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Dear Natália, Amora: Stories (2020, tr. Julia Sanches. Original: Amora, 2015) begins with ‘First Times’ and ends with ‘Profanation’ – and, for that alone, I knew this collection…… Read more “Just a desire, begun”
Tag: Books in translation
Oh, stag of mine, darling stag, my one and only
Dear Ariana, Die, My Love (2017, tr. Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff. Original: Matate, Amor, 2012) is all about voice: a short musical piece of sustained rage,…… Read more “Oh, stag of mine, darling stag, my one and only”
How can you lose something that’s growing within you, like a tree?
Dear Karin, Crisis (tr. Amanda Doxtater, 2020. Original: Kris, 1934) is a book that resists being defined, a book that resists solidifying into a unified form of…… Read more “How can you lose something that’s growing within you, like a tree?”
We were overcome with a kind of reverse vertigo,
Dear Annie, Reading The Years. tr. Alison L. Strayer (2017. Original: Les Années, 2008) feels very much like leafing through an old photo album, opening the contents of…… Read more “We were overcome with a kind of reverse vertigo,”
And she listened to the pounding of her heart
Dear Lydia, From the beginning, we already know that we are in for a train wreck with Sofia Petrovna (1994, translated by Aline Worth, emended by Eliza…… Read more “And she listened to the pounding of her heart”
Something hot flew like a dragon at an angle through his heart,
Dear Kanoko, In the collection A Riot of Goldfish, translated by J. Keith Vincent (2010. Original: 金魚撩乱, Kingyo Ryōran, 1937/ 食魔, Shokuma, 1941), both novellas deal with…… Read more “Something hot flew like a dragon at an angle through his heart,”
It takes one word,
Dear Natalia, In Family Lexicon, tr. Jenny McPhee (2017. Original: Lessico famigliare, 1963), we have the impression of having been accepted as guests at your family’s dinner table: as we…… Read more “It takes one word,”
Things that make one’s heart beat faster
Shōnagon-san, Lists, anecdotes, poetry, and small essays surrounding fleeting moments: reading The Pillow Book (枕草子 – Makura no sōshi, c.1002) is an experiment on estrangement – like…… Read more “Things that make one’s heart beat faster”
Notes heard by no one reverberating against nothing
Dear Robert, Intimate Ties, tr. Peter Wortsman (2019. Original: Vereinigungen, 1911) comprises two novellas centred on repressed sexuality, taboo, and female desire. Both content and narrative style…… Read more “Notes heard by no one reverberating against nothing”
A woman caught in a finely interwoven pattern of feelings and time
Dear Auður, In Butterflies in November, tr. Brian FitzGibbon (2013. Original: Rigning í nóvember, 2004), you play with our sense of reality, bringing into light what is fundamentally odd…… Read more “A woman caught in a finely interwoven pattern of feelings and time”
Minna sits with the sea inside
Dear Dorthe, Both of the novellas comprised in So Much For That Winter, tr. Misha Hoekstra (2016. Original: Det var så den vinter, 2016/ Minna mangler et øvelokale, 2013…… Read more “Minna sits with the sea inside”
She was completely engrossed in a single thought
Dear Sofia, Nihilist Girl, tr. Natasha Kolchevska and Mary Zirin (2001. Original: Нигилистка, 1884) reads like a tale with a void inside, wrapped-up in a blue-tinged layer of melancholy: at its…… Read more “She was completely engrossed in a single thought”
I wished I could split my body in two,
Dear Hanne, The Blue Room, tr. Deborah Dawkin (Original: Like sant som jeg er virkelig, 1999) is a novella about a girl who finds herself unable to…… Read more “I wished I could split my body in two,”
We took everything upon ourselves
Dear Sophie, What I found most interesting in the book The White Rose (1952) were the leaflets you produced and distributed, together with your brother and a group…… Read more “We took everything upon ourselves”
I preferred us when my father was away
Dear Birgit, The Mussel Feast, tr. Jamie Bulloch (2013. Original: Das Muschelessen, 1990) is a novella about the collapse of a man’s rule over his family during the course of an…… Read more “I preferred us when my father was away”
Ringing out in a very open space
Dear Leena, Doña Quixote and Other Citizens: A Portrait (‘Doña Quixote’, 1983) reads like a string of impressions of place and feeling, made by a character that…… Read more “Ringing out in a very open space”
I don’t want them to reward me for nonsense
Dear Nadezhda, The Boarding-School Girl, tr. Karen Rosneck (2000. Original: Пансионерка, 1861), very much like your sister’s novel City Folk and Country Folk, tr. Nora Seligman Favorov (2017.…… Read more “I don’t want them to reward me for nonsense”
The milk of incomprehension
Dear Nora, Soviet Milk, tr. Margita Gailitis (2018. Original: Mātes piens, 2015) was this odd thing: a butterfly that, going in reverse, moults back into a chrysalis. What…… Read more “The milk of incomprehension”
