Blog Archives

Merkel’s Freedom

Posted on 19 February 2025 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

An hour and a half of my life listening for every year she was in office. Yes, Angela Merkel’s Freiheit/Freedom clocks up an impressive 24 hours as an audio book, or 720 pages. I stuck with it, because I wanted…

Tagged with: Angela Merkel, books, freedom, Freiheit, German, politics, Translation
Posted in books, history

Lem and le Guin’s letters

Posted on 22 January 2025 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 1 Comment

This one jumped out at me from the blue sky (dzięki Paweł!). I’ve read less Lem than le Guin, but the idea of them writing to each other was startling, pleasing. I ordered their 1972–1984 letters from Wydawnictwo Literackie straight…

Identitti

Posted on 18 December 2024 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 2 Comments

I’m writing this in an Indian restaurant. The only Indian in my Finnish town is at the railway station – there are more Nepalese around here. This one is at the railway station, and, like today, I often come here…

Tagged with: Alta L Price, books, German, Identitti, Mithu Sanyal, Translation
Posted in books, gender, Queer, translation

Effingers

Posted on 20 November 2024 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

Once I’d got my teeth into Tergit, I wasn’t going to let go. Käsebier was splendid. Berlin in the twenties is a somewhere, somewhen I wish I had been to, and here was a woman broadcasting live from the thick…

Tagged with: books, Effingers, Gabriele Tergit, German, Sofie Duvernoy, Translation, Waiting for translation
Posted in books, history, translation

Empusium

Posted on 23 October 2024 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

Empuzjon is Olga Tokarczuk’s made-up word in Polish from two Greek words. Symposium – drinkfuelled philosophical debate – and empusa – a female shape-shifter. Here, you can go down a delightful rabbithole to find empusas: Wikipedia took me to Kipling’s…

Pocket Punishment

Posted on 18 September 2024 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

A colleague raved about Ferdinand von Schirach, and a good friend said he can sure write a story. So when I found this lovely btb pocket edition that’s smaller than most phones these days, I thought, let’s try him. Strafe…

Tagged with: books, Ferdinand von Schirach, German, Katharina Hall, Punishment, Strafe, Translation
Posted in books, translation

Ædnan

Posted on 14 August 2024 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

I was in two minds about this picture, but I think it fits. I took it on the ferry home from Stockholm. Behind the book, you can glimpse the old royal centre of the self-styled “capital of Scandinavia.” That phrase…

Tagged with: Ædnan, books, Linnea Axelsson, Northern Sámi, Poetry, Saskia Vogel, Translation
Posted in books, translation

Käsebier takes Berlin

Posted on 17 July 2024 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 1 Comment

Then we take Berlin… But for how long? Gabriele Tergit wrote Käsebier erobert den Kurfürstendamm right after the story unfolded. Berlin in the late 1920s was at its most shimmering, glorious, and frenetic. But pride comes before a fall and…

Cursed Bunny

Posted on 19 June 2024 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

I read this at Easter, but the Easter bunny this is not. If you want to read something nice, don’t read this book. It is often an unpleasantly visceral experience. But if you want to read something incisive, do read…

Tagged with: Anton Hur, books, Bora Chung, Cursed Bunny, Korean, Polish, Short Stories, Translation
Posted in books, International Booker, translation

Still raging: Die Wut, die bleibt

Posted on 15 May 2024 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

A man asks a woman to pass the salt, and she gets up, walks past him out onto the balcony and… jumps. Leaving behind her teenage daughter, two young sons and their father, and her best friend. Was it one…