Chinese sci-fi has crossed the translation barrier
Netflix's lavish new adaptation of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem is the latest 'translation' of one of this century's best, and best-selling, sci-fi novels. In this episode, we track the…
Palestinian
I was silent and nothing came of it. I spoke and nothing came of it. I cursed, I apologized, and nothing came of it.
The People from the Dead Whale
I howled loudly and sat down. Neither my body nor my brain could handle the overwhelming vastness of this hope that now filled my head. Even knowing that most hope…
How to Survive Underground
Faced with the unthinkable, we hoard, grow suspicious, act on fear; we also reinvent, build community, and create new conditions for surviving.
A Ghost in Brazil
Kikuko Tsumura I was ever so keen to visit the Aran Islands, but unfortunately, I died before ever making it out of Japan. I was seventy-two at the time. My…
Ted Chiang Uses Science to Illuminate the Human Condition
I think science and religion could more peacefully coexist if we could agree that they are trying to answer different questions; science is investigating the question, “how does the universe…
The sci-fi of another language
The meaning of science fiction stories are often tough to pin down. Do they depict the future or the present? Are they personal or political? Imaginative or reality-based? Also, is…
Emily Wilson talks about translating ‘The Odyssey’
Maybe now, after all the media coverage of my work, interviewers might finally start asking cisgender men about how gender impacts their work. It would be about time
Jennifer Kronovet studied Yiddish so she could communicate with the dead
Kronovet had a ton of ideas for language-related podcast episodes. We eventually settled on her adventures with Yiddish. She shared these adventures with two other students of the language, Faith Jones and Samuel…