Student Issue 1

The first Student Issue was conceived within the 2024 edition of the Undergraduate Scholars Programme in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester.

The idea for this issue stemmed from the students’ desire to revisit tales from their childhood. They worked collaboratively to translate and interpret these stories, to preserve the original charm and cultural nuances, while making them accessible for contemporary readers.

The issue features multiple languages and cultures, in various combinations: a North African tale transcribed in French by Joseph Rivière and translated into English; extracts from Alexander Afanasyev’s Russian folklore, also translated into English; the poetry of Vinay Mahajan and Dharamvir Bharati, translated from Hindi into Hangeul; the Hangeul folk tale “Heungbu and Nolbu” translated into Hindi; an extract from the Chilean cartoonist René Pepo Ríos’ satirical comic strip translated into Chinese; the ancient Chinese idiom, “Adding Feet to a Snake” translated into Spanish.

Issue 1 (2023)

This first issue was conceived during Covid-19, hence its title. It features predominantly Italian and English poems by transnational writers and translators.

The poems by Luca Cinelli (translated by Patrizia
Piredda) are a poetic response, in the Roman vernacular, to life in Italy during the lockdown.

The bleak sense of entrapment of that experience is echoed by Franca Mancinelli’s poems (translated by John Taylor).

Paula Meehan’s poetic work (translated by Viviana
Fiorentino) takes readers into the homes of ordinary families, exploring their feelings, dreams, thoughts while exposing social and historical injustices.