The late poet and memoirist Czeslaw Milosz wrote, "I am enchanted. This book is graceful and profound." Since its publication in 1989, many other readers across the world have been enchanted by Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language, a classic of exile and immigrant literature, as well as a girl’s coming-of-age memoir. Lost in Translationmoves from Hoffman's childhood in Cracow, Poland to her adolescence in Vancouver, British Columbia to her university years in Texas and Massachusetts to New York City, where she becomes a writer and an editor at the New York Times Book Review. Its multi-layered narrative encompasses many themes: the defining power of language; the costs and benefits of changing cultures, the construction of personal identity, and the profound consequences, for a generation of post-war Jews like Hoffman, of Nazism and Communism. Lost in Translation is, as Publisher's Weekly wrote, "a penetrating, lyrical memoir that casts a wide net," challenges its reader to reconsider their own language, autobiography, cultures, and childhoods. Lost in Translation was first published in the United States in 1989. Hoffman’s subsequent books of literary non-fiction include Exit into History, Shtetl, After Such Knowledge, Time and two novels, The Secret and Appassionata. "Nothing, after all, has been lost; poetry this time has been made in and by translation." — Peter Conrad, The New York Times "Handsomely written and judiciously reflective, it is testimony to the human capacity not merely to adapt but to reinvent: to find new lives for ourselves without forfeiting the dignity and meaning of our old ones." — Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post "As a childhood memoir, Lost in Translation has the colors and nuance of Nabokov'sSpeak, Memory. As an account of a young mind wandering into great books, it recalls Sartre's Words. … As an anthropology of Eastern European émigré life, American academe and the Upper West Side of Manhattan, it's every bit as deep and wicked as anything by Cynthia Ozick. … A brilliant, polyphonic book that is itself an act of faith, a Bach Fugue." — John Leonard, Harper’s Magazine

A novel of searing intelligence and startling originality, Lost in Translation heralds the debut of a unique new voice on the literary landscape. Nicole Mones creates an unforgettable story of love and desire, of family ties and human conflict, and of one woman's struggle to lose herself in a foreign land--only to discover her home, her heart, herself. At dawn in Beijing, Alice Mannegan pedals a bicycle through the deserted streets. An American by birth, a translator by profession, she spends her nights in Beijing's smoke-filled bars, and the Chinese men she so desires never misunderstand her intentions. All around her rushes the air of China, the scent of history and change, of a world where she has come to escape her father's love and her own pain. It is a world in which, each night as she slips from her hotel, she hopes to lose herself forever. For Alice, it began with a phone call from an American archaeologist seeking a translator. And it ended in an intoxicating journey of the heart--one that would plunge her into a nation's past, and into some of the most rarely glimpsed regions of China. Hired by an archaeologist searching for the bones of Peking Man, Alice joins an expedition that penetrates a vast, uncharted land and brings Professor Lin Shiyang into her life. As they draw closer to unearthing the secret of Peking Man, as the group's every move is followed, their every whisper recorded, Alice and Lin find shelter in each other, slowly putting to rest the ghosts of their pasts. What happens between them becomes one of the most breathtakingly erotic love stories in recent fiction. Indeed, Lost in Translation is a novel about love--between a nation and its past, between a man and a memory, between a father and a daughter. Its powerful impact confirms the extraordinary gifts of a master storyteller, Nicole Mones.

From the author of Eating the Sun, an artistic collection of more than 50 drawings featuring unique, funny, and poignant foreign words that have no direct translation into English Did you know that the Japanese language has a word to express the way sunlight filters through the leaves of trees? Or that there’s a Finnish word for the distance a reindeer can travel before needing to rest? Lost in Translation brings to life more than fifty words that don’t have direct English translations with charming illustrations of their tender, poignant, and humorous definitions. Often these words provide insight into the cultures they come from, such as the Brazilian Portuguese word for running your fingers through a lover’s hair, the Italian word for being moved to tears by a story, or the Swedish word for a third cup of coffee. In this clever and beautifully rendered exploration of the subtleties of communication, you’ll find new ways to express yourself while getting lost in the artistry of imperfect translation.

In Lost in Translation, Found in Transliteration, Alex Kerner examines communal usage of languages and censorship policies on printed materials, proposing to look at London’s Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ congregation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a linguistic community.

From an award-winning writer and linguist, a scientific and personal meditation on the phenomenon of language loss and the possibility of renewal. As a child Julie Sedivy left Czechoslovakia for Canada, and English soon took over her life. By early adulthood she spoke Czech rarely and badly, and when her father died unexpectedly, she lost not only a beloved parent but also her firmest point of connection to her native language. As Sedivy realized, more is at stake here than the loss of language: there is also the loss of identity. Language is an important part of adaptation to a new culture, and immigrants everywhere face pressure to assimilate. Recognizing this tension, Sedivy set out to understand the science of language loss and the potential for renewal. In Memory Speaks, she takes on the psychological and social world of multilingualism, exploring the human brainÕs capacity to learnÑand forgetÑlanguages at various stages of life. But while studies of multilingual experience provide resources for the teaching and preservation of languages, Sedivy finds that the challenges facing multilingual people are largely political. Countering the widespread view that linguistic pluralism splinters loyalties and communities, Sedivy argues that the struggle to remain connected to an ancestral language and culture is a site of common ground, as people from all backgrounds can recognize the crucial role of language in forming a sense of self. Distinctive and timely, Memory Speaks combines a rich body of psychological research with a moving story at once personal and universally resonant. As citizens debate the merits of bilingual education, as the worldÕs less dominant languages are driven to extinction, and as many people confront the pain of language loss, this is badly needed wisdom.

From the award-winning author of Perfume Dreams, a collection of thirteen short stories following Vietnamese immigrants new to the United States. The thirteen stories in Birds of Paradise Lost shimmer with humor and pathos as they chronicle the anguish and joy and bravery of America’s newest Americans, the troubled lives of those who fled Vietnam and remade themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past—memories of war and its aftermath, of murder, arrest, re-education camps and new economic zones, of escape and shipwreck and atrocity—is ever present in these wise and compassionate stories. It plays itself out in surprising ways in the lives of people who thought they had moved beyond the nightmares of war and exodus. It comes back on TV in the form of a confession from a cannibal; it enters the Vietnamese restaurant as a Vietnam Vet with a shameful secret; it articulates itself in the peculiar tics of a man with Tourette’s Syndrome who struggles to deal with a profound tragedy. Birds of Paradise Lost is an emotional tour de force, intricately rendering the false starts and revelations in the struggle for integration, and in so doing, the human heart. *Finalist for the California Book Award* “His stories are elegant and humane and funny and sad. Lam has instantly established himself as one of our finest fiction writers.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Perfume Mountain “Read Andrew Lam, and bask in his love of language, and his compassion for people, both those here and those far away.” —Maxine Hong Kingston, award-winning author of The Woman Warrior

Love Lost in Translation systematically examines the biblical stories and passages that are generally assumed to deal with, or comment on, homoerotic relationships: Noah and Ham, Sodom and Gomorrah, Leviticus 18:22, Deuteronomy 23:17-18, Judges 19, Romans 1:26-27, and 1 Corinthians 6:9. K. Renato Lings convincingly demonstrates that mistranslations of these texts into Greek, Latin and other languages occurred early, and that serious errors continue to be committed by translators today. This explains the painful controversy about same-sex relationships, which has rocked Christian churches for decades.