Translating Anna Akhmatova's Tri Oseni (Three Autumns)

Abstract

On 1 September 2015, Subhash Jaireth led a workshop attended by nine poets interested in the art of translation. He introduced the poem ‘Three Autumns’ by the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, providing biographical, historical and cultural contexts within which the poem was written. The participants were provided with three resources: the original poem in Russian; a line-by-line English paraphrase; and an audio recording of the Russian poem. Subsequently, four of the participants wrote translations of their own. The group reconvened on 24 May 2017, to discuss the translations and the process of writing them. The translations are published here together with the reflective comments of their authors: Subhash Jaireth, Mary Besemeres, Paul Magee, Sandra Renew and Melinda Smith. Show more