Ruth Martin

The Craft of Literary Translation with Ruth Martin | LittleGreenBookshop Don't miss out on this fascinating evening on the art of translation!

Kent people! I'll be talking about translation at Herne Bay's fabulous Little Green Bookshop on 30 Sept (International Translation Day) - join me... www.thelittlegreenbookshop.com/event-detail...

The Nights are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar translated by Ruth Martin. In February 2024 I attended a book launch at London’s Goethe Institut where Shida Bazyar and her translator, Ruth Martin, presented her debut novel Sisters in Arms. I really enjoyed this book and w…

This was my first book read for #WomeninTranslation month 2025-an excellent, moving, family novel set in Iran and Germany, told in different voices: peakreads.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/t...

Ooh, thank you Mandy, great review! And thank you Jen for pointing it out!

There used to be - StudiVZ was hugely popular in Germany en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/StudiVZ

A lot of Cornish miners in Appalachia! (This is how folk etymology starts, isn't it?) :-)

Glossary text reads: "boughten, as distinct from home-made: 'They old boughten pasties'"

I always thought this was just Cornish, am delighted to discover it elsewhere (this is from A Glossary of the Cornish Dialect by K.C. Phillipps)

That's fantastic! The exchange was such a formative experience, first time I'd been abroad and first German friend... we wrote to each other for about five years.

A view across the water to a small town dominated by two pointed church spires, with wooded hills in the background

Back in Boppard am Rhein (Truro's twin town) for the first time since the school German exchange in 1993. It's delightful, and all the better for not having spent 2 days travelling from Cornwall by coach.

Our attempt to take books to the Oxfam shop was just thwarted by a huge thunderstorm - though I did give away one novel to the Dutch family sheltering with us in a slowly flooding multistorey carpark (Dorst by Esther Gerritsen). Weird afternoon.

You could garnish a risotto with sage flowers if you were feeling fancy?

Also - a more minor point, but still - random humans you found on a job-posting site ≠ literary translators, so I'm not sure what you achieve by comparing them to AI

Writers! Note that AI translation (under the guise of "global access") is being seen/used as the weak point to get AI into publishing (possible bc Eng lang publishing is weak on translation). Stand with translators & for more human translation, fairly paid!

An Open Letter to Kent County Council regarding the removal of trans books from libraries This letter calls on Kent County Council to reverse its harmful decision to remove transgender-inclusive books from the children’s section of public libraries. We encourage everyone to sign this lette...

Send a message to Kent County Council that you believe Trans+ books are not a danger to children and should be available in public libraries.

Sign the open letter ✍️ 👇

A tabby and white cat, mid-hiss, staring in through our patio door to see if anyone she hates is up yet

I'm pretty bland online so don't attract a lot of hate - but in real life I get mercilessly trolled by next door's cat

Thank you! It was an absolute delight to translate

A quite impressive pile of copies of BLURRED by Iris Wolff displayed on a table in Hatchards

Iris signing a reader's copy at an antique desk

Launched! And out in bookshops tomorrow - please read this beautiful meditation on migration, home, what it means to leave and to stay. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blur...

Tonight in Margate!

Blue cover of 'The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran' by Shida Bazyar, translated by Ruth Martin

Blurb on the back of the book, which begins 'A captivating, polyphonic novel of one family's flight from and return to Iran.'

Photo of the first page of the book.

This beautiful novel, located between Iran and Germany, came out in the UK last week.
'The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran' ... what savagely ironic timing.
Look at this gorgeous writing by author Shida Bazyar and translator Ruth Martin @dances-with-voles.bsky.social. Please read it. shorturl.at/P0tz8

A plate of cupcakes with miniature book covers embedded in the icing. A small sign attached to a cocktail stick says "do not eat the books"

Something to keep in mind this Independent Bookshop Week (courtesy of the Little Green Bookshop's third birthday celebration this afternoon)

Events | Goethe-Institut UK Tue, 24.06.2025 – ‘Die Unschärfe der Welt’ now translated to English!

If you are in London on 24 June, why not come to the Goethe-Institut for this: www.goethe.de/ins/gb/en/ve...

Interior of a small Italian bookshop with an insane view of mountaintops out of the window and a display of wooden ibex

I went to Europe's highest bookshop earlier this year, a branch of Feltrinelli most of the way up Mont Blanc (3466m). Aware this isn't what you asked, but it was pretty exciting.

Same! They're just the best way to let some air into long German sentences.

It is much more comfortable to edit than to draft a translation with a cat on you (fewer keystrokes, less movement). The cat appears to know this.

The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever Returning to Folkestone Harbour for its 5th year – Get those diaries out and red dresses ready. We are delighted to confirm that The Most Wuthering Heights Day …

Anyone in Kent fancy joining me for this extremely silly thing? folkestoneharbourarm.co.uk/events/the-m...

It was such a good event! Just ordered the book from my local bookshop and am really looking forward to reading it

Events | Goethe-Institut UK Tue, 24.06.2025 – ‘Die Unschärfe der Welt’ now translated to English!

If you are in London on 24 June, why not come to the Goethe-Institut for this: www.goethe.de/ins/gb/en/ve...

They were very like axolotls for a minute there

...in that between us we know quite a lot of translators?

I have room in my schedule for a heist this summer. Also I am quite small and can fit into tight spaces, let me know if that would be useful.

Tittlebat: a stickleback

Now say all of that three times fast