Translation of the Route

Translation of the Route is the eleventh collection by the award-winning Argentine poet and translator Laura Wittner. In poems that are precise, frank and finely tuned, Wittner explores the specificities of parental and familial love, life after marriage, and the re-ignition of the self in middle age.

The ‘things’ of life – bus journeys, potted plants, thunder at night, coffee-stained books, fleeting conversations and the rest – are made full through Wittner’s ability to pinpoint in them the consequential, and even the metaphysical, manipulating language with a translator’s delicate skill. There are funny, moving pen-portraits of Wittner’s two children, suddenly grown, as well as bell-clear descriptions of the task of writing. For this is also a collection about language itself – as an interface, as a surface, and as vital communication.

The poems in this edition, Wittner’s first collection available in English translation, have been translated by the Mexican-Scottish bilingual poet and translator Juana Adcock, acclaimed author of Manca and Split. Dual language Spanish-English edition.