The February’s guest of the Nordic Literary Salon is going to be Marta Bartošková, a translator from Icelandic. The topic of the discussion is going to be the book The Window to the South (Suðurglugginn, not translated into English) by Gyrðir Elíassona, an author that Czech readers already know, thanks his The Book of Sandá River.
The debate is going to be streamed on our Facebook page on Thursday 11th of February 2021 from 8 pm, later it is going to be available on our Youtube channel, too.
In Czech.
Free admission, no reservation needed.
The Window to the South (Suðurglugginn, 2012) is – from a certain point of view – a sequel to The Book of Sandá River. The story takes place chronologically during the four seasons of the year. The protagonist is in a voluntary exile in the countryside in the Western part of Iceland trying to write a book. But both the main character and the old typewriter he is working on are boycotting the effort of the man – who also struggles in real-life relationships. The feelings of emptiness of the protagonist are mixed with detailed descriptions of the Icelandic landscape and the life in Icelandic countryside.
Marta Bartošková studied English language and Nordic studies at the faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague, along with Icelandic at University of Iceland. She translates and interprets from Icelandic and Norwegian and works as a private tutor of Icelandic. She is also a judicial interpreter and translates subtitles and dubbing from Icelandic, Norwegian and English alike. Her favourite tasks, though, are the literary translations. Apart from books by Gyrðir Elíasson, she has translated works of Jón Kalman Stefánsson and Einar Kárason, amongst others. In 2019, her first translation from Norwegian was published: Gunstein Bakke’s Expectant (Havende).
The partner of the event are the Czech translators of the North – an organisation uniting the literary translators from the Nordic languages in the Czech Republic.
The event is organised by the Scandinavian House as a part of its literary project.
