Working Translations

fiction

Paule Mink, “Poor Old Man” (1894)

February 6, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
Panting, along the gray road, which lost itself in the distance in a damp autumn fog, an old man walked, doubled over. Feet bare in worn-out shoes, trousers ragged and dirty, dressed in a thin shirt of blue cloth which covered him without protecting him from the bitter north wind that blew, a cheap cap pulled down over his eyes, an empty beggar’s bag on his back, and in his hand a gnarled stick which he supported his tottering only with great difficulty: his whole aspect inspired a distressing sadness.

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Contr'un

A biographical account of Anselme Bellegarrigue

February 1, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
A GASCON Minister plenipotentiary of the Republic of San-Salvador AT PARIS. We are going to present a sketch of a bizarre and independent type who, through the adventures of his cosmopolitan life and especially the singularity of his ideas, might have obtained and maintained a great vogue in British society. Among us, his way of life passed unnoticed. That difference in taste between the two nations arises, as we have said elsewhere, from the breakdown of individual originality by the weight of a leveling unity. So we have different sorts. In England, they favor bizarre natures with a gracious and […]
Working Translations

The trial of Joseph Déjacque, October 23, 1851

January 31, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”]   [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Courts and Tribunals COURT OF ASSIZE OF THE SEINE. M. d’Esparbès de Lussan, presiding. Offense involving the press. The Lazarenes. Mr. Joseph Déjacque, a paper hanger, thirty years of age, author of a work entitled The Lazarenes, Social Fables and Poems is arraigned before the jury and accused of the crimes of: l) exciting hate and contempt for the government of the republic; 2) having sought to disturb the public peace by exciting the contempt or hatred of the citizens against one another; 3) justifying acts described as criminal […]
Working Translations

Joseph Déjacque, “Authority.—Dictatorship.” (1859)

January 22, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”]   [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] Authority.—Dictatorship. aka “Down with the Bosses!” Le Libertaire, no. 12 (April 7, 1859) [revised translation] What assurance have I gained? What conclusion can I draw? … The knowledge that I have gained is that there is only one right in the world: it is the right of the strongest. … Thus, no more doubt, no more uncertainty, no more equivocation: might is right; there is no other right than force, for that right is the only one which is inviolable, the only one which carries in itself its own […]
Proudhon Library

P.-J. Proudhon, The Philosophy of Progress (1853)

January 8, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
It’s coming up on three years since I completed my initial working translation of Proudhon’s The Philosophy of Progress. In that time, I’ve subjected the text to three rather complete revisions, and various more minor adjustments. The result is a new edition of the New Proudhon Library volume, which I’ll be releasing as Corvus Editions’ first offset-printed release in the near future. Details of the release are coming together, but it looks like it will be something about midway between previous pamphlets and my hand-bound hardcover editions, with a heavy cover made from repurposed materials. In the meantime, the text […]
Proudhon Library

“Notice to the Reader,” from Proudhon’s “The Principle of Art”

January 4, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
NOTICE TO THE READER Two days before his death, in the presence of his wife, Proudhon dictated to his eldest daughter a document by which, after having designated a certain number of friends to watch, as much over the interests as his family as the publication of his works, he charged us specially and collectively of this last care. The first time that we have been able to gather the six, we have recognized, for those of us whose position keeps us far from Paris, the impossibility of working actively at the ordering of the manuscripts left by Proudhon. Thus […]
Working Translations

Joseph Déjacque, The Servile War

December 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] The Servile War. Joseph Déjacque Property is robbery. Slavery is murder.                   P. J. Proudhon. We are Abolitionists from the North, come to take and release your slaves; our organization is large, and must succeed. I suffered much in Kansas, and expect to suffer here, in the cause of human freedom. Slaveholders I regard as robbers and murderers; and I have sworn to abolish slavery and liberate my fellow-men.                   John Brown.   A handful of free soilers have just attempted a relief of slaves on the frontiers of Virginia and Maryland. They […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Joseph Déjacque, on “Exchange” (1858)

December 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] EXCHANGE Joseph Déjacque (from Le Libertaire, No. 6, September 21, 1858) “Be then frankly an entire anarchist and not a quarter anarchist, an eighth anarchist, or one-sixteenth anarchist, as one is a one-fourth, one-eighth or one-sixteenth partner in trade. Go beyond the abolition of contract to the abolition not only of the sword and of capital, but also of property and of authority in all its forms. Then you will have arrived at the anarchist community; that is to say, the social state where each one is free to produce or […]
obituaries and funeral orations

Obituary for Emile Digeon, hero of the Narbonne Commune

December 25, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Our Dead EMILE DIGEON Long ago, a young man, who had been a soldier under Digeon at Narbonne, spoke of him in the best possible terms, but I had never seen him, when some years ago—four or five years—I had the occasion to find myself in his company. It was the first and last time—alas!—that I would see him. It was at a meeting, at the Salle de Bretagne, organized, I believe, by the Egalité or the Socialist League founded by that journal. Odin, Zevaco and others were to speak. We were, some friends and I, sitting close to […]
Working Translations

Worker Mortality, by Paule Mink (1895)

December 25, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
WORKER MORTALITY While so much noise is made about the anarchist attacks (attentats) and the victims they have produced, it is not without interest to consider briefly the conditions of the worker’s labor and to see how many victims have been made by the capitalist, that devourer of strengths and of workers’ lives. We do not want, at present, to enumerate the victims of the frequent accidents in the mines, the railroads, and construction sites, which can add up to millions and millions each year; we will concern ourselves, for the moment, only with those unfortunates who die slowly as […]