Black Coat Press has just published translations of two of Louise Michel’s utopian novels, The Human Microbes (1887) and The New World (1888). They were part of a projected 6-volume science-fiction series. Brian Stableford, who also translated a collection of Han Ryner’s stories, The Superhumans, and who is well-known as a prolific author and translator, did the translations. I’ve read parts of The Human Microbes in French, and it’s a wild ride. I’m putting my order in for these two volumes right away.
Contr'un
Louise Michel and “the birds of the coming storm”
Here is a literal translation of Louise Michel’s “Les Corbeaux”, from Before the Commune, a posthumous collection of poems published in 1905. _____ THE CROWS Up there, on the fir trees, are some soft birds’ nests; In the dark trees the are black crows. From Germany to the Ukraine, They open their wings to the wind; And they fly, casting over the plains Their raucous rattle of their voices. For them the harvest is superb; The dead are there, sown in the grass, O black bird, like wheat. Go, and from eyes full of shadow, As if from cups, drink; […]
Working Translations
Liberty through Education (1898)
LA LIBERTÉ Par L’ENSEIGNEMENT (L’ÉCOLE LIBERTAIRE) [Temps Nouveaux, 1898] En matière d’éducation et d’enseignement, l’Autorité a pour effet d’accaparer l’homme chez l’enfant, au moment où son jugement est sans force, sa mémoire vide, son imagination naïve et sans défiance. Pour déprimer la, raison au détriment de la liberté, elle s’est emparée de l’intelligence et de la volonté pour les enchaîner, insensiblement et par une longue habitude, de préjugés, de scrupules et d’entraves sans nombre. L’État, après l’Église, comprenant fort bien que l’homme se ressent toute sa vie de l’influence subie durant son passage à l’école, s’est arrogé le droit d’étendre […]
Working Translations
Louise Michel, “The Claque-Dents,” Ch. I
[Prologue] I A whole unhinged crowd jostled, for one dizzy day, at the division of spoils, accomplished at the Hôtel des Ventes, of the furniture of Lucrèce Milot, a madwoman of the best class, now tragically dead. The distracted, daft, and jaded vied for the smallest of trinkets. A blood-soaked rag was sold for the price of an objet d’art. Those things touched by the crime were worth their weight in human folly. Little Muscadet had spent the last bits of his wife’s dowry there; young Madulphe had taken “an enormous toll” on his expectations, his parents not being very […]