Translation & interpretation – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk Henley-on-Thames Wed, 01 Oct 2025 10:25:28 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-Bell-Background-Blue-32x32.png Translation & interpretation – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk 32 32 The centre https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-centre-2/ Thu, 18 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=41728 Shortlisted for the Nota Bene Prize

‘Absolutely stunning . . . thrilling and unique’ – Gillian Flynn
‘Creepy, provocative and wildly entertaining’ – Emma Stonex
‘A thrillingly ambitious literary chiller’ – The Guardian

Welcome to The Centre. The cost may be high, but you’ll never be the same . . .

Anisa Ellahi longs to become a translator of ‘great works of literature’, but right now she is stuck in her London flat writing subtitles for Bollywood films.

Then she is told about the Centre, an elite, invite-only programme that guarantees complete fluency in any language in just ten days. Seduced by all that it could make possible, Anisa enrols. But the Centre’s services come at a disturbing hidden cost. Still – it’s worth it, right? After all, success comes at a price . . .

By turns dark, funny and surreal, The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi takes the reader on a journey through Karachi, London and New Delhi. Throughout it interrogates the sticky politics of language, translation and appropriation and asks: what price would you be willing to pay for success?

‘Fantastic . . . This Black Mirror take on the world of language opens up questions of cultural appropriation, the power of language, memory and privilege’ – The Observer

]]> The word https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-word-2/ Thu, 02 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=36516 From the Sunday Times bestselling author of A History of the Bible, this is the story of how the Bible has been translated, and why it matters

The Bible is held to be both universal and specific, the source of fundamental truths inscribed in words that are exact and sacred. For much of the history of Judaism and almost the entirety of Christianity, however, believers have overwhelmingly understood scripture not in the languages in which it was first written but rather in their own – in translation.

This book examines how saints, scholars and interpreters from ancient times down to the present have produced versions of the Bible in the language of their day while remaining true to the original. It explains the challenges they negotiated, from minute textual ambiguities up to the sweep of style and stark differences in form and thought between the earliest writings and the latest, and it exposes the bearing these have on some of the most profound questions of faith: the nature of God, the existence of the soul and possibility of its salvation.

Reading dozens of renderings alongside their ancient Hebrew and Greek antecedents, John Barton traces the migration of biblical words and ideas across linguistic borders, illuminating original meanings as well as the ways they were recast. ‘Translators have been among the principal agents in mediating the Bible’s message,’ he writes, ‘even in shaping what that message is.’ At the separation of Christianity from Judaism and Protestantism from Catholicism, Barton demonstrates, vernacular versions did not only spring from fault lines in religious thinking but also inspired and moulded them. The product of a lifetime’s study of scripture, The Word itself reveals the central book of our culture anew – as it was written and as we know it.

]]> The owl and the nightingale https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-owl-and-the-nightingale-2/ Thu, 07 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=35066 SHORTLISTED FOR THE DEREK WALCOTT PRIZE FOR POETRY

It is the current Poet Laureate who has done the most to bring medieval poetry to contemporary audiences . . . in its own eccentric way, [The Owl and the Nightingale] is every bit as enticing as Gawain . . . it is arguably the greatest early Middle English poem we have. Prospect

A graceful, elegant translation. Guardian

Following his acclaimed translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl, Simon Armitage shines light on another jewel of Middle English verse. In his highly engaging version, Armitage communicates the energy and humour of the tale with all the cut and thrust of the original. An unnamed narrator overhears a fiery verbal contest between the two eponymous birds, which moves entertainingly from the eloquent and philosophical to the ribald and ridiculous. The disputed issues still resonate – concerning identity, cultural habits, class distinctions and the right to be heard. Excerpts were featured in the BBC Radio 4 podcast, The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed. Including the lively illustrations of Clive Hicks-Jenkins, this is a book for the whole household to read and enjoy.

]]> The Arctic https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-arctic-2/ Thu, 03 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=34546 ‘The Arctic’ in Don Paterson’s powerful new collection is the name of a bar frequented by the survivors of several kinds of apocalypse. The poems gathered here are as various as the clientele: elegies for the poet’s musician father; tales of the love lives of gods and the childhoods of psychopaths; troubled encounters between men and women; odes to movies and the male anatomy; studies of art and ambition, politics and parenthood. Other voices enter the fray in renderings of Cavafy, Montale and the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral. And in the fourth part of Paterson’s ongoing poem ‘The Alexandrian Library’, the poet-as-amateur scientist – from a weather station at the top of Ben Nevis to the cellar of The Arctic – bears witness to the imminence of man-made extinction. By turns urgent, railing and tender, these are poems of and for our times, by one of our most celebrated and formally adventurous writers.

]]> The Word https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-word/ Thu, 03 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=27166 From the Sunday Times bestselling author of A History of the Bible, this is the story of how the Bible has been translated, and why it matters

The Bible is held to be both universal and specific, the source of fundamental truths inscribed in words that are exact and sacred. For much of the history of Judaism and almost the entirety of Christianity, however, believers have overwhelmingly understood scripture not in the languages in which it was first written but rather in their own – in translation.

This book examines how saints, scholars and interpreters from ancient times down to the present have produced versions of the Bible in the language of their day while remaining true to the original. It explains the challenges they negotiated, from minute textual ambiguities up to the sweep of style and stark differences in form and thought between the earliest writings and the latest, and it exposes the bearing these have on some of the most profound questions of faith: the nature of God, the existence of the soul and possibility of its salvation.

Reading dozens of renderings alongside their ancient Hebrew and Greek antecedents, John Barton traces the migration of biblical words and ideas across linguistic borders, illuminating original meanings as well as the ways they were recast. ‘Translators have been among the principal agents in mediating the Bible’s message,’ he writes, ‘even in shaping what that message is.’ At the separation of Christianity from Judaism and Protestantism from Catholicism, Barton demonstrates, vernacular versions did not only spring from fault lines in religious thinking but also inspired and moulded them. The product of a lifetime’s study of scripture, The Word itself reveals the central book of our culture anew – as it was written and as we know it.

]]> The Arctic https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-arctic/ Thu, 04 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=24878 ‘The Arctic’ in Don Paterson’s powerful new collection is the name of a bar frequented by the survivors of several kinds of apocalypse. The poems gathered here are as various as the clientele: elegies for the poet’s musician father; tales of the love lives of gods and the childhoods of psychopaths; troubled encounters between men and women; odes to movies and the male anatomy; studies of art and ambition, politics and parenthood. Other voices enter the fray in renderings of Cavafy, Montale and the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral. And in the fourth part of Paterson’s ongoing poem ‘The Alexandrian Library’, the poet-as-amateur scientist – from a weather station at the top of Ben Nevis to the cellar of The Arctic – bears witness to the imminence of man-made extinction. By turns urgent, railing and tender, these are poems of and for our times, by one of our most celebrated and formally adventurous writers.

]]> The Wife of Willesden https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-wife-of-willesden/ Thu, 04 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-wife-of-willesden/ ‘Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend.
She plays many roles round here. And never
Scared to tell the whole of her truth, whether
Or not anyone wants to hear it. Wife
Of Willesden: pissed enough to tell her life
Story to whoever has ears and eyes . . .’

Zadie Smith’s first time writing for the stage, The Wife of Willesden is a riotous twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s classic The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, brought to glorious life on the Kilburn High Road.

Commissioned to celebrate Brent’s year as Borough of Culture 2020, The Wife of Willesden will premiere at the Kiln Theatre, London in September 2020.

]]> Wild Words https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/wild-words/ Thu, 14 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=17443 The book showcases 75 beautiful words evocative of the wild, from all around the world, that describe natural happenings in nature. It includes words that describe weather, or a feeling you have when in nature as well as sensory words that explain the smell or sound of a place.

]]> The book showcases 75 beautiful words evocative of the wild, from all around the world, that describe natural happenings in nature. It includes words that describe weather, or a feeling you have when in nature as well as sensory words that explain the smell or sound of a place.

The words used to express what is seen in the world are vital to an appreciation of it – language is a key component in the call of the wild. As words vanish from a language, it follows that what they describe may disappear. Words deepen understanding of what is seen, and what is seen comes more vividly to life through the words used to describe it. As the natural world and the time spent in it diminish in the face of modern life, it’s more vital than ever to recall it into being with the magic of language.

Each of the 75 words will have a 100-word description, including its pronunciation, a geographical/historical/cultural background, as well as reflecting on the emotional/mindful response the natural phenomenon can inspire. Each word will be paired with an illustration

Examples of words:
MÃ¥ngata. Sweden. Noun. The path of light that the moon makes on water.
Sugar weather. Canada. Noun. A period of warm days and cold nights – the perfect weather to start the sap flowing in maple trees.
Rudenja. Lithuania. The way nature begins to feel as autumn takes hold and the vestiges of summer disappear.
Komorebi. Japan. Noun. Beams of sunlight filtering down through the trees.

]]> The Owl and the Nightingale https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/the-owl-and-the-nightingale/ Thu, 07 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=17163 SHORTLISTED FOR THE DEREK WALCOTT PRIZE FOR POETRY

It is the current Poet Laureate who has done the most to bring medieval poetry to contemporary audiences . . . in its own eccentric way, [The Owl and the Nightingale] is every bit as enticing as Gawain . . . it is arguably the greatest early Middle English poem we have. Prospect

A graceful, elegant translation. Guardian

Following his acclaimed translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl, Simon Armitage shines light on another jewel of Middle English verse. In his highly engaging version, Armitage communicates the energy and humour of the tale with all the cut and thrust of the original. An unnamed narrator overhears a fiery verbal contest between the two eponymous birds, which moves entertainingly from the eloquent and philosophical to the ribald and ridiculous. The disputed issues still resonate – concerning identity, cultural habits, class distinctions and the right to be heard. Excerpts were featured in the BBC Radio 4 podcast, The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed. Including the lively illustrations of Clive Hicks-Jenkins, this is a book for the whole household to read and enjoy.

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