Lost in Translation

by Steven Harvey

From the author of A Geometry of Lilies comes a new collection of essays focusing on the exotic in the ordinary of everyday life. Steven Harvey's words illuminate and entertain as he ruminates on such topics as love of family, of students and teaching, of place and tradition, and of how language itself can transform experience.

Separate as the essays are, they all tell the same story, and though they bear different titles, they all could be called "Lost in Translation." In each essay, the self is brought against a new world or two worlds into conflict, the soul shedding a husk of its former life in the encounter. Such losses, the essays say, are the leavings of our changes and the price we pay for becoming. Some part of our true selves, Harvey notes, finds voice only in such translations―in engagement with others on others' terms―and this is the part we cannot live without.

136 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Steven Harvey's newest book is Folly Beach: An Essay on Family, Fear, Physics, Philosophy & Fun. It celebrates creativity as a sufficient joy in the face of loss and mortality. He is also the author of The Book of Knowledge and Wonder, a memoir about coming to terms with the suicide of his mother published by Ovenbird Books as part of the “Judith Kitchen Select” series. In addition he has written three collections of personal essays--A Geometry of Lilies, Lost in Translation, and Bound for Shady Grove--and edited an anthology of essays written by men on middle age called In a Dark Wood. Two of his essays have been selected for The Best American Essays Series: “The Book of Knowledge” in 2013 and “The Other Steve Harvey” in 2018. Over the years, fourteen of his essays have been recognized as notable by that series as well, and he was twice honored as a finalist in the Associated Writing Program’s nonfiction contest. He is a professor emeritus of English and creative writing at Young Harris College, a founding faculty member in the Ashland University MFA program in creative writing, a senior editor for River Teeth magazine, and the creator of The Humble Essayist, a website designed to promote personal prose. He lives in the north Georgia mountains.

Reviews

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

By one of my favorite writers from my MFA program at Ashland University. Loved it.