translator

Entries Tagged as 'translator'

Poetry in Translation (CCII): Johann Wolfgang von GOETHE (1749 – 1832), GERMANY, “Nähe des Geliebten”, “Dor”

July 30th, 2013 · No Comments · International Media, Poetry, quotations, Translations, Uncategorized

Ich bin bei dir; du seist auch noch so ferne,
Du bist mir nah!
Die Sonne sinkt, bald leuchten mir die Sterne.
O, wärst du da!

Sunt lânga tine, departe de ai fi,
În dorul ce m-apasă,
Iar în amurgul serii, din nou aşi vieţui
De te-ai intoarce-acasă.

I am with you. However far you are,
I know you’re near!
The setting sun sets stars up over me.
I want you here!

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘H’

July 21st, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Hitler:
“He looks like a bottle of mustard with a black label.”
Marthe Bibesco

Hour:
“A well spent hour is worth more than centuries and centuries of ignorance and neglect.”
Eugene Ionesco

Hunger:
“Old people do not need so many calories.”
Nicolae Ceausescu

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘G’

July 21st, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, OPINION, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Guilty:
“You are guilty of the spiritual impoverishment of the individuals, of their intellectual sterility, of the stifling of their personal duty, as well as of the creativity and inventiveness with which our people have been endowed. When they are treated as objects, deprived of their dignity, locked up in existentialist structures which do not suit them, paralized by the fear of the repressive regime, . Human beings end up behaving as objects. You are responsible for the physical debility of millions of citizens whom you have constrained through unheard of deprivations – of foodstuff, of heating, of medicines. The degrading of the human factor (the subversion of values, the egocentrism, the corruption) has jointly contributed, together with your political and economic errors, to the decadence of institutions, to the bankruptcy of trade and Industry, to the ruin of agriculture. Furthermore, you are also responsible for the demolition of churches and of prestigious historical monuments, of the falsifying and destruction of our past and lately of the destruction of our villages and of our rural traditions. In the historical past, our princes were building churches, after each military victory and perhaps sometime even after their defeat. You yourself, you are demolishing them, instead.”
(Doina Cornea (b. 1930), University Lecturer, Dissident)
(Open Letter to Nicolae Ceausescu, 23rd August 1988,
broadcast the same day on “Radio Free Europe” and published in Doina Cornea’s “Liberte?”, Eds Criterion, Paris, 1990)

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘F’

July 20th, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Famous:
“When one is famous one does not think any longer at outshining others”.
Elise BRATIANO

Fashion:
“Fashion is what clothes reality and offers dreams.”
Marthe BIBESCO,

Friendship:
“All friendship is a virtual drama, a sequel of subtle wounds.”
Emil CIORAN

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘E’

July 20th, 2013 · No Comments · Diaspora, International Media, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

Eternity:
“I too have taken a few steps on the sands of Eternity.”
Constantin BRANCUSI

Exile:
“I cry, with Psalm 136, the captivity of Babylon. For me, like for the Jews deported to Babylon, it is no longer imaginable to write poems in exile. I lost my country, my people is captive. The exile shuts the mouth”
Virgil GHEORGHIU,
Exile:
“You are suffering for being far away from your kith and kin, from the sky and the land where you were born. You should know that one and the same sky covers our wounded land and that your exile is only an initiation. Do not be sad during your stay in Tomis, rather prepare yourself for the life beyond, the eternal life, which is not far, where suffering is unknown, as the time finds its meaning only within the confines of suffering.”
Vintila HORIA

Romanian Dictionary of Quotations, Selected & Translated by Constantin ROMAN: Letter ‘A’

July 16th, 2013 · No Comments · Books, PEOPLE, quotations, Translations

“Awake, awake Romanians from your lethargic sleep,
In which your foreign tyrants have sunken you so deep!
It’s either now or never to shape a fate for you,
To whose behest should cower your cruel enemies too!”
(Alexander Muresanu (1) (1816, Bistrita-Brasov, 1863),
Transylvanian poet, author of the national Anthem
(“Desteapta-te Romane”)

Poetry in Translation (CLXXXVI): Arvo Turtianen (1904-1980), Finland, Poet, “Loveliest Poem”, “Cel mai frumos poem”

April 19th, 2013 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CLXXXVI): Arvo Turtianen (1904-1980), Finland, Poet, “Loveliest Poem”, “Cel mai frumos poem” · PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Arvo Turtianen (1904-1980)

LOVELIEST POEM

The loveliest poem is born
when you are close to someone,
when tenderness,
simple and boundless,
without questions
flows from one to the other.

You do not forget the loveliest poem.
It is stamped on your forehead, eyes,
lips and heart,
stamped for lovers to read,
for lovers to surrender.
Cel mai frumos poem
Arvo Turtiainen (1904-1980)

Cel mai frumos poem se înfiripă
când eşti alături de cineva,
când iubirea,
simplă şi nemărginită,
fără nici un semn de întrebare
se împărtăşeşte de amândoi.

Poemul cel mai frumos nu se uită.
El este înscris pe frunte, pe ochi,
pe buze şi inimă,
înscris, pentru ca toţi iubiţii să poată vedea,
să depună armele.

Poetry in Translation (CLVI): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Translation”, “Traducere”

December 26th, 2012 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CLVI): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Translation”, “Traducere” · International Media, Poetry, quotations, Translations

Translation
Marin Sorescu (1936 – 1996)

I was sitting an exam
In a dead language
And I had to transIate myself
From man into ape.

Poetry in Translation (CLV): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Passport”, “Paşaport”

December 26th, 2012 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CLV): Marin SORESCU (1936 – 1996, Romania) – “Passport”, “Paşaport” · Poetry, quotations, Translations

Passport
(Marin Sorescu, Romania)

To cross the border
Between the sunflower
And the moonflower
Between the alphabet
Of handwritten events
And printed events.
(Rendered in English by Constantin ROMAN, London
© 2012, Copyright Constantin ROMAN)

Poetry in Translation (CXLVI): Sergiu MANDINESCU (1926-1964), ROMANIA, “Prison Warder”, “ Suflet de călău”

November 22nd, 2012 · Comments Off on Poetry in Translation (CXLVI): Sergiu MANDINESCU (1926-1964), ROMANIA, “Prison Warder”, “ Suflet de călău” · PEOPLE, Poetry, quotations, Translations

A muffled night
a bottomless abyss
a peacock’s cry
that never goes amiss.
Great panthers watching in the night
and tigers ready for the pounce,
the pythons flawlessly advance
a path so trite.
The shadow’s silence so profound
fills to the brim the darkest mind –
a jungle full of beasts of any kind,
but human soul is nowhere to be found!

Sergiu MANDINESCU (1926-1964) – Biographical Note:

Sergiu Mandinescu was a son of Bucovina, who died prematurely at the age of 38, of which 14 years, between 1949 and 1963, were spent in the harshest Communist prisons: Jilava, Pitesti, Gherla, Aiud and more.
He died within one year of being released from prison, having barely had time to put pen to paper – his own poems that he memorized in the darkest prison cells.
Sergiu was only 23 years of age when he was imprisoned by the Communists and was discharged at the age of 37, only to pass away a year later.

Even after the demise of Ceausescu, 25 years after Mandinescu’s death, Romania was not ready to confront the demons of its past, as the “post-Communist” publishing houses still blackballed the publications of the poet’s verse. However, a handful of these appeared in print, first, before 1989, through the effort of the Romanian Diaspora and of late, in Romania, on the Internet and in some provincial literary magazines.
Considering the aforesaid, one can reasonably state, without fear of contradiction, that the conspiracy of silence is still alive and well in the Carpathian lands, in the guise of a pre programmed amnesia, through the good offices of overt and covert gremlins, perched in lucrative sinecures: the latter are at work, full time, like termites, until the whole shebang would implode: never too soon!

Addendum:
There seems to be no portrait extant of Sergiu Mandinescu, even though, given the assiduous efforts of the Romanian secret services, there ought to be some prison photos when he was indicted and therefore available in the late poet’s Securitate files.

Centre for Romanian Studies