Translations of Julia's works
Poetry Translations into English
Featured in this Poetry Pamphlet, "Ten Poems from Russia"
“Neighbor”
Painful—to be boiling water:
Flooding over, never hotter,
Bubbles bursting with a pop.
Hurts—to be an apple trapped
In the dough, stuffy as clay;
Nothing takes the pain away . . .
How about a dried-up root?
How about a snapped-off shoot?
How about a short, inept
poem, jettisoned midline?
Take a person, for that matter,
Take my neighbor, an old man:
Sleep won’t come—his body doesn’t
Melt, as clouds do in the sky.
At long last, the moon emerges
On the outside of his dreams,
Laying out two strips of canvas
Gently on his upraised knees.
On it, in the dark, his eyes
Glimpse his brain, an MRI.
Translation by Boris Dralyuk
"The Prodigal" (Транжира)
Still in high spirits, on he goes,
But feels a chill between his shoulders
When all the crows, in leather gloves,
Take flight together as a murder,
And when before him hangs, awry,
The picture of the morning world,
But there's no strength to set it right;
He's spent his strength, the prodigal.
Why, in the pasat, now out of sight,
Is there so much one doesn't need?
While up ahead, where all is bright,
The road is coming to an end?
Translation by Boris Dralyuk
Here's an article in Asymptote
Stories: translations
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"De l'importance de laver les carreaux, nouvelle [The Importance of Window Cleaning]." LRS: Litterature internationale, Paris, no. 12, 1993: 19-22. (in French)
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"Germany: a short story." The Literary Review: An Journal of Contemporary Writing, New Jersey, vol. 38, no.2, 1995: 274-75. (in English)
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"Abortion." Two Lines: A Journal of Translation, Stanford, 1996: 168-72. (in English)
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"Garage," "Insight." Glas: New Russian Writing, no. 16, London, 1998: 182-200. (in English) (Reviewed in: "The Guardian," July 4, 1998).
