World Literature Weekend: Voicing the Masters (and Mistresses): Translation with Variations

with Marina Warner and Robert Chandler

Where: Stevenson Room, British Museum, London, UK

Marina Warner, the prominent writer, critic, historian and broadcaster, and Robert Chandler, the eminent translator of Russian texts, will together explore their interest in the translation of oral stories into written literature. Warner will talk about fairy tales, notably the Thousand and One Nights, Omar Khayyam and her current research, and Chandler about the importance of the folk tale to a number of the greatest Russian writers, including Alexander Pushkin and Andrey Platonov, whose novel The Foundation Pit has recently been translated by Chandler in a new edition published by New York Review of Books.

Marina Warner is a writer, critic and historian. Born in London in 1946, and educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, she is the author of three praised studies of mythology: Alone of All Her Sex: the Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc: the Image of Female Heroism, and Monuments & Maidens: the Allegory of the Female Form (winner of the Fawcett Prize). She has published four novels – In a Dark Wood, The Skating Party, The Lost Father (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and regional winner of the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize) and Indigo, as well as short stories, most recently the acclaimed collection Murderers I have Known. She broadcasts regularly on radio and television, and is a frequent contributor to newspapers.

Robert Chandler has translated the poetry of Sappho and Apollinaire. His translations from Russian include Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate, Pushkin’s Dubrovsky and The Captain’s Daughter, and – as co-translator – numerous works by Andrey Platonov. His translations have won prizes in both the UK and the USA. He teaches part time at Queen Mary College, University of London, and has published poems in the TLS and Poetry Review.

Part of the London Review Bookshop’s World Literature Weekend

Ticket prices include postage. Concessionary rates available for LRB subscribers, Friends of the British Museum, students and OAPs – please call +44 (0)20 7209 1141