May 2012
32 posts
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Rhys Leyshon Evans’ song selection—to...
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“My job is to have empathy and curiosity for things that I’ve never done.”
– Richard Ford, on writing (via dannygoodman.me)
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“The shift brought more depth to the stories, my characters, my own style as a...”
– Sheldon Lee Compton—whose short story “Snapshot ‘87” rocks the current issue—as interviewed by Meg Tuite, for fwriction : review’s Writer Squared series
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TMD Writes: Daily Short #16 →
tmdwrites:
The reasons behind my affinity for today’s Daily Short are many: the protagonist’s twisted sense of entitlement and power and the way she counts “fat people in public”; how the waitress is described: “She’s had babies come out of her”; the lack of an epiphany from the characters; and, of course, my love for all sweet potato foods.
Daily Short #16 is Sweet Potato Fries Please,...
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Sheldon Lee Compton’s song selection—to...
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The new issue of Fiction Month, Sheldon Lee... →
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“You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.”
– Carlos Fuentes (1928 - 2012)
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“He spits.
You mean Jehovah’s Witness, he says, coming out of the bathroom. I...”
– Sara Lippmann, “Fun and Games”
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Terrible Storms: An Interview with Sheldon Lee...
Interviewed by Meg Tuite
Sheldon Lee Compton’s raw and powerful writing has been memorable since the first story I read of his, two years ago. I can hear the southern drawl of his characters either fighting it out in the bedroom or bar, or sitting outside on a hot night in Eastern Kentucky speaking of love, friendships, misunderstandings, family angst and unrequited love. But he is not only a...
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Fun and Games, by Sara Lippmann
fwrictionreview:
I’m trying to tell him what it was like.
My brothers played foosball. In my mother’s closet among party dresses suffocating in bags I’d hide while in the basement rods spun and missed. Sometimes I’d carry a jar of olives, but usually I kept my hands free in case the KKK should happen to hop the porch and catch the wink of chrome on our doorpost and torch it all down to reach...
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“Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother’s love is...”
– James Joyce (1881-1941)
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Sara Lippmann’s song selection—to...
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An Editor’s Welcome: Laura Brown on Translation at...
It gives me great delight to announce fwriction : review’s call for submissions for our new Translation section. I hope everyone read and enjoyed this week’s issue, an excerpt from Erwin Uhrmann’s novel, The War Beyond, translated by Shelley Frisch, as it marks our launch into publishing works of translation.
World Literature is a style of writing that I have long admired. I remember in...
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“My great-aunt was murdered by a nurse, at some point in the 1980s where there...”
– Erwin Uhrmann, from The War Beyond (translated by Shelley Frisch)
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“Translation is a highly addictive, and deeply satisfying, pursuit. It allows you...”
– Shelley Frisch, in discussion with Associate Editor Laura Brown for the first Translator Trio, regarding translation and her work on Erwin Uhrmann’s The War Beyond
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Some love for fwriction : review's new issue and... →
A big thanks to love german books for the shoutout about our new issue (Erwin Uhrmann’s novel excerpt), our first Translator Trio (with Shelley Frisch), and Laura Brown’s Writer Squared interview with Susan Bernofsky. You rock!
There’s an online literary journal I wasn’t aware of, which goes by the tongue-twisting name of fwriction : review. And now they have a piece...
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Translator Trio: Shelley Frisch
For each translated work published by the journal, Associate Editor Laura Brown will ask three questions of the translator, in order to illuminate the joys garnered and bruises earned during the literary process of translation. First up, translator Shelley Frisch, whose translation from the German of Erwin Uhrmann's novel excerpt from 'The War Beyond' is currently live at the journal.
LB: What inspired you to become a translator?
SF: I came to translation by way of my academic studies of writers who fled Hitler’s Germany, and the role translation came to play in their assimilation to a new homeland. My first published translation was a piece in Simon Wiesenthal’s now-classic volume called 'The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness.' Simon Wiesenthal had solicited responses from intellectuals around the world as to what they would have done if they had found themselves in his situation during the Hitler years. The situation was this: while imprisoned in a concentration camp, Wiesenthal was confronted by a dying SS soldier who sought to confess to—and obtain absolution from—a Jew. Wiesenthal opted instead for silence. He later wondered: “Was my silence at the bedside of the dying Nazi right or wrong? This is a profound moral question… ask yourself the crucial question: ‘What would I have done?’” The 46 respondents in this collection included Cynthia Ozick, Dith Pran, the Dalai Lama, Primo Levi, and many others from around the world, including many contributors who wrote in German. Their responses ran the gamut.
After 'The Sunflower,' book projects started coming my way. Books about historical and literary figures who straddle cultures have become my stock in trade. My translations of their stories attempt to preserve the in-between quality of their identities as reflected in their linguistic expression.
Translation is a highly addictive, and deeply satisfying, pursuit. It allows you to explore the linguistic dimensions of a vast array of subjects, and to throw yourself headlong into fields of inquiry you might never have engaged with otherwise, all the while tugging at the limits of your language.
LB: How did you come to work on Erwin’s novel?
SF: I was contacted by the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York, which annually partners with other cultural institutions to sponsor the “Neue Literatur Festival” to present young writers from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria to American readers and publishers, and was asked whether I would agree to translate an excerpt of Erwin Uhrmann’s novel 'Der lange Nachkrieg' ('The War Beyond'). I leafed through the novel, and was intrigued by the protagonist’s pull to his real and imagined past, and the author’s inspired use of language. The excerpt was a joy to translate.
LB: Was there a particular section or sentence in Erwin’s piece that was particularly tricky to translate?
SF: Every sentence of every text resists translation, but the arguably trickiest part of any text is its title. Often, the translator’s working title is transformed once the publisher’s publicity department has weighed in with “marketable” alternatives to the working title. In the case of Erwin’s novel, the choice was left to me, but I contacted him so we could work it through together, and a delightful set of brainstorming sessions ensued over the balance between the psychological and military/political dimensions of the war implied by the book’s German title. At the eleventh hour, we had our “eureka moment,” a title, and a lot of fun in the process.
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Erwin Uhrmann’s song selection—to...
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“I watched the cigarette smoke leave the driver’s shriveled mouth. Beyond the car...”
– Ethel Rohan, “Haunt”
April 2012
37 posts
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Haunt, by Ethel Rohan
fwrictionreview:
Once, Matt and I hitchhiked together from Dublin to Cork. Months earlier, he’d put my engagement ring on layaway and was paying off five pounds every Saturday. Matt and I stood on the side of the road in Chapelizod, our thumbs out, as if waiting for something to be hooked onto us.
“What are we going to do in Cork?” Matt asked.
I didn’t know. Ma always claimed she was born in...
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Ethel Rohan’s song selection—to accompany...
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WatchEvery issue from 2011, collected into one brilliant anthology: fwriction : review’s Year One - Read, share, repeat.
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“…that’s how I learn to write and to translate: by reading.”
– Susan Bernofsky, as interviewed by Laura Brown, for our Writer Squared series
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“A crinkled old man working the train station bar: leaf-skin delicate hands,...”
– Eva Sandoval, “Five Senses: Terracina to Rome”
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Uncharted Sentences: An Interview with Susan...
Interviewed by Laura Brown
I first came to know and love Susan Bernofsky through her translation of Jenny Erpenbeck’s Visitation, a breathtaking novel spanning across generations of characters from the Weimar Republic to the fall of the Berlin Wall, anchored together by a piece of land just outside of Berlin. I went on to read her translation of Robert Walser’s The Tanners, Berlin Stories, and...
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Five Senses: Terracina to Rome, by Eva Sandoval
fwrictionreview:
A crinkled old man working the train station bar: leaf-skin delicate hands, shriveled nicotine-yellow lips, an indifferent shrug—Who knows?—when asked if there’s a transit strike tomorrow. Espresso in a tiny cup, black and spattered with pools of sepia bubbles. Torn plastic train seats, graffiti on the windows: Quanto 6 bella, Riccardo + Valentina, Larvetta Mia! Claudio 6...
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An awesomeface preview of our next Writer Squared...
LB: At fwriction : review, we value transparency in the writing process. That it isn’t just a magician’s work but is an exercise that requires time with actual pen to paper, followed by extensive revision. Can you speak to us a little about your own translation process and what that’s like?
SB: I revise like crazy. I never stop revising. The first draft of everything, I do really quickly and terribly. My first draft is completely, outrageously horrible, and then I revise, I revise the thing into submission. Literally, if you saw my first draft, you’d be embarrassed for me.
(Our newest installment for the Writer Squared interview series launches on Monday!)
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“A sentence can offer a moment of quiet, it can crackle with energy or it can...”
– Very much enjoying Constance Hale’s series for The New York Times, “Writing Lessons” (thanks to writer Brian Morgan for drawing my attention to it!)
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Our first installment of the Writer Squared series...
For the debut of our new interview series, Writer Squared, Andrew Ervin set the bar with a brilliant interview with Daniel Torday regarding his novella, The Sensualist (which you must purchase).
Ervin’s kickass interview has recently received two shout-outs, in subsequent discussions with Daniel Torday! Check out the interviews below:
from Bryn Mawr Now: Creative Writing Program Director...
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“Tony Prince stole one of my sneakers when I got fired from the children’s home...”
– Walter Bjorkman, “Bridges”
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Deadline Extended for the Sidney W. Vernick Award... →
We’re extending the deadline for submitting to the Sidney W. Vernick Award in Nonfiction to April 22! Kick our ass with your brilliant nonfiction writing.
The winner will receive $100 and a two-week publication at fwriction : review. The runner-up will receive a signed copy of Matthew Salesses’ novella, The Last Repatriate, and publication in fwriction : review. A second...