Norway | Norwegian | Prose Poem
March, 2020The work of Sigbjørn Obstfelder is challenging to translate today because of the interlingual nature of late-19th century Norwegian. As Norway was still a young nation, Norwegian at the time was heavily Danish but emerging as modern Bokmål. Beyond that, stylistically, Obstfelder has a jerky hyphenated style that says much with few words. The former quality reveals his nervous nature and the latter puts him firmly in the Norwegian tradition.
"Høst" (Autumn) was originally published in Samtiden 7 in 1896 by John Griegs Forlag in Bergen. Samtiden is a Norwegian literary journal that's been in print since 1890. Obstfelder had two contributions to this edition, the other being his essay officially defending Edvard Munch.
"Høst" is a peek into the type of conversations that would have been going on in the 1890’s Norwegian bohème scene of Kristiania. The young artists of the time were seized with a desire to express life in its truest form, with suffering and death so close at hand. Hans Jaeger and Edvard Munch were among the strongest voices in the scene.
- Jordan Barger
Guatemala | Prose Poem | Spanish
September, 2019I met the Garifuna poet Wingston González in the fall of 2013 when I was living in Berlin and he was passing through for a poetry festival. We ended up collaborating on the translation featured here and the years passed. Earlier this year, I was overjoyed to see that Ugly Duckling Presse had published a book of his poetry. I'm happy to add “Whiskey against the Rage Machine” to his body of work now available in English.
- Priscilla Posada
The Brooklyn Rail welcomes you to our web-exclusive section InTranslation, where we feature unpublished translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Published since April 2007, InTranslation is a venue for outstanding work in translation and a resource for translators, authors, editors, and publishers seeking to collaborate.
We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry: Manuscripts of no longer than 20 pages (double-spaced).
Plays: Manuscripts of no longer than 30 pages (in left-justified format).