national language only when she was fifteen, after she moved to

www.the-tls.com

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 26d

He brought the weirdest selection of animals, there was also a skunk, an owl, and some kind of snake. Everyone loved them, so I guess it was not his first rodeo.

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 27d

The care home where my mum lives has the most alarming image when you look it up on Google maps. It's from when the animal man came in, but it really requires some context

A hand extends towards the viewer, holding a hand-sized black and yellow tarantula. Zimmer frames are visible in the background

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · 27d

More Iris Wolff... this time brilliantly interviewed (in English) by Georgina Godwin on Monocle Radio monocle.com/radio/shows/...

Iris Wolff on weaving memory into words - Monocle

Georgina Godwin is joined by Iris Wolff to discuss her childhood in Romania, emigrating to Germany in the 1980s and...

monocle.com

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · Aug 29

Have you zoomed in or are you getting closer? (Hoping it's the latter)

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · Aug 28

A lovely review of Iris Wolff's BLURRED, among other things, in @john-self.bsky.social 's latest roundup of translated fiction: www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

The best recent translated fiction – review roundup

Discontent by Beatriz Serrano; Hunter by Shuang Xuetao; Blurred by Iris Wolff; Cooking in the Wrong Century by Teresa Präauer

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Ruth Martin

German Embassy London @uk.diplo.de · Aug 27

British-born writer Jacinta Nandi is one of 20 authors long-listed for this year's German Book Prize for her novel 'Single Mom Supper Club'.

The German Book Prize will be presented on 13 October.

More on the long-listed books: www.new-books-in-german.com/german-book-...

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · Aug 26

There are so many!! All of them after p.10. It's about Mascha Kaléko who famously loved a rhyme, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise, but still.

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · Aug 26

If only there weren't so many rhyming poems in this translation. If only I had read the whole thing rather than just the first ten pages before agreeing to it.
You might think well, you live and learn, but this is *not the first time I have been in this situation*. Idiot.

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · Aug 24

Exactly this - not having holidays, or bikes, or clothes that weren't second-hand, was completely normal in 80s and 90s Cornwall. I never felt less than middle-class until I went to university and met people from other places.

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · Aug 8

Kent people! I'll be talking about translation at Herne Bay's fabulous Little Green Bookshop on 30 Sept (International Translation Day) - join me... www.thelittlegreenbookshop.com/event-detail...

The Craft of Literary Translation with Ruth Martin | LittleGreenBookshop

Don't miss out on this fascinating evening on the art of translation!

www.thelittlegreenbookshop.com

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Reposted by Ruth Martin

Mandy Wight @mandywight.bsky.social · Aug 8

This was my first book read for #WomeninTranslation month 2025-an excellent, moving, family novel set in Iran and Germany, told in different voices: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/t...

The Nights are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar translated by Ruth Martin.

In February 2024 I attended a book launch at London’s Goethe Institut where Shida Bazyar and her translator, Ruth Martin, presented her debut novel Sisters in Arms. I really enjoyed this book and w…

peakreads.wordpress.com

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · Aug 8

Ooh, thank you Mandy, great review! And thank you Jen for pointing it out!

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Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social · Aug 7

There used to be - StudiVZ was hugely popular in Germany en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ

StudiVZ - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

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