Raised by Wolves

by Amang, Steve Bradbury (Translator)

Incisive and confessional, Raised by Wolves collects the most acclaimed work of Taiwanese poet -filmmaker Amang. In her poems, Amang turns her razor-sharp eye to everything from her suitors ("For twenty years I’ve loved you, twenty years / So why not say yes / You want to see my nude photos ?") to international affairs —"You’d have to win the lottery ten times over / And the U.N. hasn’t won it even once." Keenly observational yet occasionally absurd, these poems are urgent and lucid, as Amang embraces the cruelty and beauty of life in equal measure.

Raised by Wolves also presents a groundbreaking new framework for translation. Far from positing the transition between languages as an invisible and fixed process, Amang and translator Steve Bradbury let the reader in. Multiple English versions of the same Chinese poem often accompany dialogues between author and translator: the two debate as wide -ranging topics as the merits of English tenses, the role of Chinese mythology, and whether to tell the truth you have to lie a little, or a lot. Author, her poems, and translator, work in tandem, "Wanting that which was unbearable / To appear unbearable / Just as it should be."

Genres: Poetry, China

152 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2020

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

DAY 23 of The Sealey Challenge

Raised by Wolves by Amang, translated from Mandarin by Steve Bradbury - Taiwan

° Poetry Themes: wordplay, experimental, Taiwan/ Chinese folklore, family, film, a running dialogue between poet and translator about how to translate certain words & phrases with various drafts. A brilliant, entertaining repartee that I didn't want to end!





An ABSOLUTE delight.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Part poetry and part peeling-back-the-curtain exchanges between Amang and her English translator, this collection sometimes loses some of the meditative quality that a straight poetry collection would have but what it gains is context, precision, and humor as we see the give-and-take of languages being negotiated between two thoughtful scribes of words. A smart and playful account, and the poems are solid across the board.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely gorgeous read, I hope the partnership between Bradbury and Amang is taken up as a model by more translators and their living authors. In addition to amang’s excellent poems the conversations between the two really flesh out the picture and give you a sense of what it takes to translate good poetry from Chinese to a language as structurally different as English.

[Lynn wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the conversations between poet and translator. The poems were slightly clunky for me. How sad that i could only read half of this book :’(( I love Chinese but it evades me!!

[Helmling · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interspersed among the playful poems by Amang--presented side by side with the translations by Steve Bradbury--are transcripts of the equally playful exchanges between poet and translator as they struggle and haggle to find the best English presentations of her verse. It's a fun repartee that gives, as Bradbury had hoped, some real insight into the poet's mind. They are light enough to feel like liner notes or DVD commentary layered over a film, but thoughtful enough to enrich the experience of the poems themselves. In fact, by the end, one finds oneself wishing there was more of the dialogue, an adjoining bit of discourse for each of the poems in the collection.

Favorite poem: "She Said She Couldn't Find Me Last Night and Asked if I'd Been With a Man"

[Crystal Epperson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“at times you labor the whole night through and labor in vain to build a fire
and the very next day
without a scrap of wood
or striking a match
the morning sun will set the sky on
fire”

Wonderfully written and translated. I especially loved the conversations between Steve and Amang which really helped make sense of some of the poems and gave me an appreciation for them that I would not have had otherwise.

[beeeees · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tying the poems together with the narrative of translation gave this book a really personal feeling. The conversations between Amang and Steve show some perspective on process and the problematics of translation. The poems themselves contain an adventurousness that is mirrored by snippets from the conversations as well, revealing some of the attitude that Amang brings to her writing

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.