Translator Requests Donations- A Z Foreman

Poems Found In Translation: “Update: Donations”

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Update: Donations

Posted: 03 Apr 2014 01:39 PM PDT

Dear Readers

You may have noticed that I haven't posted new translations in quite some time.

Literary translation is what I love doing more than anything, and this blog is - and indeed will continue to be - a labor of that love. It has, however, become hard for me to justify to myself the amount of time and energy needed to produce these translations unless they are, at least to some degree, financially supported.

Therefore I am seeking donations to support the work that goes into producing this blog. To donate, please visit my "Donate and Request a Translation" page. You will have my immense thanks for whatever support you show, plus a mention on my "Thanks to..." page.

As a way of showing my thanks for especially generous donations of $50 or more, I will be taking translation requests. You pick the text, I translate it. Further details will be found on the donations page.

My decision to take donations and translation requests rests on a couple ideas:


* My translations are provided for free on the internet, and I want to keep it that way. With rare exceptions, I don't publish in print media. If I were to take the print route, the one still taken by most translators even in this digital day and age, I would have to remove a lot of the translations currently on this blog. Rather than do that, I hope to succeed the way Radiolab, the Wikimedia Foundation and others do through donations that will make it possible to continue producing freely available content. I need your help to keep this free. 

* Non-English speaking communities are seldom given much say in what of their literary tradition gets translated into English. Does your language have a poet, or a particular poem, that English translators have neglected unjustly? Odds are the answer is yes. If you're a native speaker of one of the languages I translate from, and want to have some influence over what I translate from your language, the donation process is an excellent opportunity for you to do so.