(Forgive the repost – I missed the rule about not including links! I have removed the link.)
I'm interested in WWI literature written by people of the period (big lover of the play Journey's End, planning to read canonically queer works like Rose Allatini's Despised and Rejected and Bruno Vogel's Alf, contemplating A Farewell to Arms but not sure about it unless the central romantic relationship is actually compelling without taking your investment in it for granted, which is… not always the case, especially in some older works), and I learned about this subreddit from an old post asking about translations of The Good Soldier Švejk, which helped me determine I wanted to read Parrott's version (though I haven't gotten around to reading it yet – it still has its limitations, but seems to have the fewest). Similarly, I'm working through All Quiet on the Western Front, and an article comparing the more recent Brian Murdoch translation to Wheen's original let me know that Murdoch's translation was the way to go (though my partner, who is German and studying translation, has been working on a potential retranslation due to their dissatisfaction with some elements of Murdoch's, so I'm very interested to see their results!).
However, I have not found any article comparing Fitzwater Wray and Robin Buss's translations of Le Feu: journal d'une escouade, better known in English as Under Fire, and I don't know any fluent French speakers to ask personally. So has anyone here, by chance, read the original French, in order to tell me which translation they think is preferable (or even if both are so flawed that they aren't worth reading)? It's such an early novel of the war, and had such far-reaching influences on the likes of Sassoon and Remarque that I'm really curious to read it – and I'd like to see as many perspectives on the war as possible.
(On that note, if anyone can tell me what "the" piece of fiction as a perspective on the war is from countries I haven't mentioned – say, parts of the Arab world during the revolt, or the Ottoman Empire, or Russia, or East Africa, or anywhere in the Balkans – I would really love to hear about it!)
by aceredshirt13