Blog Archives

Those Whom I Would Like to Meet Again

Posted on 5 December 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

A hundred years since Lithuania regained independence, all too briefly. Something to celebrate. I passed through in the summer, over sea and land from Helsinki to Warsaw and south-westwards. We didn’t stay long. I wish I had. My Polish grandmother…

People in the Room

Posted on 21 November 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

The three sisters sit at the window. From the apartment across the way, their faces are lit up, as in a (rather famous, rather older) portrait. The narrator watches them from her living room window is like a spy; she…

Tagged with: And Other Stories, Argentina, books, Charlotte Whittle, Norah Lange, People in the Room, Spanish, Translation
Posted in books, translation

Cold Mountain

Posted on 7 November 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

Cold Mountain is a both a person and a place. A Buddhist monk, he brings the way to life through stories. He finds stillness inside him where he is. And he shows you, the reader, that you can do the…

Tagged with: Bill Porter, books, Buddhism, China, Cold Mountain, Han Shan, Poetry, Red Pine, Tao, Translation
Posted in books, poetry, translation

Swallowing Mercury

Posted on 24 October 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 3 Comments

Wioletta Greg is frankly fantastic, and Eliza Marciniak has rendered her voice in English delightfully. A good friend gave this translation of Swallowing Mercury for my birthday, and her only concern was that I might have it already, but I might not…

Tagged with: books, Eliza Marciniak, National Translation Award, Polish, Swallowing Mercury, Translation, Wioletta Greg
Posted in books, history, literature, translation

1918: The Man who Spoke Snakish

Posted on 10 October 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

A small country with centuries upon centuries of tradition easily falls sway to a new power sweeping in from the west; they seem so much bigger, better, shinier, more skilled and powerful, that it just seems to make sense to…

Tagged with: 1918, Andrus Kivirähk, books, Christopher Moseley, Estonian, The Man who Spoke Snakish, Translation
Posted in books, translation

The Remainder

Posted on 26 September 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

“Every now and then a book makes my fingers itch to translate it from the very first pages,” says Sophie Hughes. This is one of those books; her translation of Alia Trabucco Zerán’s The Remainder. Zerán’s generation are the children of Pinochet’s…

Tagged with: Alia Trabucco Zerán, And Other Stories, books, Chile, history, Sophie Hughes, Spanish, Translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation

Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Posted on 12 September 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — 1 Comment

It can be both easier and harder to translate an author who is so aware of the translation process herself. The heroine of this novel and her friend are translating Blake into Polish; they come up with multiple versions of…

Beginning to Speak

Posted on 29 August 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

Diana is from Pontus, now in Georgia, once in Greece. So it’s no surprise she starts with Helen – she isn’t the first poet to do so and she surely won’t be the last: These poems are gloriously sensory and…

The House in Norway

Posted on 15 August 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

The artist has her own house, and feels invaded when other people move in – how is she going to work, now? Nordic people need their space, and women need room of their own to create. The forest grows right…

The Ten Thousand Things

Posted on 18 July 2018 by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson — Leave a comment

The bookseller grinned broadly and actually looked me in the eye. Apparently it’s not often that people looking for books in English go straight for the Dutch literature. But how Dutch is this book anyway? It’s caught between two worlds:…