…and we had a super launch at the Schmetterlinghaus in Vienna for the German translations of Ed´s Wife and Other Creatures. Some pix and details are here.
And the wonderful audio book of Winds of Change in German translation again by dan*ela beuren is impressively narrated in German by Michael Hain. You can listen to a sample here.
That sample is called in English “The Last Birthday” and was originally a longer piece at Gerald Ganglbauer´s online magazine, Gangway. It was a story told to me by my first colleague in Geneva, Eberhard Hain, former GDR translator at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, on a much later visit to Chemnitz, formerly Karl-Marx-Stadt. Our friendship weathered the attitudes of both our governments; a former boss at ITU, my next employer, even got involved when he told me not to mention my frequent trips to East Germany since the Australians were interested in perhaps using me for consular service. I never knew, probably because I had answered, no way! These people were my friends. How dare you! Later I heard from another Aussie Embassy that the Aussies considered me too pink around the gills, when back then I wasn´t even political. Today I feel that even breathing is a political act. And so back to my story. The narrator, Michael Hain, is the son of my dear friend, Eberhard, who also translated my stories into German in Geflimmer der Vergangenheit.
And did I tell you that our slim anthology, Sex with Friends, is quite a delight, although I am still sparring with Amazon about the hardback cover
And I just heard today that my flash will be added this week with its official German translation to a collection of texts of voices against the war. Humbled when I see all the names there – only one piece per writer.
I´m still out there submitting my PhD novel, Ambergris, but it seems happy ends seem to be the flavour of the month, and my story arcs aren´t really into those. But I will persevere. Have a bit of literary speed dating coming up in the Land of Oz in May, and there are Flo Do Books to attend to – an English translation by Hillary Keel of Miniatures by the Austrian writer, Günther Kaip.
Am pleased to have pulled a story from an elsewhere submission because I felt it fitted better in the Pandemic Issue of WordCityLit, so here it is, spookily prescient.
Oh, and I’m crowdfunding the German translation of All the Beautiful Liars, so if you feel like supporting, please do. Translating again will be dan*ela beuren, who loves the book, and that’s the best sort of translator to my mind.
That´ll do for today, so I´ll leave you, as always, with onwards!
