In 2016 I translated Tove Ditlevsen’s Gift into English as Dependency. Through a series of coincidences, in 2018 I was able to submit it for consideration to Penguin Classics, who acquired it immediately. Penguin then packaged Dependency as book three of The Copenhagen Trilogy (TCT), and launched the UK release of TCT in September, 2019, at Second Shelf Books in London. I happened to be in Denmark at the time, so I made the short flight over, to speak of my experience translating the book, as well as information about the author’s life and work.
A year and a half later, in January 2021, Farrar Straus and Giroux launched The Copenhagen Trilogy in the US, and I appeared on the virtual panel, hosted by The Scandinavia House. Since then I have given about a dozen presentations of this work, on panels and speaker series hosted by various organizations, in college classes, and on podcasts.
In the media, TCT was very favorably received in 2021, with rave reviews in The Paris Review, Vox, NPR’s Fresh Air, The Guardian, and numerous other outlets, even appearing as the cover story for the Sunday New York Times Book Review on February 14. Now, at year’s end, TCT is being honored on numerous “Best of 2021” lists, such as Time Magazine’s 10 best non-fiction books, NPR’s Books of the Year, and the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of the Year. These accolades have also been reported on widely in Denmark.
^ Video: The New York Times announces their 10 Best Books of 2021.
What does all this mean to me, the translator?
Since Tove Ditlevsen died in 1976, Tiina Nunnally and I, the translators of the Trilogy, are the next best thing to receive the impact Ditlevsen’s work is having on the literary world. When TCT gets glowing reviews or is selected as a major book of the year, it provides us the opportunity to reflect on our roles as translators, and it also can bring new opportunities.
As I have accepted invitations to speak, I have challenged myself to communicate what deep desires I have for my writing career, and how the act of translating deep, emotional writing transforms me. In the process I discovered a wish to communicate a spirit of human solidarity through emotional transformation. What I mean is that through writing and translating I have an opportunity to channel otherwise repressed, shielded emotion and place it in the present, between myself and the reader or audience. First I have to allow myself to feel it, then be able to write it, so there is a challenging of myself in this process. My task is to access my heart through softening the shells that have been built up around it over a lifetime. Sharing what I find there is a tacit invitation to others to feel resonance in themselves, feel the human solidarity. When we share unity through emotion, there is a chance for transformation, for feeling less alone, for envisioning peace.
Since I did not write the original work, I cannot take credit for the content or even for the writer’s voice. What I can take credit for is recognizing the masterful work of the book in Danish, and then for having the craft and discipline to recreate that work in English. I can own that I was in the right place at the right time, with the right set of skills to make this powerful literature available to a much larger readership than it ever had before.
The recent publicity also gives me a heightened profile in the literary community. As a known quantity, I feel an obligation to examine my inner process and craft, and share these, when invited, with the writing community. I aspire to say yes to as many opportunities as possible to read my work, and I also run workshops twice a month, creating a safe space for poets to exchange feedback on their writing. I realize that I have a presence. My story of going from a remodeling carpenter to a writer cited on the front page of the New York Times Book Review has felt inspiring to my writing colleagues and friends.
Publicity does not buy groceries. That is, I receive no payment for doing interviews or being mentioned in the press. However, it can lead to doing a book talk, which sometimes is paid. This may lead to more book sales, but my translator’s share of royalties, as is usually the case, is pitifully low. With each speaking engagement, with each reader, with each new relationship with a publisher or editor, I feel my mission as a writer building. Although getting publicity has not changed my life in any appreciable material way, perhaps by degrees it is building toward something more that I cannot yet predict.
Congratulations, Michael. Digging into the walls constructed around your heart and mind (you call them shells) is the first step, as you know.
My theoretical work asks the reader to try to remember the early years and the pain suffered then. Because those early wounds (I call them the Primary Wounds of childhood) around which you long ago constructed defenses (i.e. walls, shells) interfere later with your search for joy and success. Once you can face the repressed childhood wounds and your reactions (i.e.fear, pain) to them and subsequently recognize the defenses you built to help to conceal those experiences from your thoughts and memories, you are nearly home free.
It is that opening up that you praise and suggest to others. Once open and finding a balance in yourself between what you approved and also disapproved about your past and present behaviors you on the road to gradual change to make life easier and happier for you and those you love. It is the miracle of accepting human imperfection in yourself and others.
The ability to accept yourself as imperfect and recognize that in others is what brings the tolerance and kindness toward others, the generous humaneness you now experience more than other.
It also makes you the creative artist you are today.
Good luck, always, and thanks for the tips as I am now ready to seek a publisher myself….
Libby