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.”

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.