Translating From the Portuguese: A Life Translated
Elizabeth Lowe charts her journey to becoming a translator through a series of vignettes relating her life as a third culture kid and living and working abroad in a kaleidoscope of cultures and languages. The book is a reflection on translation as an art, on five decades of teaching languages, literatures, and translation, and on her close relationships with writers from the Lusophone world. It explores the theoretical aspects of translation as well as practical challenges faced by translators, especially those working in Portuguese literature. Lowe offers intimate insights into the creative process of the writers she translates and her own philosophy of literary translation.
Commission of Tears
The author's twenty-fifth novel is set during the Angolan Civil War (1975-2002), when Angolan factions took bloody revenge on Portuguese colonists who had not fled the country. António Lobo Antunes delves into this traumatic period of Angola's history through the fragmented memories and dreams of a broken woman. It is the story of Cristina, admitted to a psychiatric clinic in Lisbon.
The Last Twist of the Knife by João Almino
In this 2017 novel, translated by Elizabeth Lowe into English as The Last Twist of the Knife, Brazilian writer João Almino establishes a series of difficult hurdles for himself, almost as if purposely creating nearly impossible, Oulipo-like challenges.
-Douglas Messerli, Rain Taxi