Translator Larissa Kyzer and Author Kári Tulinius Awarded €10,000 Grant and Two-Month Residency by Finland's Kone Foundation

Translator and author collaborators Larissa Kyzer and Kári Tulinius have been awarded a €10,000 Euro grant and two-month residency by Finland’s Kone Foundation. The grant will support the translation of Kári’s poetry, to be included in a future English-language Collected Works (read more about the project below).

Kári and Larissa’s application was one of 26 awarded places at the Kone Foundation’s Saari Residency in 2024, and was selected from a record number of applications: A total of 949 applications were submitted for individual residencies, of which 103 were working partners.

The pair will spend January and February 2024 at Saari and will have a full collection ready for publication (world English rights available) at the residency’s end.

Vanishing Glaciers – The Poems of Kári Tulinius

Climate change is a global phenomenon, but one part of the world where it has been especially visible is the subarctic. The arctic and subarctic regions of the planet have been warming at a quicker pace than those closer to the equator. That has led to rapid changes in the flora and fauna of land and sea, which has happened quickly enough to be noticeable. In the long history of nature poetry, one theme has recurred over and over again, the regularity of the seasons, and how the rhythms of nature are unchanging. In his poetry, Kári Tulinius pays very close attention to his environment, whether it's natural, built or societal. He picks up small details which he places within bigger systems, whether it is humanity's evolutionary heritage, animals in the natural world, or the place of individuals in the vastness of the universe. One theme that repeatedly surfaces in his work is the experience of living in Iceland during climate change, which make his poems especially pertinent now, as the island's ecosystem is conspicuously transforming. He is trying to answer the question what it means to be a nature poet when nature itself has been put out of balance by humanity, when landscape features as enormous as glaciers are melting away.

Screenshot by Bergur Ebbi, Out Now!

Have we all been uploaded to the cloud? In Screenshot, Bergur Ebbi sets out to look at technology from a human perspective. Or humanity from a technological perspective. What are the connections between fake news and artificial intelligence? How does it feel to live in a world where all our thoughts are categorized, rated, and commented on? Ancient people feared the world would end in fire and destruction — but what if it doesn’t? Maybe what we should fear is that nothing will ever be deleted or forgotten again.

Screenshot is a clever and informative journey through the conundrums of modern life and is guaranteed to set your mind spinning.

Bergur Ebbi is an Icelandic poet and essayist.

Translated by Larissa Kyzer.

Available in Icelandic bookstores and via the Forlagið website (foreign rights still available!).

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Staging Translation: An Interview with Asymptote

I recently had the great pleasure and honor of being interviewed by translator Sarah Timmer Harvey about translating A Fist or a Heart, Jill!, and various other odds and ends. The full interview can be read in Asymptote, here. An excerpt:

STH: A Fist or a Heart is set in the theatre world; Elín works as a prop-maker for theatre and film, and your translation of this particular milieu is so beautifully rendered. As I was reading it, following the characters as they scrambled behind the scenes to pull together a stage production, I was reminded of how similar this is to the work of the translator. A translated novel is often the result of months, if not years, of the translator working behind the scenes to produce a flawless translation of the original text, work that is frequently underappreciated by the reader in the same way that a prop-maker or set designer’s role is regularly overlooked by the theatre audience. Can you relate to this?

LK: I’ve never thought of translation like this before, but I like the metaphor, not least because props and stage design are actually some of the most tangible aspects of a stage production—they’re literally visible to the audience in a way that stage direction is not, but if they’re working well, you often don’t really think about them. Translator visibility is a funny thing—on the one hand, you (I) don’t want to make a translation “about you”; arguably, the whole point is to be a vehicle for someone else, for their writing and work. At the same time translation is a deeply creative, active process to me, so it feels weird to regularly be asked things like: “Don’t you want to do your own writing?”, and to still be having regular conversations with people about “loss” in translation, about why it is that translators are necessary at all when so many people in the world—in my case, Icelanders—are fluent in English.

What we do as translators does often seem to fade into the scenery because people often don’t realize what an enormous part translation plays in the everyday world. I’m thankful for the fundamental visibility I’ve been given by the people (authors, publishers, other translators) I’ve worked with; just being named is a big deal. I was over the moon when I found out that A Fist or a Heart would have my name (prominently) on the cover—it’s definitely not a given.

A Fist or a Heart Awarded the ASF's 2019 Translation Prize

In December 2019, I received the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Translation Prize for my translation of Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s A Fist or a Heart. The Nadia Christensen prize is an annual award for the best translation submitted to the ASF's translation competition and includes a bronze medallion and a $2,500 award. The competition judges particularly praised the language of the translation, stating that it "convincingly captures the tactile, vigorous prose of the original in English."

A Fist or a Heart Named One of 2019's Best in World Literature

Library Journal has named A Fist or a Heart by Kristín Eiríksdóttir (trans. Larissa Kyzer) as one of 2019’s ten best World Literature titles.

“Lyrical, wrenching, and arresting as a fist punch to the heart, this award winner from Icelandic author Eiríksdóttir unfolds the growing concern of Elín Jónsdóttir, a seventyish theater props designer, for troubled young playwright Ellen Álfsdóttir. At the same time, the slow revelation of a terrible incident in Elín’s youth explains her insular existence while building with thrillerlike intensity. North-star bright.”

Appointment as Princeton's Fall 2019 Translator-in-Residence

From the announcement on the PIIRS (Princeton Institute of International and Regional Studies) website:

Larissa Kyzer and Damion Searles have been named as Princeton University’s Translators in Residence for the 2019-2020 academic year by the Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication (PTIC).

[…]

The PTIC program resides within the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, which provides support for translation workshops, guest lectures, study abroad and new courses.

WiT Month Translators' Recommended Reads List

Without further ado, here is the Women in Translation (WiT) Month Translators’ Recommendations list! Each and every one of the 147 recommendations was recommended by a translator and written and/or translated by a person who identifies as a woman. My heartiest thanks to Alex Zucker, from whom I borrowed the idea in the first place, and to each and every one of the translators who took the time to contribute to this!

These 147 recommendations come from 33 languages and (roughly) 60 places around the world. Many of them include personalized recommendations; all of them look (I think, at least) utterly fascinating.

(Please note that while I made every effort to reach out to translators working from a wide spectrum of languages and through various networks and means of contact, I’m in no way saying that this is a comprehensive list of every good book that has been written and/or translated by a woman. I also made my best effort at filling in information gaps, but it's likely there are still some mistakes in here; if you see errors in spelling/information, these are likely my own.)

The idea in compiling this list was to be able to disseminate it widely, so please: take it to your favorite bookstore and/or your local library branch and encourage them to make a WiT display. You can also send it to anyone looking for something good to read!

Here's the link that should allow you to access/download the spreadsheet from GoogleDrive. I can also send anyone who wants it an XL file.

Poetry Translation Slam at PEN World Voices Festival

From the PEN World Voices event write-up:

The Festival favorite returns! Witness an illuminating and exhilarating literary debate with competing translations of Japanese and Icelandic poems. Then, join an interactive discussion on the art of translation with Icelandic poet Gerður Kristný and Japanese writer Kanako Nishi, who will be joined by literary translators Larissa Kyzer, Kara B. Thors, Terry Gallagher, and Iyasu Nagata. Hosted by Allison Markin Powell and Björn Halldórsson.

Co-presented with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

May 9
7:00 - 8:30 PM
Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Tickets $12 in advance; $15 at the door.
Purchase tickets here.

This Week in Iceland: Monday, Bun Day!

Had a great time talking about Bolludagur (‘Bun Day’), Beer Day, missing persons, refugee-led protests, and worker-led strikes with editor and writer Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir and host Alex Elliott on RÚV’s new(ish) English-language weekly news roundup, “This Week in Iceland.”

The episode I took part in is available to stream on RÚV here; the program airs weekly on Mondays and all of the episodes are archived here.

Kristín Eiríksdóttir Nominated for the Nordic Council's Literature Prize

Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s 2018 novel Elín, ýmislegt has been nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize alongside Kristín Ómarsdóttir’s Kóngulær í sýningargluggum.

“The main themes of Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s writings are longing for love and understanding and the struggle against isolation, loneliness, abuse, violence and horror,” wrote the judges. “The novel Elín, ýmislegt is a clear example of this. We hear a young woman’s powerful voice in an artistic and focused text.”

The winner of the prize will be announced in Stockholm on October 29. Almost exactly a month before that, however, English-language readers will be able to read my translation of the novel, which is set to be released by AmazonCrossing on September 23, 2019.

Attending the 2019 Breadloaf Translator's Conference

Thrilled to have been accepted to Middlebury College’s Breadloaf Translator’s Conference in Ripton, Vermont this summer, and possibly even better yet, to have received a Katharine Bakeless Nason scholarship to fund my attendance. While there, I’ll be taking part in a Manuscript workshop and working on new translations of short stories from Fríða Ísberg’s collection Kláði (‘Itch’).

Translation Session during Multilingual Writing Lab (Rvk)

I’m very pleased to announce that this coming February, I’ll be facilitating a session during a multilingual, multicultural, multimedia writing lab that has been designed by Iceland-based Canadian poet Angela Rawlings. The workshop is co-sponsored by Borgarbókasafn (the Reykjavík Public Library), Söguhringur kvenna, Ós Pressan, and W.O.M.E.N.

Angela has designed and will be leading four sessions of this writing lab for cis and trans women of foreign origin. My own session will be focused on translation (although no special translation - or language - skills are necessary), specifically the process of translating collaboratively with an author who writes in a language that you, the translator, do not speak. I’ve worked like this once myself before, translating a poem from Polish in close collaboration with the poet, and it was a really fascinating and illuminating process.

Other sessions—including one on authorial identities and writing in a second language, and one in which participants' writing will be transformed into audio—will be facilitated by our fellow Ós Pressan members Elena Ilkova, Ewa Marcinek, and Randi W. Stebbins.

Bilingual Reading at ALTA41

I’m delighted to be taking part in the bilingual reading series at this year’s ALTA conference. I’ll be reading poetry by Kári Tulinius, both some of his experimental ‘4x4s’ which I published in Exchanges in 2017, as well as his poem “Oral Exam in Civic Engagement,” which appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of Cafe Review.

I’ll be the first reader during the 9th bilingual reading session, “Poetry Miscellany” on Saturday, November 3, 2018 at 9:00 AM. I’ll be reading alongside a translator and author of poetry in American Sign Language, as well as translators from Portuguese, Romanian, Biblical Hebrew, and Polish.

Should be fun!