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womenintranslation · 7 years

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Interviewing the Editors #2: Karen Nölle, Editor, Translator, and Co-publisher of edition fünf

At a recent gathering at New York’s Goethe-Institut WiT caught up again with publisher, editor, and translator Karen Nölle on one of her occasional trips from Germany to the US, this time to co-lead a ViceVersa translation workshop with Shelley Frisch at Ledig House in Ghent, New York. Karen told us more about the press she co-founded, edition fünf, which devotes itself to literature by women, both in German and in translation, and whose mission, as she explains below, is to create “a chest full of women’s narrative traditions that we would all get excited about, and argue about and discuss and pass on to others.” Karen’s commitment to women’s writing has also led her to translate into German such essential women’s voices as Doris Lessing, Janet Frame, Eudora Welty, Annie Dillard, Alice Munro, and Ursula K. LeGuin, among others. With so much to talk about but with a train for Karen to catch, we agreed to keep talking via email about edition fünf and about its against-the-grain mission to focus on women writers. Our conversation follows below.

—Margaret Carson

Edition fünf's first twenty-five: bound in red linen, with bound ribbon bookmark and illustrated belly band. All design elements by Kathleen Bernsdorf.

Could you talk about how edition fünf got its start?

Edition fünf was founded in 2009 by Silke Weniger, a literary agent in Gräfelfing, near Munich. She and I had known each other for some time, and as we are both interested in women’s narrative traditions, that is what we talked about when I came to Munich in the spring of that year. Somehow our conversation moved to all the books we missed on the market. Silke was out for an adventure; I was looking for possibilities to use the time I spent working in ways that made sense to me. A few days after my visit, Silke called, and there we were, thinking about founding a small press and how to go about it. Eight years later I can say, she has found adventure on many levels, and I get to focus on books that I love and to produce them as well as I am—we are—able.

What inspired you?

There were at least two things: The idea to publish books our way, without concern for the conventions of mainstream publishing. We wanted to do “slow books,” produced at our speed, with a shelf life of more than the usual number of days—in Germany many new publications disappear from the shops after just 90 days (or even less)—and with time to find their readers. That was a dream, of course; we make all sorts of compromises. We would have to sell many more books to get them really well known, but the original idea still keeps us going and enthusiastic.

And, probably even more animating, the project itself—to publish the books we missed on the market and to go look for more books and authors and create a chest full of women’s narrative traditions that we would all get excited about, and argue about and discuss and pass on to others, because it is so vital to learn more about how women think, live, suffer, overcome, create art—and what they/we might want beyond the strange society we happen to be born into. Another dream, much too large for what we can do. But parts of it still keep us going.

Cover of the German edition of Anne Garréta's Sphinx. All design elements by Kathleen Bernsdorf.

What is your background in publishing?

I left academia when I was 35, to become a freelance translator. My first translation was Telling Tales by Sarah Maitland. Editors interested in what women writers were up to in the eighties noticed that I had a feel for (and knowledge of) the new contents, so for a while I was asked to translate mainly women: Audre Lorde, Eva Figes, Alice Walker. When I realized that I liked working with “serious” literature, I took up editing translations, too. And I was on the editorial board of the feminist press Frauenoffensive for some years. With them I traveled to the international feminist book fairs. Meanwhile I translated books by Alice Munro, Barbara Trapido, Annie Dillard, and many less well known authors. In the ’90s I started leading workshops for translators, editors, writers. But edition fünf is my first “job” as a publisher per se.

Why did you decide to focus on women writers?

Silke and I have been feminists forever. Our main interest was never in politics, though, but more in culture at large. We long to hear women’s voices, to feel their influence throughout society; we get inspired by the way women tell stories, it informs our perspective on the world and what happens in it. The stories, the ways of seeing, the experiments with language and literary forms speak to our experience, influence our thinking. Help us find foundations to build on.

It has always surprised me when writers, translators, editors claim to be indifferent to the gender of those that influence them artistically. In teaching, I had noticed that many of the books by women writers which I thought should be available as nourishment for those interested in developing their ideas on the basis of what their forebears had been up to, were not on the German market, having either been there and disappeared or never having been published at all.

Our idea was to create a space—a kind of library, perhaps—that would make these books available and spread interest in their contribution to the world of art. There were so many of them, we wanted to make them visible . . .

Cover of Ein Haus mit vielen Zimmern, an anthology of women writers on wiriting, made up of stories, essays, and poems, edited by Sophia Jungmann and Karen Nölle. All design elements by Kathleen Bernsdorf.

What is the gender gap in publishing in Germany like?

We have a lot of women in publishing, many many in the types of jobs that were outsourced from the 1990s on: freelance editors, proofreaders etc., a lot working as illustrators and translators (women make up around 80% of the translators here—with more than half the prizes going to men . . . ). As you go up the career ladder, the percentage of women gets smaller, although, in recent years, more women have risen to top positions.

What kinds of books by women are you attracted to as a publisher?

We look for books we find inspiring, for special narrative techniques, ideas . . . ways of telling stories, perspectives on life and art. We admire inventiveness that relates to experience, not so much l’art pour l’art.

Karen’s favorite page in Ein Haus mit vielen Zimmern, the first page of Sylvia Plath’s “A Comparison,” on the difference between writing poetry and novels. All design elements by Kathleen Bernsdorf.

How do translations fit into your editorial vision?

We publish in Germany, and German publishers tend to publish a lot of translations. Several thousand from English alone. So we, too, are open to translating books we miss on the market. There are plenty of those to discover. When we started out, we were interested in re-publishing books by women we thought should be part of the culture, but were forgotten. Authors who wrote in German tend to be available (you can be all but forgotten when a publisher still has the rights, but does nothing to promote your work), so we focused less on those. That might be changing. We’re working on it. But we do translate a lot and attach a lot of importance to the quality of the translation and the editing. So far, there are books from English, Finnish, Dutch, French, Italian, and Portuguese in our catalog.

You've published German translations of Joyce Johnson's memoir of her Beat years, Minor Characters, and Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Johnson's memoir is all but unknown in the US, and Hurston's essential work was out of print and forgotten until Alice Walker discovered her in the 1970s. What led you to these books?

Joyce Johnson’s Minor Characters is simply a great book, about young women in the 1950s trying to become beat poets of a sort. Johnson has such a loving view of the way she was, when she was young . . . I suppose what I like in literature is a love of life and human beings (and nature and . . . and . . . ). The writers on our list tend to be able to hold on to it under the most taxing circumstances, and to be fully human and smart and analytic and artistic in the way they express that. All this, of course, is true of Zora Neale Hurston in her masterpiece. I’ve loved Their Eyes Were Watching God since I was in my twenties. What pleasure to be able to bring it out in a new translation!

Cover of German edition of Zora Neale Hurston's Vor ihren Augen sahen sie Gott (Their Eyes Were Watching God). All design elements by Kathleen Bernsdorf.

Who reads edition fünf books?

Not enough people to make us rich. We publish hard covers, the books can’t compete on a mass-market level, but we have a small and growing group of followers. Mainly women, well educated, not afraid of reading things that need a bit of concentration, interested in women’s writing. Many of our books sell slowly, but continuously over the years. People learn about them by word of mouth.

edition fünf books are extremely beautiful objects. The book jackets and their spectrum of bright colors are especially striking. Can you talk about what goes into their design and into the cover art?

The designer who does all the art work for our books on the outside and the inside is Kathleen Bernsdorf. Kathleen lives in Berlin, we discuss the contents of each book with her in detail, and she comes up with the ideas both for the cover and the typesetting. Of course, we provide only a small portion of the work she does, but she enjoys the freedom in working with us. The first 25 books were all bound in red linen, to underline our idea that we were creating a sort of library. Since book 26, we have become much more colorful and inventive. For me, it is one of the treats in my job, to have a hand in creating the whole product, not just the words.

What else can you tell us about yourself? What are you working on now?

Right now, I’ve begun a new translation of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea books, and will be doing the first three volumes.

At edition fünf we’re publishing Laurence Tardieu’s A la fin le silence this fall, a novel about the acts of terrorism in France in 2015 and how acts like these affect the emotional lives of the people in the country. A very personal perspective in attempting to find words for what is going on.

Shelley (Frisch)’s and my ViceVersa workshop for translators of English to German and German to English is part of a larger project for many language pairs, organized by Deutscher Übersetzerfonds and funded by the Robert Bosch Foundation. We do practical work on the texts the participants are translating, and through the direct exchange not only learn about how differently the two languages work and what characterizes their literatures, but also about translation and translationese in general, while of course striving to avoid the latter . . .

In Germany I also do other workshops on translation and editing—my most regular one being one I found my own format for: working on texts with translators, editors and authors on the island of Sylt in the very north of Germany and combining the work on the texts with exercise—this year with Tai Chi.

Cover of German edition of Joyce Johnson's Zaunköniginnen (Minor Characters). All design elements by Kathleen Bernsdorf.

#womenintranslation #editionfünf #german publishing #beautiful books

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nyklifsondiviiportfolio-blog · 7 years

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Division II Retrospective

Nyk Lifson

Hampshire College 2017

Taking Invertebrate Zoology was a great class. We spent a week studying cephalopods and then I got to dissect two sepia officinalis, common cuttlefish. This was a fantastic learning experience where my interest in my own personal gender exploration is realized in marine life. Dwarf male cuttlefish in many species participate in mating rituals where they flash “female” patterns to appear female to pass by large male cuttlefish to deliver their sperm packets to impressed females. Queering of gender happens more often in invertebrates, which is something that binary science does not teach. In school systems we still label parts of plants as having female and male reproductive organs which makes no sense. There are not even two genders within humans, intersex people exist. But, we are taught that this is unnatural? Slipper-shell snails of New England are hermaphroditic and often both reproduce and send off sperm. This is a very common endemic mollusc, yet these are not common facts that are taught? Instead charismatic megafauna is what conservation focuses on. But, what about transgender organisms?

Homosexuality and the blurring of gender lines are extremely common even within mammals. I was able to continue looking into these studies. I feel like this is important work, not that anyone is going to trust studies anyways because radicals will not even believe in climate change. But I am not studying why people stay willfully ignorant, I am lucky enough to be studying parrotfish with supermales and land snails that change their organs to reproduce whenever a mate crosses their path. Humans are the ones lacking in evolution, stuck in a binary. That is why my Div II is still called getting weird underwater. I leave division two needing two more class requirements and a project to complete The Five College Marine and Coastal Science Certificate.

I did not study enough film in these past two years, and that is one of my bigger regrets. I had tried to get into the claymation class being offered this past spring, but messed up my scheduling. I am imperfect. I am not the most organized person. I also am not the best when it comes to due dates. I work on these skills every day, but can only achieve so much when working a job, playing rugby, being a signer, and a full time student. I took Video 1 with Lucretia Knapp, it was a Queer film class where I learned to make a rotoscope. I filmed in interesting abandoned locations and made a music video for my non-binary friend and invited other trans* friends to come into the woods and make art with me. I got to break some bottles, splatters some queers with blood, and had a great time. The editing process went not as well as I planned due to an unforeseen concussion I got playing rugby my 1st spring semester of Div II. I finished my classes that semester and then went abroad over the summer, so everything worked out. Both videos I made in this class I will have links to in my portfolio.

The more important skills I learned in my time at Hampshire are that I am a survivalist. I can and will flourish. I am capable to continuing on. I have to do more work than others to grow and I try hard every day. I will not let my past or who others think I am stop me from living. I will not let people, places, or unknown languages be barriers to my discovery and thirst for knowledge.

One important part of my growth was that I realized I am an alcoholic. This really stunted me at Hampshire. Many professors told me to take a semester off. I know myself. If I went on medical leave I would not have come back. I would not finish school for years. I wonder what would have happened if I had transferred or left, but I did not. I stuck with my education. I want a degree because no matter what happens to me in this world, no one can take my education from me. I am privileged to have family who can pay for part of my schooling and to have access to a liberal arts college like hampshire. Many of my friends in Kentucky went to state schools and then fell through the cracks. I am grateful to Hampshire. That being said I became the jaded older student I knew I would be. Hampshire is still an institution, so it is inherently racist/sexist/ableist/homophobic/and transphobic. That can be seen in my mostly white professors and being misgendered in evaluations. That is felt on campus. This is all relevant because I withdrew from classes each semester because I had too high of expectations for someone in recovery. I always want to learn more than my workload can truly handle.

Around 4am the night before my Prose Poetry final portfolio was due I realized how little I have done in the last two years. This was startling. It washed over me. But now in the light of day I see that is not true. I can argue why this should not matter due to being a Hampshire student. I have had a job this year while working, being in recovery, taking classes at three colleges, and living in a trump era. It is difficult to write job applications when all I really am interested in academically is queer fish and dragons. Oddly enough, I just want to be a firefighter or first responder, which is not what I am taking classes for.; I want to someday have enough money to house multiple foster kids. I will most likely not have a legal gender in my home state. And my average life span to beat is 26. I know this is supposed to be about my academics, but I don’t want to go to graduate school.

After reading A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway and Embracing true monstrosity, I gave my character, Iphis wings to fly. I wrote in a dragon myth after learning about Queer dragon-based creation stories from Ancient Ghana. I have inspected my everyday colonialism. Sitting in a mostly white class in Massachusetts. Every cryptid is dragged through the dirt. Looking at geographical mountain ranges and local reptiles in the area. Dragons are a powerful myth in mosts cultures around the world. Dragons live among humans. Some humans are dragons. We are constantly trying to build from trauma and hurt others. I took took risks and did research for my upcoming DIV III. I am planning on taking an oceanography class next summer. I also am taking two marine science classes next year. I have to live in the science world to have a say in it. But I have a proposal for my research project. I want to draw a coloring book of queer sea creatures. Ones that science talks circles around to make sense of a gender that does not matter. I could title it “Nemo was a lie” but I won’t. Clownfish always have one that is the largest that can lay eggs. They change systems for this rule. The rest are at a certain age changing to what binary-biased-science deems, female.

A degree is one of the few things in life no one can take away from me once I obtain. I could lose a house, car, children, pets, the clothes off my back, but never the knowledge I cultivate. My life may be taken away but never my schooling. I owe it to those who are not fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to go to a liberal arts school, or college in general. That is the argument I have used to stop myself from dropping out. The animosity I have experienced from students and administrators on this campus has made me want to leave on a multitude of occasions. I live off campus and no matter how many times I am offered to drop out I march on towards an oval diploma. Because learning never ends. Neither does my passion.

I took many classes in preperation for Division III and have been seeking literature for reference in my free time. I have continued to study androgyny in fiction and how race intersects with feminine and masculine imagery.

In my Prose poetry class I did my presentation on Audre Lorde; a black lesbian, poet, and activist. I read speeches and her compilations of poems late at night in the Mount Holyoke Library. My other presentation was on Yusef Komuntakaa and two of his works. He mainly deals with the vietnam war and experiencing cross-generational diaspora.

In Professor Susan Loza’s class I learned about marginalized monstrosity. I read Octavia Butler, Ursula Leguin, and this fantastic article called Punks Bulldaggers and Queers. I wrote about the consumption of bodies and queer people of color. Constructed bodies through diaspora and trauma. I think this needs to be a requirement. Being open minded and respectful of historical oppression that is the elephant in the room in everyday life.

In Dragon Myths--Global Symbols of of Power at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I gave a presentation on Both South African cryptids and Eastern European myths. In addition I researched in my free time each week background information at every myth would read. I strengthened my research skills by looking through an anthropological lense. We asked questions about how the victors of colonization might have changed these stories? How do local religions and systems of power influence oral story-keeping? How can typography and endemic species influence these mythological creatures? How do bias’ come into play? How could translations have changed from the primary source?

Learning for learning’s sake is rewarding but hard to explain why my education isn’t a waste of time. I have hated school passionately since I was in middle school. I went to both private and public learning institutions and both seemed full of bull shit. But maybe that is just life? It is not that I do not want to gain knowledge, but the way that normalized education systems go about it makes me want to rip my hair out. That is why I am so grateful to Hampshire. I have been able to follow my interests with very little push-back and a whole lot of understanding. I am not planning on going to graduate school and I sure as hell did not think I would make it this far at any institutional learning facility. The fact I am finishing my third year of college alive, with my head held high, is a goddamn miracle. I was thinking of how to change my Division two contract to seem professional and like I know what I am doing. But, in the last three years the glimmer of truth has show through to the surface; no one at this damn school knows what is going on. So, instead of lying through my teeth, here is a full account of what I have fought tooth and nail to learn.

Invertebrate Zoology with Stan Rachootin was incredible. I missed plenty of class due to it being at 8:35am at Mount Holyoke twice a week and then 9am on Fridays, but I only missed one lab. We studied molluscs for two weeks and one those consisted of cephalopods. Considering in depth interest in cuttlefish, I was overjoyed. I dove into my studies and made it out with an A- in the class. I got to dissect not one, but two sepia officinalis and a multitude of other inverts including a lugworm and a scallop. Stan lent me reading materials on cephalopods including an anatomical guide for sepias. I gained insight into sequential hermaphroditism and how common it is among marine invertebrates and fish. This has sparked a personal study of mine compiling a list of queer marine organisms. There are so many clear instances in science where the gender binary is a hindrance upon data collection. I hope to unpack and then rearrange that data in my own research on creatures such as parrotfish and moray eels.

I was in over my head in my Conservation Biology class at Amherst College. I made that decision, though. I wanted to be in a 300 level class where I was the only 2nd year compared to the seniors and juniors. My writing was not that great. I was battling my addictions and myself that semester. I missed a presentation and turned in a paper with horribly done citations. I did give two well thought out and researched presentations, one in a group and one by myself. My teacher was not quite impressed with how I presented my work. My final research project was on cuttlefish conservation. No shock there. That class required a post a week on our readings and to read many wordy articles to be discussed in class. I held my own in a room with more experienced Amherst students. Most importantly we all learned how to look for bias and statistical flaws in scientific articles. Which, in turn, helped me in my research.

I am studying video, yes I am including this even though I only took one film class. I still am passionate about film. I have been doing projects on the side and tried to take multiple classes but either they clashed with my schedule or I was unable to get into them. Independently I have made vlog pieces and an animation. I continue to study film outside of class. In Myth’s of America I did a final project based on Emily Dickinson. I went out into the woods in the pioneer valley for my own work and then experimented with found footage. This piece was a discovery in collaborative work and got me through the grieving process over my past self and my grandfather passing away that semester.

I took a Queer Film class with Lucretia Napp. It was a positive experience. I learned how to make a rotoscope animation, which was very exciting. Then I made a music video for my friend with all non-binary representation in the footage. There was a lot of fake blood and a lot of queers, which is the epitome of a fun film shoot. I was recovering from a concussion I received while playing rugby, so my editing was not my best work. But, I overall am happy with the way it turned out and Cass Hoke, the musician and a dear friend, loved the outcome. In addition, I was exposed to a lot of queer documentary and short film work that I had never seen before. Those influences benefitted my end project.

Creative writing, the book that is a little bird trapped in the cage of my soul and has been begging to fly out. I just needed the key, and that key was Nell Arnold. Being in a room with her I felt like a fraud. I am no artist, and as you can see I have no understanding of grammar rules. Yet, I found myself lucky enough to be one of the 16 people chosen to be in her group. I got to explore characters that I would be friends with. But mostly, I got to listen to Nell. I had never been in a room with someone who made me feel like a better writer by sharing the same oxygen. Her diction is on point and she is ever-so-eloquent. I worked my butt off in that room, editing peer work and trying to not be afraid to write from perspectives that I struggled imagining.

Both of my classes with Thom Haxo were for my mental health. He is the same flavor crazy that I am, so we got along smashingly. I found a niche where I produced upcycled artwork based on my creative writing. I was able to create performance pieces where I would read out loud and interact with the art physically while bringing viewers into the story. This helped me with figuring out my process in designing characters. I am not in school for my art because that is more of a coping skill than something I want to study, but I plan on having illustrations as a final part of my DIV III. Thom’s class boosted me in my confidence with my work and to not be afraid to go with what feels right.

In Susanna Loza’s class I kickstarted my research for my division three. I read Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway, Wild Seed by Octavia Butler, and The Left Hand of Darkness, and many other valuable works. My final paper looks into depictions of androgyny in science fiction and fantasy. The saddening part was how little representation I found in both research and actual literature I could read. I was hindered by emotional setbacks, rendering me unable to fulfill the amount of time I needed for research and actually writing my paper. I am not pleased with my end work, but I am so glad I was able to spend time in a theory class looking into what I am most interested in. This was a valuable class that opened my awareness and I worked more on my multicultural perspective. Cyborgs are androgynous, aliens can be, scifi full of asexually reproducing being is trans*.

Why did I withdraw from so many classes? First you must know what add drop looks like for me. I start out being enrolled in as many classes as possible, show up to the first class for all of them, and then withdraw from the ones I do not need/like/or can not make it to. After that I often will stay in a larger class load than I can handle because I am optimistic in my goals at the beginning of the semester. I am paying enough money that I try to get my money’s worth from school. This goes south about midway and I will realize that I have either not gone to a class or am unable to keep up with the demands. I withdrew from RAD because it is a gendered self defense program that is partially taught by a cisgendered male. I never went to a single class because of those two reasons. I withdrew from Oceanography because my seasonal depression made it difficult to get out of bed at the ungodly hour of 7am to catch a bus in the morning. I am disappointed in myself because I needed to take Oceanography to for credit in the Five College Marine and Coastal Science Certificate I am working towards, but hopefully I will take the needed class over the summer.

I regret not being a Teacher’s Assistant for Pat, because she is doing great work at Hampshire. Lemelson is a cis-male dominated space that tries to be inclusive, but like most shops, falls short. She is being payed not enough to do so much. I took glass blowing from her and realized that my hands are amazing tools. Pat has been fighting the patriarchy in shops for years by teaching and creating like a badass. I had wish I had had enough spoons to TA that class, but I really needed to take care of myself. The bond we could have explored is a loss I still am saddened by. This is one of my bigger disappointments.

I am proud of myself for:

Being a Signer of the QCA

Asking for help (writing center/talking to teachers)

Taking classes at all five colleges

(mostly) Navigating the PVTA

I realized that my goals from DIV II were actually just me knowing what I wanted to do during my DIV III. The road to my final projects was confusing and a journey, but I do feel like I cam out the other end with skills for my future. These past two years I have acquired so much self-wisdom, but that is hard to put into an academic context, even though it happened within an academic bubble. So what did I do? I wrote, read, and remained undead. I dreamed and hung out with starfish. I am my biggest critic. But, I have accomplished so much in spite of all of my pitfalls. I am prepared to write a book and make a coloring book my last year. I gained some maturity and learned some valuable life lessons. I figured out my work ethic and found my voice.

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