Boris Akunin - Paradise Lost: Confessions of an Apostate Translator

Boris Akunin gave the 2013 Sebald Lecture at Kings Place, London on 4 February 2013.

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Boris Akunin is one of the most widely read authors in Russia, and has been compared to Gogol, Tolstoy and Arthur Conan Doyle. His best-selling detective novels are translated into English by Andrew Bromfield. But in his previous life, Boris Akunin was Grigory Chkhartishvili, a translator of Japanese literature into Russian.

In his lecture, he talked about his love for translating, how translating both helped and hindered his work as a writer, and why he misses it now.

Read our Seven Questions for Boris Akunin

The evening also included include readings and presentations of the annual Translation Prizes administered by the Society of Authors.