Lament for the Fallen

Posted on 4 October 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 2 Comments

I am writing this as Afghanistan descends once more into horror. A tiny Welsh part of me still thinks “the bloody English colonials, look what they started and didn’t finish – again.” And you could read the Gododdin this way,…

Tagged with: Aneirin, books, Cynghanedd, Faber, Gillian Clarke, Gododdin, Hay Festival, Poetry, Translation, Welsh
Posted in books, history, literature, poetry

Waiting for Translation: Why We Matter

Posted on 6 September 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

It shouldn’t frustrate me so much that a German book has an English title, but it does. This frustration encapsulates some of the struggle for intersectional justice that Emilie Roig exposes. So often concepts and terms are honed in English,…

Tagged with: books, Emilia Roig, German, intersectional, justice, Waiting for translation, Why We Matter
Posted in books, gender

Women in Translation Month: The Map

Posted on 2 August 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

Is this an adventure novel, war memoir, seven short stories, or one of those new approaches to history through objects? It’s all that and more. The real protagonist is not a person, but a map. Do you know Rembrandt van…

The Passenger

Posted on 1 July 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

This book was written on the run. It captures that moment after 9 November 1938 where things got a lot worse for a lot of people, very rapidly. Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, then aged 23, had made it out of Germany…

Daughters

Posted on 1 June 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

Is this a road trip or a journey back in time? The German and English covers of Töchter/Daughters tell the same story in different ways. Just getting into the car and driving south to get away from it all –…

Tagged with: books, Daughters, German, Lucy Fricke, Rohwolt, Sinéad Crowe, Töchter, Translation, V&Q Books
Posted in books, gender, translation

Waiting for translation: Margarita

Posted on 1 May 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

A real old-school holiday resort. Sauna, muscle-reviving massage for the old biddies with health problems, berry and mushroom picking, rowboats to the island in the middle of the lake, home-cooked food with produce from the estate. A local community where…

Tagged with: Anni Kytomäki, books, Finlandia Prize, Finnish, Margarita, Translation, waitingfortranslation
Posted in books, translation

Monsters and heroes: Beowulf

Posted on 1 April 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 3 Comments

Dragons, magic, heaps of gold and jewels, superhuman strength, slaying monsters – both monsters who are slain and monsters who slay. In the ancient and modern senses of the word. It’s fun. It’s fantasy. It’s the perfect read for a…

Tagged with: Beowulf, books, Grendel's mother, Maria Dahvana Headley, Old English, Poetry, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation

A window left open

Posted on 1 March 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 4 Comments

If some of these poems feel like song lyrics, that’s because they are. Pentti Saarikoski’s best-loved work was set to music for the sixties folk group, Muksut. You can watch their original videos in the national treasure trove that is…

The lost soul – zgubiona dusza

Posted on 1 February 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 2 Comments

The man was moving so fast he had completely forgotten why he was moving at all. So he went to see a wise woman. And the wise woman said, “Slow down. You have to wait for your soul to catch…

Grand Hotel

Posted on 1 January 2021 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 2 Comments

“People in a hotel” would be a literal translation of Vicki Baum’s groundbreaking novel. It’s nearly a century old now, but when she wrote it, she invented a whole new genre. What sort of people are staying in the hotel?…