”Adapting Balzac is no small feat for any filmmaker” (Variety)—or any translator. LOST ILLUSIONS and LOST SOULS are two newly translated volumes in Honoré de Balzac’s vast HUMAN COMEDY, a sprawling and interconnected fictional portrait of early nineteenth-century France. Keenly attuned to the acerbic charm and subtleties of Balzac’s prose, these editions are invaluable resources for today’s readers as they navigate the author’s copious allusions to classical and contemporaneous politics and literature. In this episode, Raymond N. MacKenzie is interviewed by University of Minnesota Press director Doug Armato about Balzac’s incomparable style and the intricacies of translation. (Spoiler alert: Key plot points from Lost Illusions and Lost Souls are discussed.)

Other University of Minnesota Press translations by MacKenzie include:
Red and Black (Stendhal), forthcoming in summer 2022
Italian Chronicles (Stendhal)
Diaboliques (Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly)
Graziella (Alphonse de Lamartine)
Brouhaha (Lionel Ruffel)

Balzac in translation: Portraits of a turbulent 19th-century France

Red Gold: The Managed Extinction of the Giant Bluefin Tuna is a book that asks why so many big bluefin tuna have vanished from the Atlantic Ocean. Author Jen Telesca notes that the term “red gold” has emerged out of the exorbitant price her ruby-colored flesh commands on the global market; for reference, in January 2019, a 613-pound Pacific bluefin tuna sold at market in Tokyo for an astounding record of $3.1 million US dollars. To research this book, Telesca gained unparalleled access to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (also known as ICCAT) to show that the institution has faithfully executed the task assigned to it by international law: to fish as hard as possible to grow national economies. This interview between Telesca and editor Jason Weidemann was recorded in May 2020.

More about the book: http://z.umn.edu/redgold

A transcription of this conversation is available: z.umn.edu/t-redgold

Balzac in translation: Portraits of a turbulent 19th-century France

University of Minnesota Press

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