BACK IN 2012, THE FAULKNER estate attempted to sue Sony Pictures Classics over the use of what a CNN article called “one of the most-quoted lines in American literature.” The verdict was, unsurprisingly, that size matters. After all, the quote in question—actually two lines, and cited incorrectly in the Woody Allen script—consists of only nine words from a novel. You have to hope that the fig leaf of fair use still covers that. Plus, as I always say, plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.
That the film paraphrased rather than quoted isn’t...
Summer Intern Aviva Palencia interviews translator Aga Gabor da Silva, winner of our annual Chametzky Translation Prize for her translation of Ewa Lipska’s “Can Always Happen” from its original Polish. Published in our Spring 2021 issue, Gabor da Silva’s masterfully translates this poem about longing for one’s country of origin. A transcript of this interview is available here.
Aviva also conducted an interview with Diana Senechal, who received an honorable mention. A transcript of this interview is available here.
AGNIESZKA (AGA) GABOR DA SILVA graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she studied Lusophone Literatures and Cultures. Aga also holds a Master of Arts in English Literature and Linguistics from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Her translations have appeared in Lunch Ticket, ANMLY, and Columbia Journal.
DIANA SENECHAL is the 2011 winner of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities and author of Republic of Noise: The Loss of Solitude in Schools and Culture (2012) and Mind over Memes: PassiveListening, Toxic Talk, and Other Modern Language Follies (2018). Her translations of Tomas Venclova’s poetry have appeared in Winter Dialogue (1997) and The Junction (2008); her translations of Hungarian literature have appeared in Literary Matters, Literary Imagination,The Satirist, Massachusetts Review, Asymptote, Modern Poetry in Translation, and The Continental Literary Magazine. "Scissors" is included in the collection Always Different: Poems of Memory (Deep Vellum, 2022), her translation of Gyula Jenei's Mindig más (2018). She teaches English and civilization at Varga Katalin Secondary School in Szolnok, Hungary.
AVIVA PALENCIA is an intern at the Massachusetts Review with a specialization in translation. As of 2022, she holds a B.A. in Linguistics, a B.A. in Spanish, and a certificate in Translation and Interpreting Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 2021 to 2022, she was an assistant at the UMass Translation Center and did English-Spanish translation projects for the Just Words Translation and Interpreting Cooperative.
“We are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest [...] the teachings of Thoreau are alive today, indeed, they are more alive today than ever before.”
—REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. (MR 4.1, Autumn 1962)
"It was the summer of loss spanning the exact distance my disease could reach—the degrees of longitude and latitude, lonely numbers like decorations for a forgotten graduation party in a church basement." —from "Diary Entry #5: Self-Portrait as Revelations
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote. One of the first poems I ever wrote was about a boy (of course). I was 11 years old. The poem was full of clichés like “hitting the dusty trail” and “setting sail.” It was essentially a goodbye poem to a boy I still liked but because of the religious rules placed upon me, we couldn’t be together. Very dramatic, very sad. Very me.
Summer Intern Aviva Palencia interviews translator Aga Gabor da Silva, winner of our annual Chametzky Translation Prize for her translation of Ewa Lipska’s “Can Always Happen” from its original Polish. Published in our Spring 2021 issue, Gabor da Silva’s masterfully translates this poem about longing for one’s country of origin. A transcript of this interview is available here.
Two weeks ago, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial—bylined by its editorial board—condemning the “woke” direction of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)’s new recommendations for medical schools. “...
To find it, she woke up before everybody else: before her father who had to get to the fields an at early hour, before her mother and grandmother who had chores to do, before her older siblings who went to school, and before the younger ones who slept late.
Sometimes she even woke up before the rooster; she’d sit by the window in her room and look out at Candelara.
—from "Evelina and the Fairies," Volume 63, Issue 2 (Summer 2022)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated. My first published translation was Carlo Lucarelli’s noir, Almost Blue, for City Lights, in 2001. The story behind how this project came about is quite charming. A total...
“‘C’mon, ladies. It’s not fun for me either,’ Marina called. ‘Bend over and touch your toes.’ The wet nurses complied, their rumps rising up in a line of mottled curved. The lights weighed on them, all nude except for cotton underwear.” —from, “The Milkmaid,” Volume 63, Issue 2 (Summer 2022)
Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote. For some reason poetry arrived before fiction. I wrote a poem about a tractor covered in snow when I was eight that is surprising because generally that’s not an eight-year-old’s go-to. I might have peaked then as a poet. Though, to be honest, I often look back at pieces I wrote as a kid and I hope desperately that I held onto...
