Yearly Archives: 2017

Extracting the stone of madness

Posted on 31 May 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 1 Comment

Extracting the Stone of Madness, Hieronymus Bosch c. 1494, Museo del Prado, Madrid Surgery to ‘treat’ mental illness 500 years ago was no joke. You would have a hole drilled into your skull to take the madness out. Is this what Alejandra…

The Queue

Posted on 24 May 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 1 Comment

Every day, the queue gets longer. More and more people need documents: proof of citizenship, exemptions, permissions, documents with forms to get the other documents for the other forms. So they come to the Gate, and wait. They wait in…

Tagged with: Arabic, Basma Abdel Aziz, books, Egypt, Elisabeth Jaquette, The Queue, Translation
Posted in books, literature, translation

Mascha Kaléko: a new bilingual edition

Posted on 17 May 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

This new and fully bilingual edition of the Poems of Mascha Kaléko, out in time for the 110th anniversary of her birth, is a good introduction in English to one of my favourite German poets, who deserves to be more…

Tagged with: Andreas Nolte, books, Fomite Press, Gabriele Münter, German, Mascha Kaléko, Poetry, The Poems of Mascha Kaléko, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation

Finland 100: Minna Canth

Posted on 10 May 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 1 Comment

This beautiful book (cover design by Anu Tuominen) is one of 12 classics republished by WSOY to celebrate Finland’s 100th anniversary. Minna Canth, the author of Työmiehen vaimo/The worker’s wife, died 120 years ago this Friday, so she didn’t live to…

Tagged with: Anu Tuominen, Finland 100, Finnish, Minna Canth, theatre, Translation, Työmiehen vaimo, WSOY
Posted in books, Finland 100, theatre, translation

The Proof

Posted on 3 May 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 1 Comment

Mostly, I’m just really glad I’m not sixteen any more. The crushing insecurity then is exacerbated by 24/7 bullying on social media now – not to mention the knife crime, the violence, who’d want it? Marcia doesn’t seem to like it much…

Finland 100: Edith Södergran

Posted on 26 April 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

It is spring. The earth is bare, the snow is melting. The nights are cold, but the sun is getting stronger, the days are getting longer, a lot longer. Takatalvi (“back-winter” – the reverse of an Indian summer) might strike at…

Tagged with: Aale Tynni, David Barrett, Edith Södergran, Finland, Finland 100, Pentti Saaritsa, Poetry, Swedish, Uuno Kaila
Posted in books, Finland 100, poetry, translation

Iza’s Ballad

Posted on 19 April 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

This one is desperately sad, and it stays with you. The Door should have prepared me for more the direct emotion, the weight of history, the unflinching look at how the characters – people more like you and me than we’d care…

Tagged with: books, Budapest, George Szirtes, Hungarian, Iza's Ballad, Magda Szabo, mothers and daughters, Translation
Posted in books, gender, history, translation

Memoirs of a polar bear

Posted on 12 April 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 1 Comment

A decade ago, on a visit to Berlin, I bought a small Steiff bear to remind me of the city I used to live in, and of Knut. Knut, if you don’t know already, was a baby polar bear in Berlin Zoo.…

Tagged with: Berlin, books, German, Memoirs of a Polar Bear, Susan Bernofsky, Translation, Yoko Tawada
Posted in books, gender, translation

Wayward heroes

Posted on 5 April 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 5 Comments

They came from over the North Sea, and took whatever they could get, and taxed us mercilessly for a long time after. But the noble English fought back, swords gleaming, until the dastardly invaders fled back to Europe from whence they…

Not written words

Posted on 29 March 2017 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 1 Comment

Words that make satisfying shapes in your mouth and on the page, rolling around your tongue and exploding like popping candy. Penned by a woman whose name looks like a girl playing hopscotch, whose work has been described as ‘urchin…