Translation of the Route

In poems that are precise, frank and finely tuned, award-winning Argentine poet Laura Wittner explores the specificities of parental and familial love, life after marriage, and the re-ignition of the self in middle age.

The ‘things’ of life – bus journeys, potted plants, thunder at night, coffee-stained books, fleeting conversations and the rest – are made full through Wittner’s ability to pinpoint in them the consequential, and even the metaphysical, manipulating language with a translator’s delicate skill. There are funny, moving pen-portraits of Wittner’s two children, suddenly grown, as well as bell-clear descriptions of the task of writing. For this is also a collection about language itself – as an interface, as a surface, and as vital communication.

Translation of the Route is Laura Wittner's eleventh collection. The poems in this dual language Spanish-English edition, Wittner’s first collection available in English translation, have been translated by the Mexican-Scottish bilingual poet and translator Juana Adcock, acclaimed author of Manca and Split.