David M. Smith
@smithigans_wake
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Literary translator, Norwegian to English. Ihuga nynorskbrukar.
Joined December 2020
It's official! Coming this October!.
Question: Y’ever sat up at night, thankin’ and thankin’ bout that late summer night you could never fergit? With that sangin’ Deadfeller? and that lil’ baby geeraff?. If you have, then you might be the narrator of THE CALF, the dreamy, Dantean novel from Leif Høghaug.
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RT @nordicnovellas: Last but not least: Since Trump II has cut funding for inie publishers, among them @DeepVellum, there's a (already succ….
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Re: all the weird Fosse hate. It’s always one of two things: either he’s a symptom of toxic masculine “brodernism” OR proof of the creeping Scandinavian feminization of literature. Can't just say “not for me” without making JF fit into your cherished resentment fantasy
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Feeling torn between moody Scandie tomes and manly Amurrican manbooks? For the rageful literary man who wants the best of both worlds … Leif Høghaug’s THE CALF—translated by me from Norwegian into Southern US dialect—drops this October!!
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RT @gregorymconway: Great mail day, can’t wait to dive into this. (trans. @smithigans_wake) . @open_letter
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What a great thing as a translator to have such experiences.
Going through my translation of Tokyo Ueno Station line by line to aid in a translation being made from it, I'm supposed to be finding mistakes that need to be corrected. But I'm struck again and again by words that echo in my heart even now.
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RT @IvarAasentunet: Kor høg var Ivar Aasen då han var 26 år? Svaret får vi no. Han var 161,5 cm. Ibsen var til samanlikning 162 cm. #festsp….
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RT @KristerVasshus: For a short while, this was the door sign outside professor in Old Norse philology Odd Einar Haugen's office at the Uni….
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Wow, thanks to everyone who liked and reposted my Solstad photo. That was in 2019, when I was translating excerpts of his NOVEL 1987 for my MA thesis. His 70s & 80s political novels really need to get translated more (hint hint, anglophone publishers. )
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RT @AlexKleeman: Once again I am tapping the sign that says There is so much good stuff to read that you do not have to get mad about what….
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RT @sophiefkemp: i enjoyed reading this but also have you considered people read these books because they genuinely love engaging with lang….
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RT @LitTranslate: 📣 The 2025 ALTA awards are officially open for submissions! ALTA celebrates excellence in litera….
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You can thank folks like me for ruining American literature. You're welcome.
The literati should read more books by Americans in 2025. You don't have to hype up every translated book by some rando from Norway. More focus on small press American writers from Ohio, New Mexico, etc. Let's discover America again.
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I've literally never heard this and I lived in Norway 6+ years, have taught Norwegian at the college level. no textbook I've ever used has ever said this either. .
4) The Birth Year Age Code. Norwegians give the year of their birth not their age. Instead of saying "I'm 31" . Norwegians say "'93". Took a while to get used to this. Led to some unintended hilarity. Politely nodding along as someone tells me their girlfriend is 97.
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RT @newcriterion: “Nodding perhaps to Nabokov’s ‘Pale Fire,’ Harstad tells the tale of the unfortunate Brandeggen through Aigner’s extraord….
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Props of course to Dalkey for reviving interest in this book. I like the compactness of my old copy, though. Nostalgic for the days when heavyweight authors were printed in these lightweight mass market editions.
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They did a beautiful job with the canvas library binding. They also shaved off the outer edges of the pages for a very clean cut, eliminating the odor and ensuring no tears from normal handling.
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