Tuesday, June 10, 2008

CNQ 73: The Translation Issue, hits Newstands and Web


Word has reached me from Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal that CNQ 73: the Translation Issue, has actually already hit mailboxes, perhaps the fastest turn-around for Canada Post in the history of magazine delivery. It's a packed issue, most of it dealing in some fashion with the issue of translation, and includes work by Mike Barnes, Stephen Henighan, Robyn Sarah, Alberto Manguel, Amanda Jernigan, Goran Simic, Sheila Fischman, Andrew Steeves, Roy MacSkimming, David A. Kent, Barbara Nickel and Alex Good, among others. As an added bonus, there are 14 verse translations of Charles Baudelaire by Richard Outram published here for the first time anywhere, complete with an exceptional introduction by Amanda Jernigan. There's also a photo-essay by Amanda to accompany a suite of photographs by Erin Brubacher. Really, it's the best buy on the newsstands at 7.95, so why don't you head on out, if you don't already subscribe, and pick up a copy. Better yet, subscribe yourself, and help us keep the Canada Council happy.

The website has also been updated for the first time in the last two issues, and I promise to keep it updated (fairly regularly.) I don't have everything up yet, and I'll be trying to make it a touch more visually appealing -- I've been at it since 5 am (7 hours or so now) -- and need a break. But you'll find a few articles from the magazine on there, as well as some web-only exclusives: Shane Neilson on Covering Up, Lorna Jackson Flirting with Richard Ford, and a review of Margaret Somerville by Michael Goodfellow. Additional reviews and articles will be added over the course of this week, and then with charming irregularity thereafter. The website can, of course, be found at www.notesandqueries.ca.

I'd like to draw your attention in particular to two of the pieces on the website, especially if you do not subscribe or intend to buy the print version. Alex Good's take on the 2007 Giller's is blistering, thought-provoking and at least mildly (to put it mildly) controversial. Also take a gander at Mike Barnes's fabulous A Real Spaceship From Across: Thoughts on Translation, which ranges through Philip K. Dick, Stanislaw Lem and does battle with two different translations of Celine. I think these two essays are evidence of why CNQ is one of the best critical journals in the country.

There will be a quick turn-around between this issue and the next, which will hit newstands at the end of July/beginning of August. For issue 74 we have partnered with The New Quarterly to present our joint Salon Des Refuses, a highlighting of the work of 20 of the most important short story writers not included in Jane Urquhart's less-than-magisterial Penguin Anthology of the Canadian Short Story. (These issues will include work by, among others, Douglas glover, Terry Griggs, Mike Barnes, Sharon English, Mark Anthony Jarman, Clark Blaise, Baharti Mukherjee, Steven Heighton, Ray Smith, Russell Smith, Diane Schoemperlen, Noramn Levine, John Metcalf and many others. And then there is our 40th Anniversary/75th Issue, guest-edited by Carmine Starnino .... So, really, what are you waiting for?

(PS: Yes, we know about the typo.)

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