Laimonas Briedis: Lithuania in Translation
After participating in WORLDS - an international literature symposium in Norwich - Briedis will host an evening at LIBRERIA bookshop in London and focus on translation and share stories from his acclaimed book Vilnius: City of Strangers.
Translation is the process of carrying meanings across frontiers, taking words apart and putting them back together in different settings. It is a trade not without its problems, for in the words of Czesław Miłosz ’everything would be fine if language did not deceive us finding / different names for the same things in different times and places.’ Lithuania, the last pagan country in Europe, entered the English fiction with Chaucer, who in The Canterbury Tales used the name of Lettow in his list of far-distant lands in need of conversion. The poet sets the tone and ever since Lithuania has been challenged by the logic of translation. Gains in translation can be measured against losses, and the difficulty of decoding Lithuania is less a matter of vocabulary than the question of precision in imagination. Contemporary Lithuania is a relatively homogenous country – its past, however, speaks of multiplicities and vicissitude. Hence narrating Lithuania in a foreign tongue is always a discovery, more akin to entering an uncharted territory than walking a well-trodden path. The talk and discussion led by Laimonas Briedis explores the intimate relationship between translation and geography by looking for Lithuania on the map of the world.
Address of the event: 65 Hanbury Street, London E1 5JP London, United Kingdom
13 December 2016, 7-9 pm
Event is free, registration essential: juste.kostikovaite@lrkm.lt
