Review of Jangar: The Heroic Epic of the Kalmyk Nomads, trans. by Saglar Bougdaeva

At Rhino.

Teaser quote: In the context of a review, quoting weak bits can’t help but come off like a cheap shot, because it really is true that every translation of any length is bound to have a few clunkers. But there’s bad and there’s fatal. I’m going to quote one stanza, full of unidiomatic awkward English, and containing certain lines that caused me to rub my eyes in disbelief…

[originally posted Monday 20 February 2023]