In this edition of our weekly arts programme, David Swatling speaks about the challenges of translating a poem from one language into another. Dutch is not a world language, and poetry in the language has had a difficult translation history. This is changing, however, thanks in part to the stimulus given by Poetry International. And 1995 saw the publication of “Turning Tides”, an important collection of Dutch poems translated into English by Irish poets, including Seamus Heaney, none of whom spoke any Dutch! So how did they do that?
Producer: David Swatling
Broadcast: October 27, 2000