This blog is not about education (per se), but Rosemary Sutcliff – who in fact did not go to school until about ten years old, and left at fourteen, but who was passionate about engaging and exciting young people and children. She would, I suspect, have found it unsurprising but depressing that Read More »
Susan Cooper wins Edwards Award | Did she read Rosemary Sutcliff?
The Margaret A. Edwards Award is new to me. It honours an author for “significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature” and is organised by the young adult division of the American Library Association. The 2012 winner is Susan Cooper for The Dark Is Rising series: Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark Is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King; and Silver on the Tree. Michael Rosen on children writing and Rosemary Sutcliff writing for children
The wonderful Michael Rosen writes eloquently at his blog about the limitations imposed upon children (and teachers) by the national curriculum and SATs regime.
If I want to make myself distressed … all I need to do is focus on the kind of writing that English Year 6 children are asked to write, re-write and re-write again and again and again in the run-up to the SATs test. As a body of writing, it represents the removal of all danger, excitement, desire, problem, dilemma, problem-solving or subversion. It is in effect a censorship of the brain.
But even this over-simplifies.Read More »
Ben Kane, historical novelist, favourite author Rosemary Sutcliff | Interview in The Independent
Choose a favourite author, and say why you admire her/him
Rosemary Sutcliff. I was probably no older than nine or ten when I read ‘The Eagle of the Ninth’ and it had a huge influence on me; it’s one of the reasons I ended up writing about Rome. I was so struck by her imagery of Hadrian’s Wall and the wilds of Scotland, and the idea of the soldiers disappearing there.
via One Minute With: Ben Kane, historical novelist | The Independent.
Why Rosemary Sutcliff translates so well into German
Anjy posted a fascinating comment at the You Write! page about how well Rosemary Sutcliff‘s style translates into German, and about her powers of description.
I have been addicted to Sutcliff’s book for about 40 years now. I have read everything by her in German and a lot in English and she is one of the very few authors I came across who benefits from translations. Mostly, when I read a book in German and then in the English original I prefer the original in comparison. Even if the translation is good (not every one is, Harry Potter is a linguistic catastrophe) normally the power and motion of the English is hardly transferred into German. Not so with Rosemary Sutcliff. Even by different translators her books are every bit enjoyable in German, sometimes even more.
Where the English language is strongly built upon verbs and verbal structures (the abundant “-ing-forms” are something every German pupils has to struggle to understand the concept of), German sets the focus much more on nouns and adjectives – and so does Rosemary Sutcliff. When she describes a scene – maybe due to being forced to just sit and watch for so many years of her early life – she concentrates on things that don’t move or change, on colours and textures. Like in later life as a miniature painter she draws her scenes in minute detail – much like a German sentence as Mark Twain depicted it .
I find this most unusual and remarkable and one the increasingly rare examples for an author whose style of writing (not so much the plots) is in direct correspondence with her very special biography.
I look forward to comments on the post….and if you have your own detailed reflections on Rosemary Sutcliff and her work, do please post them at the You Write! page .
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 