Nordic Literature in Translation with Randi Ward & Kim Simonsen

On February 26, join us for a Nordic Literature in Translation event with this year’s American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prizewinner, Randi Ward, and the author of the work in translation, Kim Simonsen! Now in its 43rd year, ASF’s Annual Translation Competition awards prizes for outstanding translations of poetry, fiction, drama, or literary prose written by a 20th- or 21st-century Nordic author. In 2021, the Nadia Christensen Prize was awarded to Randi Ward for her translation excerpt from Faroese of Kim Simonsen’s 2013 poetry collection Hvat hjálpir einum menniskja at vakna ein morgun hesumegin hetta áratúsundið (What good does it do for a person to wake up one morning this side of the new millennium). The Nadia Christensen Prize recognizes an outstanding translation of a literary text from a Nordic language into the English.

Originally published in the Faroe Islands by Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins in 2013, Hvat hjálpir einum menniskja at vakna ein morgun hesumegin hetta áratúsundið received M.A. Jacobsen’s Virðisløn, the national book award of the Faroe Islands the following year. Its title posits the existential crisis that is underway while the cover imagery lays bare the philosophical underpinnings of the collection: as a species among species, all comprised of the matter of the universe, how has our anthropocentric pursuit of knowledge — and our compulsion to hierarchically categorize everything around and within us — estranged us from ourselves, each other, and the rest of this world?

What good does it do for a person to wake up one morning this side of the new millennium is forthcoming in Danish translation and was released in Macedonian translation by PNV Publishing in 2021. Excerpts from this collection have been featured at the STANZA Poetry Festival in Scotland, the TRANSPOESIE Festival in Belgium, and the Skopje Poetry Festival in Macedonia, where it received an award for best new release from The Association of Publishers and Booksellers of Macedonia (ZIKM). In today’s event, Ward and Simonsen will discuss its writing and its translation.

This event will take place as a Zoom webinar; please ask questions in the chat or send them in advance to info@amscan.org. Registration is required; please sign up at the link. This conversation will be recorded and available later to stream on our Virtual Programming page and on our YouTube channel.

This program will be followed by a second Nordic Literature in Translation program with ASF Translation Prizewinner Hunter Simpson and author Stine Pilgaard on March 5.