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My nights with Emma B

17 January 2013

Adam Thorpe

The perils, pains and satisfaction of translating one of the great French classics will be discussed in a keynote lecture at the University.

Translator, playwright, novelist and poet Adam Thorpe will speak as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series, which brings eminent and influential guest speakers to the University and shares their work with a wider audience.

After producing three novels in as many years, Adam Thorpe accepted a Vintage commission to translate Flaubert's Madame Bovary with the idea that it would be a break from creating. Three exhausting years later, he was prepared to accept that literary translation is one of the hardest - if poorest paid - disciplines of all. Yet its addictive nature led him to accept a further commission to translate Zola's Thérèse Raquin.

In his lecture, entitled ‘My Nights with Emma B’, Adam will discuss the translator's art and the delicate, meticulous process of translating Madame Bovary with the aim of bringing readers closer to the rhythms, tones and poetry of Flaubert’s original text.

"This is a fantastic opportunity to learn more about such an important and largely invisible activity in our culture, translation’, commented Claire Gorrara, Professor of French Studies in the School of European Languages, Translation and Politics. "It is via literary texts in translation that we learn much not only about foreign cultures but also about ourselves as readers and thinkers."

The lecture is hosted by the University’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and takes place at the School of Optometry and Vision Sciences on Thursday 7^th February 2013 at 7.00pm. It is free and open to all, but booking is essential. Places can be reserved by emailing publicbookings@cardiff.ac.uk