I have an abiding affection for the humble egg. That most complete, complex and humble of foods. Firstly, because a basket or bowl or nest of eggs always looks so beautiful. The shells gently stippled, stiff but delicate. The colours simple and pure: a shell – brown or cream or blue or soft green – [...]

Edith Grossman’s Why Translation Matters is part of a series of books – Why X Matters – published by Yale University Press, and based on a lecture series of the same name. The book is slim – compact. Three of the four chapters are based on lectures Grossman gave at Yale, while the fourth is [...]

Recently, I’ve been reading and thinking about Charlotte Wood’s novel The Submerged Cathedral. It’s not her most recent book, but I returned to it after finding a copy during one of those days when you’re trawling the bookshelf looking for something to inspire you: to remind you why you read, and write. Charlotte is a [...]

If Borges had had his way – and he generally did – all polysyllables would have been replaced by monosyllables, especially in the third and fourth revisions, to which he often pressed his absent collaborators. People concerned about the legitimacy of the literal might well be scandalized by his mania for dehispanization. EH: He was [...]