Blog / Interviews

Chametzky Prize-winner Alice Guthrie on translating Atef Abu Saif

April 5, 2019 - By Abby MacGregor

We talked to Alice Guthrie, winner of the 8th Annual Jules Chametzky Prize for Translation, about translating Atef Abu Saif's "The Lottery." Here's what she told us:

I think what I really enjoyed about this story, and what made me want to translate it, was the way Atef paints this vivid picture of several aspects of Gazan life, offering this very pointed political and social commentary along the way, but all with such a light touch. It never feels contrived, or dogmatic, and there's plenty of humor—which is such an achievement, given the intensely poignant material we are dealing with here. And that playful...

10 Questions for Amanda Minervini

April 2, 2019 - By Emily Wojcik

"'If this country ever needed a Mussolini, it needs one now,' said Senator David A. Reed of Pennsylvania, during a 1932 address to the U.S. Congress.1 Yet what did Reed mean when he emphasized the need for 'a Mussolini,' and what, in 1932, did 'now' mean?"—from "Mussolini Speaks: History Reviewed," in Volume 60, Issue 1 (Spring 2019)
 

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
My very first published piece, in Italian, was a very immature but imaginative reflection on David Foster Wallace.

What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?
The...

10 Questions for Jackie Craven

March 27, 2019 - By Abby MacGregor

You fa ox fa, you fa ox ga
sea ahhh, how proof you?
In catch I jump slap like a rack,
my dradda hours, all sticks and pikes,
& never once did you zoo-hoo.
—from “In Which I Try to Leave My Husband, But Cannot Find the Words”, Spring 2019 (Vol. 60, Issue 1)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
At ten I was an academic disaster. For homework, I composed a rambling tale about a girl who traveled to Australia to find an enchanted aardvark who would magically transform her into a boy, with all the prestige and privileges of being male, plus the bonus of living on an island with kangaroos. My fourth-grade teacher usually gave me Ds and Fs, and I figured she'd hate this story, too...

10 Questions for Geetha Iyer

March 25, 2019 - By Emily Wojcik

Meena bazaar looked like someone had swept up all the portside towns that ran from the Persian Gulf through the Hormuz past Karachi, Gujarat, and Bombay down to the Malabar Coast, scrunched all these crusty places into a fist and daubed the re­mains onto the mouth of the Dubai Creek, installed thousands of AC boxes in every window and then waited for the pigeons to find their way home. It smelled of pav bhaji and shawarma, of frying oil and chai, of the humid press of bodies at work from dawn past the fall of night. It smelled, at noon, when the shops were shuttered against the heat and every man of sense and means took siesta, like an absence of rain, like brickwork disintegrating. —from “Sandhya’s Station,” Volume 60, Issue 1 (Spring...

8 Questions for Jia Sung

March 18, 2019 - By Emily Wojcik

Tell us about one of the first pieces you created.
As a child I loved making drawings of foxes and animals. We had this series of nonfiction books for kids, Eyewitness Books, and I would sit down and copy the art in them.

What artist(s) or works have influenced the way you work now?
Some of my favorite artists right now are Maria Berrio, Belkis Ayón, Catalina Ouyang. Many of my aesthetic references pull from Chinese ink painting and Japanese print traditions, medieval art, Himalayan religious art, Mughal miniatures… I love the use of flat space, the rich universe suggested in every composition.

What other professions have you worked in?
Publishing, education, artist assistant. Currently I am...