Ismail Kadare
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Translation Review The University of Texas at Dallas Guest Editor Gjeke Marinaj Editors International Advisory Board Production Staff Rainer Schulte John Biguenet Belinda Franklin Dennis Kratz Ming Dong Gu Keith Heckathorn Samuel Hazo Lindy Jolly Associate Editor Elizabeth Gamble Miller Megan McDowell Charles Hatfield Margaret Sayers Peden Marilyn Gaddis Rose Graphic Designer Assistant Editor James P. White Michelle Long Christopher Speck Copy Editor Sandra Smith All correspondence and inquiries should be directed to Translation Review The University of Texas at Dallas Box 830688 - JO51 Richardson, TX 75083-0688 Telephone: (972) 883-2092 Fax: (972) 883-6303 E-mail: [email protected] Translation Review is published twice yearly by The Center for Translation Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas and the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA). Articles in Translation Review are refereed. 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TABLE OF CONTENTS Albanian Literature In The English-Speaking World............................................................1 Robert Elsie An Interview with Ismail Kadare.........................................................................................11 Gjeke Marinaj On Translating Ismail Kadare.............................................................................................17 David Bellos Ismail Kadare: Modern Homer or Albanian Dissident.......................................................23 Peter Morgan Albanian Literature .............................................................................................................29 Peter R. Prifti Translating Moikom Zeqo’s Meduza...................................................................................33 Wayne Miller The Poetic Vision of Preç Zogaj in Translation ..................................................................42 Gjeke Marinaj A Personal Perspective on Translations..............................................................................54 Peter R. Prifti Translating Albanian Folk Poetry: A Collaborative Venture .............................................58 Frederick Turner Vanishing Balkan Worlds: The Translator as Language Preserver ...................................65 Peter Constantine Translating Gjergj Fishta’s Epic Masterpiece Lahuta E Malcis into English as The Highland Lute......................................................................................68 Janice Mathie-Heck BOOK REVIEWS Marku, Rudolf. Allahland....................................................................................................72 Reviewed by Ron Berisha Lleshanaku, Luljeta. Fresco: Selected Poetry of Luljeta Lleshanaku. ................................74 Reviewed by Peter Golub Buçpapaj, Mujë. Fitorja e Padukshme: Poezi/ The Invisible Victory: Poems. ...................77 Reviewed by Laura Bowers NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS ..................................................................................... 81 Translation Review ALBANIAN LITERATURE IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD By Robert Elsie t has been about two decades since the centuries and also I opening of Albania, after half a century of exists in Italian, Stalinist dictatorship, and almost a decade since French, German, the liberation of Kosovo. Albanian literature Spanish, Portuguese, and Polish translations, remains, nonetheless, one of the least known and now of course in Albanian. Although it is national literatures of Europe. Many interested not a translation from the Albanian and is more readers will have heard the name Ismail Kadare, a work of history than of literature, Barleti’s but few other literary associations will come to “History of Scanderbeg” is the first Albanian mind. book, if we may call it that, to have been While much Albanian literature has been translated into English. translated into French, and some major and Albanian oral literature was first made minor works are available in Italian, German, available in English in the 1920s and 1930s, in and Russian, even Spanish, English-language two now rare volumes. The first was Tricks of translations, with the exception of some Women and Other Albanian Tales (New York works of Kadare, have been sadly missing in 1928) by Paul Fenimore Cooper, descendant of bookstores and on bookshelves. This paper the American novelist James Fenimore Cooper endeavors to provide an overview of existing (1789–1851), which was translated from French English-language publications of Albanian and German. The second, Albanian Wonder literature and of the diffusion of Albanian Tales (Lovat Dickenson, London 1936), by Post letters. Wheeler (1869–1956), is a beautiful edition of The first translation into English of ten fairy tales, published with the assistance of what could very broadly be described as Stavro Frashëri (1900–1965) of Kavaja. More Albanian literature was published in 1596. It recently, I published an edition of folk tales in is The Historie of George Castriot, Surnamed the volume Albanian Folktales and Legends, Scanderbeg, King of Albinie, Containing his Peja 2001, and another collection was recently Famous Actes, his Noble Deedes of Armes and printed by Mustafa Tukaj and Joanne M. Ayers, Memorable Victories again the Turkes for the entitled Faith and Fairies: Tales Based on Faith of Christ (London 1596), a translation by Albanian Legends and Ballads, Shkodra 2002. one Zachary Jones from a French version of a In 1931, the Scottish anthropologist Margaret Latin work entitled Historia de vita et gestis M. Hasluck (1885–1948) published a modest, Scanderbegi, Epirotarum Principis (Rome ca. though badly transcribed collection of folk 1508–1510). This “History of Scanderbeg” tales under the title Këndime Englisht-Shqip was written by the historian Marinus Barletius or Albanian-English Reader: Sixteen Albanian Scodrensis (ca. 1450–1512), known in Albanian Folk-Stories, Collected and Translated, with as Marin Barleti, who, after experiencing the Two Grammars and Vocabularies, Cambridge Turkish occupation of his native Shkodra at first UK 1931. Peggy Hasluck, who was the wife hand, settled in Padua, where he became rector of the noted archaeologist and orientalist of the parish church of St. Stephen’s. The work Frederick William Hasluck (1878–1920), was was widely read in the sixteenth and seventeenth an astounding figure. She bought a house in Translation Review 1 Elbasan and spent almost two decades of her Mahmoud Tsungu, in New York under the title life in Albania after her husband’s death. I am Frasheri’s Song of Albania, Smithtown, New delighted to announce that, with the assistance York 1981. More acceptable from a stylistic of Bejtullah Destani of London, I have come point of view is the melodramatic play Besa across the full manuscript of her substantial by Naim Frashëri’s talented brother, Sami bey collection of Albanian folk tales in English Frashëri (1850–1904), translated into English translation and hope to publish it. by Nelo Drizari (1902–1978), former lecturer in Another, in my view important, addition to Albanian at Columbia University, as the Pledge Albanian oral literature is the recent collection of Honor, an Albanian Tragedy, New York 1945. titled Songs of the Frontier Warriors: Këngë The works of the pre-revolutionary poet Kreshnikësh. Albanian Epic Verse in a Bilingual Migjeni (1911–1938), pseudonym of Millosh English-Albanian Edition, Wauconda, Illinois Gjergj Nikolla, were first translated into 2004, translated and published by my colleague English, again by Ali Cungu, in the volume Janice Mathie-Heck of Calgary, Alberta, and Migjeni: Selected Albanian Songs and Sketches, myself. It contains over 6,000 lines of epic Tirana 1962. Here, again, excessive attention verse, primarily from the Mujo and Halili cycle, to rhyme and rhythm substantially diminishes and endeavors finally to throw more light on the dramatic force and caustic cynicism of the Albanian epic, which has remained in the Migjeni’s verse of growing social awareness. shadow of the Serbo-Croatian, or more properly, I have published another, I believe much more Bosnian epic, with which it has undeniable appropriate, translation of Migjeni’s complete affinities. poetic works in the volume Free Verse, Peja English translations of written Albanian 2001. In addition, a number of Migjeni’s short literature are a relatively recent phenomenon. stories and prose sketches have appeared in my The first translations began to appear in new volume Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Tirana in the 1960s but were generally not of Albanian Short Stories, Peja 2004. This book sufficient literary quality to make them readable. also includes short stories by Ernest Koliqi Of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century (1902–1975), the éminence grise of pre–Second Albanian literature in translation, one may World War Albanian literature, translated by me mention the little volume The Last Lay of Bala, and by the late British Albanologist Stuart Mann Tirana 1967, by the Italo-Albanian (Arbëresh) (1905–1986). poet and man of letters Gabriele Dara junior Numerous classics of Albanian socialist (1828–1885).