Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2015 - Humanities — Language & Literature — Slavic

There have been a few new translations of Anna Karenina in recent years, but Schwartz's rendering honors Tolstoy's well-documented disdain for affectations and the lofty prose that had become pervasive in the Russian literary language of his milieu.  In contrast to other iterations that were corrections of Tolstoys style and thereby disregarded his intent "to bend language to his will, as an instrument of his aesthetic and moral convictions" (to quote the Schwartz), Schwartz's translation embraces Tolstoys unorthodox use of language and syntax.  Previous translations frequently employed synonyms to reduce word and phrase repetition.  Schwartz acknowledges that repetition was a literary device Tolstoy brought to bear to grant readers time to reflect on his ideas.  She includes other linguistic quirks and adheres to the rhythm of the novel.  Compared with other translations, this is devoid of abstraction, passive voice, and embellished phrases with additional adjectives.  Many interpret the novel as the story of a romantic heroine who will make extraordinary sacrifices for love, but the present translation demonstrates that the novel also centers on Tolstoys view of society.  Schwartz's masterful approach to translation underscores the importance of preserving the novels integrity.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.

This compact volume of poetry, which tells a story of Hungarian poetry from the 14th century to the present, is not the first collaboration between Ozsváth (Holocaust studies, Univ. of Texas, Dallas) and Turner (literature and creative writing, also UT, Dallas).  They have worked together on other collections/translations of Hungarian poetry.  The present collection soars on two levels.  First, the poetry is exquisite and draws readers in, thanks to the editors' wise selections and the enchanting translations.  Thus, the volume is invaluable for those interested in creative writing: developing poets can learn about forms and the esteem in which poets are held and their sense of mission: a poet / Sacred, the prophet of the human (a poem by Jeno Heltai).  Second, the volume as a whole affords insight into the psyches of people striving for freedom and the excesses to which they can be driven.  For example, the editors present a József Kiss poem, a response to a particular anti-Semitic outbreak, juxtaposed with poems exclaiming sentiments about liberty (Liberty or base subjection, / Choose: that is the only question!).  The volume concludes with two essaysone a primer on Hungarian history by Ozsváth, the other an introduction to poetry by Turnerboth providing indispensable context.Summing Up: Essential. All readers.