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.
Working Translations
Louise Michel, “The New Era” (1887)
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] THE NEW ERA Louise Michel I Like sap in April, the blood rises in a secular revival in the old human tree (the old tree of poverty ). Under the humus of the errors which fall and pile up like dead leaves, there are snowdrops and golden daffodils, and the old tree quivers in the vernal breezes. In the lovely woods the red flowers emerge bloody from the branches; the swollen buds burst. There are new leaves and flowers. It is a stage of nature. This will become the deep shrubbery […]
Working Translations
Louise Michel, “The Claque-Dents,” Ch. III
[Chapter II] [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] III Old Hermann went straight on, hardly knowing where he would stop. His house had long since been passed when he began to notice fatigue. So, regardless of eyes fixed on him, the old man made himself at home on a heap of stones piled up by workers at a street corner. The veil hung in the old man’s hands. as he had entirely forgotten all that had happened. He wiped his brow with it, taking it for his handkerchief. Sylvestre followed constantly.—Old Hermann’s appearance gave him the shudders. But he was quite wrong, […]
Bakunin Library
From Louise Michel’s “The Imperial Bastard”
I’ve been reading bits and pieces of Louise Michel’s novels, as part of a larger project to get a general sense of what’s out there, and naturally with some eye to what might be worth translating in the future. One of the titles I’ve been looking at today is a massive work, Le Bâtard Impérial, co-written with Jean Winter and published in 1883. One of the major plot-lines of the novel involves Yvan, who has been an executioner in Russian prisoners, and who, through a plot twist that seems to involve mistaken identities and one of Michel’s favorite plot devices, […]