Projects and publications that I've recently released, or that are still in the works.
People from Oetimu
My Indonesian-English translation of Felix Nesi's People from Oetimu is out soon from Archipelago Books.
July 1998. Men living on the border between West and East Timor are gathering at the police station to watch the World Cup. No one feels quite noble enough to sit next to the Javanese soldiers, or the Indonesian regime’s loyal fighter, Martin Kabiti, so most of the guys crowd on the floor. They train their eyes on Brazilian superstar Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima, urging him to step it up and beat the French. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, political insurgents are in the process of invading the village, with plans to kill.
"A spirited and moving takedown of colonialisms Portuguese, Japanese, and Indonesian, this novel from East Timor reinvents political literature for the 21st century." — Siddhartha Deb
"Nesi seamlessly weaves the lives of his characters together, and he succeeds at providing complex historical context to the culminating scene . . . The result is a potent and shocking tale of postcolonial depravity." — Publishers Weekly
"For a novel engaged with the tangled postcolonial history of the island of Timor—and with how myths are made—People from Oetimu is remarkably direct. In a vigorous, no-nonsense style, Felix Nesi delivers horror, violence, and absurdity in equal measure and with intimate immediacy. Once it is all sprinkled with that wry black humor, you end up with a definite page-turner." — Angel Igov
For a sneak peak, check out an excerpt from People from Oetimu in The Dial: https://www.thedial.world/articles/literature/issue-24/felix-nesi-people-from-oetimu
Pre-order your copy here: https://archipelagobooks.org/book/the-people-from-oetimu/
Posted Feb 2025
Paraphrasis
Paraphrasis is a podcast dedicated to the art and practice of literary translation, brought to you by a team of graduate students in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard. In each episode, we welcome an established or emerging translator onto the show, asking them how they fell in love with their source text. This simple question leads to insightful, at times profound, conversations about moments of encounter, acts of interpretation, and perspectives on foreign literary traditions that lie behind the published translations we find on our bookshelves.
Paraphrasis is hosted by Anna Hennigan and co-produced by Lara Norgaard and Jess Jensen Mitchell, with sound production services provided by J.E. Petersen and Tyler Morrisette at Voltage. Our music is composed by Gianriccardo Poli Schnapp and our logo designed by Daniele Ledda at XyComm. The podcast is supported by the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University in conjunction with the Department’s new graduate secondary field in Translation Studies.
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Posted Mar 2024
