We had a great time with Nina McConigley, author of the new novel How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder, which hits all the beats you want from a book where a character named Agatha Krishna says, “We blame the British.” Nina shared with us her thoughts on how colonialism divided not only countries but selves, and where characters (and real people) find themselves within those divides.
Then, how can you tell if a translated work is good when you don’t know the author’s language? Maybe the translator created something great that isn’t really true to the original version, or brought down a great work with their bad translation. (Note to translators: We think you are cool and the above scenario is purely hypothetical.)
How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is available now.
Works cited this episode:
Angels in America, Tony Kushner
Cowboys and East Indians, Nina McConigley
Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie
Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto by Mark Polizzotti
The Odyssey, Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa
Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell
On the Soul (De Anima), Aristotle, translated by Hugh Lawson-Tancred
The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
