As the Literary Saloon notes, the British Translators' Association awarded its annual prizes last night at the South Bank. Unlike the Saloonists, I'm on the mailing list but London is a bit far away for me too. The Schlegel-Tieck Prize for translation from German went to Ian Fairley for his translation of Snow Part by Paul Celan.
The Saloonists complain that nobody's announced yet (or not online) who won the awards. As much as I admire their own hard work and dedication - their blog on world literature is updated daily before I switch on my computer, even though they're in the US and so presumably do it in the middle of the night - they do have to realise that not everyone is quite as efficient. The Translators' Association has one part-time employee, and the rest is done on a voluntary basis by hard-working literary translators. And on the grand scale of things, it's not as if millions of people have been waiting for the announcement with baited breath, is it?
Note also the Guardian article, with a brief joyous comment from Ian Fairley.
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
Monday, 29 September 2008
Shortlist Translations
Signandsight.com now has English excerpts from all six books shortlisted for the German Book Prize online. Except there are only five - the Rolf Lappert title isn't there. Either a broken link or coming soon, I suspect. If you scroll down to the bottom of the Ingo Schulze extract, you'll see (one reason) why I was too busy to blog last week.
I was surprised to find myself really enjoying the book when I read it. It's actually much faster-paced than the extract itself, and very heavy on the dialogue. Which makes it light reading, but not the fluffy kind that leaves you feeling cheated. Lots of fun spotting the biblical motifs, lots of plain food and fine cuisine, hugely atmospheric - summer holidays, East Germany and Hungary in the summer of 89, musical beds and border crossings. But still a number of serious points to be made, including the idea that the GDR was a paradise, at least for Adam, the book's protagonist. Quite a contentious point really.
Enjoy!
I was surprised to find myself really enjoying the book when I read it. It's actually much faster-paced than the extract itself, and very heavy on the dialogue. Which makes it light reading, but not the fluffy kind that leaves you feeling cheated. Lots of fun spotting the biblical motifs, lots of plain food and fine cuisine, hugely atmospheric - summer holidays, East Germany and Hungary in the summer of 89, musical beds and border crossings. But still a number of serious points to be made, including the idea that the GDR was a paradise, at least for Adam, the book's protagonist. Quite a contentious point really.
Enjoy!
Lukas Bärfuss: Hundert Tage
Almost inevitably, Lukas Bärfuss’ Hundert Tage has been called a Heart of Darkness for the 21st century. But while he obviously pays homage to Conrad in the story-within-a-story form, Bärfuss has actually created something all his own. Previously known for his stage plays and a single novella, Lukas Bärfuss has never been shy of drawing attention to Switzerland’s faults. This time, though, he pillories his country for its role in the Rwandan genocide.
David Hohl (meaning hollow), the second and main narrator, tells the story of his time as an administrator for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Kigali. He sets out for Africa (from Brussels, another nod at Heart of Darkness, perhaps) a young idealist. But an incident at the airport makes him (and us) question his motivation. A young African woman is being hassled by officials and David takes an angry stand on her behalf. She, however, doesn’t even acknowledge his intervention and certainly doesn’t reward him with the gratitude he expected.
Arriving in Kigali, David Hohl begins leading the dull life of an ex-pat bureaucrat. I found this section of the novel fascinating, as it really reminded me of British colonialist tales. The ex-pats refuse to learn the local language (a “Bantu idiom”) and live an entirely separate, privileged life. There is even a kind of Happy Valley set revolving around a character named Missland, who some critics see as the novel’s Kurtz. Throughout the book, the Swiss adopt a thoroughly patronizing tone towards the Rwandans – they are not ready for democracy, they need to be taught like children how to behave correctly, they are orderly, obedient and unmusical with a love of cows just like the Swiss, and so on. But David seems critical of this attitude, especially when he finally comes across the woman from the airport again.
Their relationship develops as Rwanda descends into genocide. Trapped in the country by the fighting, Agathe condescends to sleep with David and they start a rather superficial relationship. David is obsessed with their extreme sex, swaying between shame, fear of being perverted, and pride at ignoring their cultural differences. And Agathe evolves from the arrogant westernized woman at the airport to a Florence Nightingale tending his wounds after the pope’s visit caused a mass crush, then getting more and more radical as she is drawn into the ethnic violence. But Bärfuss hasn’t made it easy for himself or his readers – Agathe is a Hutu, from a family well-placed in the country’s hierarchies, and ends the novel in a cholera-induced haze, the feared head of an Interahamwe militia group.
Because of Agathe, or perhaps because of a childish longing for adventure and a naïve will to stand by his principles, Hohl does not leave the country along with the rest of his colleagues after the president’s plane is gunned down. He spends the hundred days of the genocide in hiding in his spacious house. Provided with food and water by his former gardener, he ekes out an existence in the knowledge that no one will harm him, a foreigner. But when he realizes his gardener is doing more than just looting out there in the real world, he turns on him. Now alone and on the brink of starvation, he is finally saved by three young murderers who are all too willing to help. The gardener turns up again and David does nothing to prevent the young men from taking him for a Tutsi and taking the inevitable action. At last he has done something he can really be ashamed of. From then on, the narrator abandons his principles, leaving Kigali with the killers for a refugee camp, where he joins in the general corruption to make enough money to get out.
Yet throughout the novel, the narrator’s voice is constantly accusing Switzerland of complicity with the regime, and ultimately if unwittingly with the genocide itself. The Swiss send a radio expert, who teaches the Rwandans how to make interesting broadcasts – which then call for mass murder. The Swiss provide pencils, telephones and streets to prove their own integrity.
“…That’s why we gave them the pencil with which they wrote the death lists, that’s why we laid the telephone lines through which they gave the murder command, and that’s why we built the streets on which the murderers drove to their victims.”
The efficiency and organisation the Swiss admire in the Rwandans is what enables them to kill each other so systematically, the angry David points out.
The narrator rarely describes actual acts of violence. Apart from a few exceptions uttered by other characters, the Hutus and Tutsis are called “tall” and “short” people, rebels and government forces. AIDS is “the plague”. A number of allegories capture Hohl’s relationship with the people of Kigali – most prominently, an injured buzzard lands in his garden and he refuses to let his staff kill it, despite Agathe’s impatience with him over the issue. Instead, he drives around town looking for roadkill to feed it with. Almost ending up in a fight over a dead dog, he arranges for his adversary to bring him more. The next day he finds a freshly killed animal on his doorstep – that he had seen alive with the deliveryman the day before. During the hundred days he stops feeding the buzzard but it manages to recover, its feathers getting sleeker by the day. Horrified when he realizes it has been feeding on human flesh, he immediately kills it with a machete.
The one time he does describe the violence, Bärfuss deliberately contrasts the horror with the gilded lives of the ex-pats. As David watches gorillas in the East, a group of children is brutally killed. In a single sentence, we go from David’s entranced contemplation to the children’s terror.
“Soon we had to leave, our half-hour was up, and while we climbed down the hill the men killed the children, the six girls and the little boy; while I was inspired by the wise beings of the mountain the men did to the girls what men have always done to girls, and when the news went around a few days later that the Blue Helmets had found them with deep wounds to the head, with crimson strangulation marks around their necks, it was not just the cruelty that horrified me, it was the glove that the murderers had dropped by the dead children, a glove like those the rebels wore.”
Bärfuss apparently spent two years researching the novel, gaining access to files from the Swiss development agency and talking to people who were in Kigali at the time. He says the book was prompted by his anger over his country’s role in supporting the corrupt dictatorship in Rwanda from 1963 on, and by their inability to react to the situation. He certainly doesn’t spare any of his characters – all of the Swiss in the book come off badly, even including Missland who saves his Tutsi wife’s family for the sake of her great arse. While other successful films and novels on the subject of the Rwandan genocide seem to rely on a “good guy” saving lives under horrific conditions, love prevailing amidst the terror, and so on, there is no ray of hope here. And although Bärfuss doesn’t address Switzerland’s role in the Holocaust directly, it looms large in the background of this angry tale of a genocide allowed to happen.
I was very moved and impressed by this book, and I really hope it makes its way into English translation. Publishers can get hold of a sample translation from the German Book Office. There are certainly lessons to be learned here for readers from outside of Switzerland, as Bärfuss includes a great deal of material on the background to the Rwandan conflict, the role of the Belgians, the UN, etc. Perhaps it is time for a more literary approach to the subject than those already available in English, and this is certainly that.
David Hohl (meaning hollow), the second and main narrator, tells the story of his time as an administrator for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Kigali. He sets out for Africa (from Brussels, another nod at Heart of Darkness, perhaps) a young idealist. But an incident at the airport makes him (and us) question his motivation. A young African woman is being hassled by officials and David takes an angry stand on her behalf. She, however, doesn’t even acknowledge his intervention and certainly doesn’t reward him with the gratitude he expected.
Arriving in Kigali, David Hohl begins leading the dull life of an ex-pat bureaucrat. I found this section of the novel fascinating, as it really reminded me of British colonialist tales. The ex-pats refuse to learn the local language (a “Bantu idiom”) and live an entirely separate, privileged life. There is even a kind of Happy Valley set revolving around a character named Missland, who some critics see as the novel’s Kurtz. Throughout the book, the Swiss adopt a thoroughly patronizing tone towards the Rwandans – they are not ready for democracy, they need to be taught like children how to behave correctly, they are orderly, obedient and unmusical with a love of cows just like the Swiss, and so on. But David seems critical of this attitude, especially when he finally comes across the woman from the airport again.
Their relationship develops as Rwanda descends into genocide. Trapped in the country by the fighting, Agathe condescends to sleep with David and they start a rather superficial relationship. David is obsessed with their extreme sex, swaying between shame, fear of being perverted, and pride at ignoring their cultural differences. And Agathe evolves from the arrogant westernized woman at the airport to a Florence Nightingale tending his wounds after the pope’s visit caused a mass crush, then getting more and more radical as she is drawn into the ethnic violence. But Bärfuss hasn’t made it easy for himself or his readers – Agathe is a Hutu, from a family well-placed in the country’s hierarchies, and ends the novel in a cholera-induced haze, the feared head of an Interahamwe militia group.
Because of Agathe, or perhaps because of a childish longing for adventure and a naïve will to stand by his principles, Hohl does not leave the country along with the rest of his colleagues after the president’s plane is gunned down. He spends the hundred days of the genocide in hiding in his spacious house. Provided with food and water by his former gardener, he ekes out an existence in the knowledge that no one will harm him, a foreigner. But when he realizes his gardener is doing more than just looting out there in the real world, he turns on him. Now alone and on the brink of starvation, he is finally saved by three young murderers who are all too willing to help. The gardener turns up again and David does nothing to prevent the young men from taking him for a Tutsi and taking the inevitable action. At last he has done something he can really be ashamed of. From then on, the narrator abandons his principles, leaving Kigali with the killers for a refugee camp, where he joins in the general corruption to make enough money to get out.
Yet throughout the novel, the narrator’s voice is constantly accusing Switzerland of complicity with the regime, and ultimately if unwittingly with the genocide itself. The Swiss send a radio expert, who teaches the Rwandans how to make interesting broadcasts – which then call for mass murder. The Swiss provide pencils, telephones and streets to prove their own integrity.
“…That’s why we gave them the pencil with which they wrote the death lists, that’s why we laid the telephone lines through which they gave the murder command, and that’s why we built the streets on which the murderers drove to their victims.”
The efficiency and organisation the Swiss admire in the Rwandans is what enables them to kill each other so systematically, the angry David points out.
The narrator rarely describes actual acts of violence. Apart from a few exceptions uttered by other characters, the Hutus and Tutsis are called “tall” and “short” people, rebels and government forces. AIDS is “the plague”. A number of allegories capture Hohl’s relationship with the people of Kigali – most prominently, an injured buzzard lands in his garden and he refuses to let his staff kill it, despite Agathe’s impatience with him over the issue. Instead, he drives around town looking for roadkill to feed it with. Almost ending up in a fight over a dead dog, he arranges for his adversary to bring him more. The next day he finds a freshly killed animal on his doorstep – that he had seen alive with the deliveryman the day before. During the hundred days he stops feeding the buzzard but it manages to recover, its feathers getting sleeker by the day. Horrified when he realizes it has been feeding on human flesh, he immediately kills it with a machete.
The one time he does describe the violence, Bärfuss deliberately contrasts the horror with the gilded lives of the ex-pats. As David watches gorillas in the East, a group of children is brutally killed. In a single sentence, we go from David’s entranced contemplation to the children’s terror.
“Soon we had to leave, our half-hour was up, and while we climbed down the hill the men killed the children, the six girls and the little boy; while I was inspired by the wise beings of the mountain the men did to the girls what men have always done to girls, and when the news went around a few days later that the Blue Helmets had found them with deep wounds to the head, with crimson strangulation marks around their necks, it was not just the cruelty that horrified me, it was the glove that the murderers had dropped by the dead children, a glove like those the rebels wore.”
Bärfuss apparently spent two years researching the novel, gaining access to files from the Swiss development agency and talking to people who were in Kigali at the time. He says the book was prompted by his anger over his country’s role in supporting the corrupt dictatorship in Rwanda from 1963 on, and by their inability to react to the situation. He certainly doesn’t spare any of his characters – all of the Swiss in the book come off badly, even including Missland who saves his Tutsi wife’s family for the sake of her great arse. While other successful films and novels on the subject of the Rwandan genocide seem to rely on a “good guy” saving lives under horrific conditions, love prevailing amidst the terror, and so on, there is no ray of hope here. And although Bärfuss doesn’t address Switzerland’s role in the Holocaust directly, it looms large in the background of this angry tale of a genocide allowed to happen.
I was very moved and impressed by this book, and I really hope it makes its way into English translation. Publishers can get hold of a sample translation from the German Book Office. There are certainly lessons to be learned here for readers from outside of Switzerland, as Bärfuss includes a great deal of material on the background to the Rwandan conflict, the role of the Belgians, the UN, etc. Perhaps it is time for a more literary approach to the subject than those already available in English, and this is certainly that.
Apologies
...for my absence last week. It got very hectic, from headlice to family nuptials to marathon interpreting sessions. But there should be something to show for it very soon.
Monday, 22 September 2008
Abolition!
The FAZ Lesesaal has been busy. It seems there is a mutiny underway - the authors are jumping ship. Michael Lentz got the ball rolling by calling for the German Book Prize to be abolished. Monika Maron reacted by announcing she'd like to boycott the whole shebang. Bodo Kirchhoff chimed in, saying he regretted getting the damn thing set up in the first place. Next up was Daniel Kehlmann, who admitted an abolition was unlikely but wished it wasn't, suggesting a number of changes to the procedure at the very least. And Julia Franck supported that idea, adding that the prize has no aesthetic authority.
Why? In a nutshell, they seem to feel offended at being pitted against one another in a demeaning cock-fight over public attention. They don't like it when they win, and they don't like it when they don't. They resent being categorised in terms of prize-winners and prize-losers. And they see the German Book Prize as just another marketing tool that does them little good, if not direct harm.
It's tempting to say, awww, poor little rich kids. These are not just any old writers, but some of German-language literature's great success stories of recent years, particularly Kehlmann and Franck. But actually, it's got me thinking. As a translator, I suppose I do hang on the creative coat-tails of the authors who write what I translate. As does a whole industry of agents, editors, marketing people, graphic designers, accountants, printers, all the way to the booksellers and their cleaning ladies (if they can afford one). But that too is part and parcel of literature, at least in a society that works the way ours does. If it weren't for this rat's tail, readers wouldn't be able to get hold of the material. I'd say that every link in the chain, from author to reader, is equally important - but I would, wouldn't I? I don't think that authors are the be all and end all of literature - it wouldn't exist without them, but it would fall apart if we removed any other link too - as anyone who has ever read an unedited manuscript will readily confirm.
And I don't agree that the German Book Prize is bad for literature. I genuinely believe that it promotes debate, including on authors and titles that make neither the shortlist nor the longlist. I for one do not restrict my reading to listed books, but I admit I do buy an extra book or two because of a listing. It's an absolute platitude to explain that just because the judges decide a book is the winner, it isn't necessarily the best book of the year. But what's the harm in singling out one book and focusing attention on it? In the case of the German Book Prize, that one book has seldom been the one anyone ever expected, and never has it been just the latest offering by a very established writer that people go out and buy anyway, whatever the quality.
When it comes to authors' sensibilities, though, I'm torn. I can honestly feel with Daniel Kehlmann when he describes the ordeal of sitting though the awards ceremony on tranquilisers. But the point is, even if you go to the ceremony and don't win the actual prize, as was the case with Kehlmann, you're still going home several thousand euros richer. I get the feeling these authors are longing to go back to kindergarten, where every kid gets a prize for taking part. So perhaps the German Book Prize is bad for authors. But that's tough luck because it's really not them who are running the show.
Why? In a nutshell, they seem to feel offended at being pitted against one another in a demeaning cock-fight over public attention. They don't like it when they win, and they don't like it when they don't. They resent being categorised in terms of prize-winners and prize-losers. And they see the German Book Prize as just another marketing tool that does them little good, if not direct harm.
It's tempting to say, awww, poor little rich kids. These are not just any old writers, but some of German-language literature's great success stories of recent years, particularly Kehlmann and Franck. But actually, it's got me thinking. As a translator, I suppose I do hang on the creative coat-tails of the authors who write what I translate. As does a whole industry of agents, editors, marketing people, graphic designers, accountants, printers, all the way to the booksellers and their cleaning ladies (if they can afford one). But that too is part and parcel of literature, at least in a society that works the way ours does. If it weren't for this rat's tail, readers wouldn't be able to get hold of the material. I'd say that every link in the chain, from author to reader, is equally important - but I would, wouldn't I? I don't think that authors are the be all and end all of literature - it wouldn't exist without them, but it would fall apart if we removed any other link too - as anyone who has ever read an unedited manuscript will readily confirm.
And I don't agree that the German Book Prize is bad for literature. I genuinely believe that it promotes debate, including on authors and titles that make neither the shortlist nor the longlist. I for one do not restrict my reading to listed books, but I admit I do buy an extra book or two because of a listing. It's an absolute platitude to explain that just because the judges decide a book is the winner, it isn't necessarily the best book of the year. But what's the harm in singling out one book and focusing attention on it? In the case of the German Book Prize, that one book has seldom been the one anyone ever expected, and never has it been just the latest offering by a very established writer that people go out and buy anyway, whatever the quality.
When it comes to authors' sensibilities, though, I'm torn. I can honestly feel with Daniel Kehlmann when he describes the ordeal of sitting though the awards ceremony on tranquilisers. But the point is, even if you go to the ceremony and don't win the actual prize, as was the case with Kehlmann, you're still going home several thousand euros richer. I get the feeling these authors are longing to go back to kindergarten, where every kid gets a prize for taking part. So perhaps the German Book Prize is bad for authors. But that's tough luck because it's really not them who are running the show.
Thursday, 18 September 2008
Berlin Publishing: From F'ing Berlin to Herzzeit
The second and final day of our tour of Berlin's publishers with the LCB summer academy for translators of German literature took us from one end of the publishing scale to the other. Although it wasn't as enjoyable as the first day, it was certainly very interesting.
The first stop was Ullstein Verlage - which was probably the most similar to a large British or US publishing house out of those we visited. By that, I mean they work on a strictly commercial basis, with a selection of imprints publishing a broad range of titles in all sorts of popular genres, especially crime fiction, business, politics, esoterica and "inspirational books for women". Claasen is their quality fiction imprint, with writers such as Emma Braslavsky, Joan Didion and the Turkish author Oya Baydar out now. The main difference to a British publisher, though, is a huge one: most of their books are translations. One reason is that they lost a lot of their German authors (for reasons that were not revealed) and another is that books in translation are a safe bet in Germany. If it's sold well in the USA or France, it'll probably do OK here too.
We were escorted to an absolutely gorgeous former school auditorium in their beautiful building on Friedrichstraße, where discussion ranged from the online pre-review platform vorablesen.de run by the Bonnier group (which owns Ullstein), the Sony reader (they like it) to a rather unpleasant argument over why translators are badly paid. I know if I were facing a group of fifteen literary translators, I wouldn't attempt to defend poor pay by complaining that paper prices are so high.
The Ullstein people also told us about two big books. The first won't be out until February 2009, but is by my one of my favourites, Zoran Drvenkar. This will be his third novel for adults, a gory psychological thriller-cum-Berlin prankster adventure called Sorry. I'm looking forward to it and hope to get a review copy. The second was one of their top-sellers: Fucking Berlin.* At this point, most of our jaws dropped. It's "a no-holds-barred account of the sex industry". Sex sells, we were told. The most bizarre point was when the (female) editor told us the book was part of a wave of young women liberating themselves through their sexuality, in the wake of Charlotte Roche. Aha, prostitution = liberation. An interesting standpoint. The author, an Italian single mother working as a part-time prostitute to fund her studies in Berlin, is not, however, liberated enough to write under her own name. Perhaps she should go into translation. Or perhaps translators should go into prostitution - it would at least appear to be rather more lucrative.
From Berlin-Mitte we zipped over to posh Charlottenburg, to the Berlin office of Suhrkamp. Their managing director and his secretary treated us to tea and plum cake, before whizzing though an off-the-cuff presentation of Suhrkamp's history and authors. They're actually based in Frankfurt but have a small "representation" in Berlin, with immaculate interior design that transports you to a timeless place where the chairs are just that bit bigger than usual, very possibly intended to make you feel small as you sit swaying your legs five inches off the floor.
What can I say about Suhrkamp? Quality fiction. World-class writers. Nice towels. And as one of our number remarked afterwards, salon communism. They have two authors on the Book Prize shortlist, Tellkamp and Dath. And they sent us all a copy of the correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, Herzzeit. It really is beautiful, agonising stuff.
The highlight of the day, I have to admit, was an impromptu lunch in the Berliner Ensemble canteen, where we admired Klaus Maria Brandauer in the flesh.
*Blogger won't let me publish this posting with the full title in the headline. Sheesh.
The first stop was Ullstein Verlage - which was probably the most similar to a large British or US publishing house out of those we visited. By that, I mean they work on a strictly commercial basis, with a selection of imprints publishing a broad range of titles in all sorts of popular genres, especially crime fiction, business, politics, esoterica and "inspirational books for women". Claasen is their quality fiction imprint, with writers such as Emma Braslavsky, Joan Didion and the Turkish author Oya Baydar out now. The main difference to a British publisher, though, is a huge one: most of their books are translations. One reason is that they lost a lot of their German authors (for reasons that were not revealed) and another is that books in translation are a safe bet in Germany. If it's sold well in the USA or France, it'll probably do OK here too.
We were escorted to an absolutely gorgeous former school auditorium in their beautiful building on Friedrichstraße, where discussion ranged from the online pre-review platform vorablesen.de run by the Bonnier group (which owns Ullstein), the Sony reader (they like it) to a rather unpleasant argument over why translators are badly paid. I know if I were facing a group of fifteen literary translators, I wouldn't attempt to defend poor pay by complaining that paper prices are so high.
The Ullstein people also told us about two big books. The first won't be out until February 2009, but is by my one of my favourites, Zoran Drvenkar. This will be his third novel for adults, a gory psychological thriller-cum-Berlin prankster adventure called Sorry. I'm looking forward to it and hope to get a review copy. The second was one of their top-sellers: Fucking Berlin.* At this point, most of our jaws dropped. It's "a no-holds-barred account of the sex industry". Sex sells, we were told. The most bizarre point was when the (female) editor told us the book was part of a wave of young women liberating themselves through their sexuality, in the wake of Charlotte Roche. Aha, prostitution = liberation. An interesting standpoint. The author, an Italian single mother working as a part-time prostitute to fund her studies in Berlin, is not, however, liberated enough to write under her own name. Perhaps she should go into translation. Or perhaps translators should go into prostitution - it would at least appear to be rather more lucrative.
From Berlin-Mitte we zipped over to posh Charlottenburg, to the Berlin office of Suhrkamp. Their managing director and his secretary treated us to tea and plum cake, before whizzing though an off-the-cuff presentation of Suhrkamp's history and authors. They're actually based in Frankfurt but have a small "representation" in Berlin, with immaculate interior design that transports you to a timeless place where the chairs are just that bit bigger than usual, very possibly intended to make you feel small as you sit swaying your legs five inches off the floor.
What can I say about Suhrkamp? Quality fiction. World-class writers. Nice towels. And as one of our number remarked afterwards, salon communism. They have two authors on the Book Prize shortlist, Tellkamp and Dath. And they sent us all a copy of the correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan, Herzzeit. It really is beautiful, agonising stuff.
The highlight of the day, I have to admit, was an impromptu lunch in the Berliner Ensemble canteen, where we admired Klaus Maria Brandauer in the flesh.
*Blogger won't let me publish this posting with the full title in the headline. Sheesh.
Wetlands... I Was So Right!
Remember my hot tip on who I suspected was translating Wetlands? Well, I was right. BILD broke the story on Tuesday but I didn't notice. Now you can admire the translator Tim Mohr alongside Charlotte Roche, plus read his draft versions of Roche's rude words. According to BILD, it'll be "the most difficult translation of the year". Yeah, right.
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