Alex Shvartsman's Speculative Fiction

Cross-posted from the UFO10 Kickstarter campaign update – please support this project here!)

Today is International Translation Day! Celebrate this by watching a dubbed TV show, reading a translated novel, or simply using common expressions such as “ravages of time” which wouldn’t exist were it not for a decision made by a literary translator centuries ago (though few people realize this.)

As a professional translator, sharing works from outside of the Anglosphere is very important to me. For over five years I edited Future Science Fiction Digest which focused on translated stories and other stories written in primarily non-English speaking countries. The archives are still free to read at the above link.

UFO10 will include at least one translation — “Opacity” by Leo Kaganov, which I translated from Russian. Leo’s stories have previously appeared in Clarkesworld and Asimov’s (also in my translation.)

An entire book of short stories I translated (plus one translated by my friend Anatoly Belilovsky) is coming out from Fairwood Press this October! Black Hole Heart and Other Stories by K.A. Teryna is fabulous; her stories remind me of Borges, Le Guin, and Link. It’s not a part of this Kickstarter campaign but I encourage you to check it out. You can sample some of the stories online for free, here and here.

Strange Horizons just published a wonderful review of the collection.

The collection can be preordered at the publisher’s website or on Amazon, B&N, and all the usual places.

International Translator Day is also the perfect time to launch the Kickstarter campaign for the full-cast audiobook of Tales of the Wandering Mists by Oleg Veretskiy.

This enchanting children’s book for all ages was written by a Ukrainian author who is currently fighting on the front lines to protect his country. It’s the first book in the trilogy and I really appreciate Pierce Press for working to support him and to bring Ukrianian literature to Anglophone readers. I had the privilege of blurbing this book and this is what I wrote:

“Mists blends the wild imagination of Alice’s journey to Wonderland with the melancholy wisdom of The Little Prince to create an altogether unique narrative.”

The audiobook samples sound fantastic! Please support their campaign here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/piercepress/tales-of-the-wandering-mists-audiobook