Translation Tuesday: from The Atlantic Grows by Julie Sten-Knudsen

Posted in Articles, Media Archive on 2015-11-25 02:57Z by Steven

Translation Tuesday: from The Atlantic Grows by Julie Sten-Knudsen

The Guardian
2015-11-24

Julie Sten-Knudsen


‘Welcome to the skin-coloured land…’ Photograph: Henrik Sorensen/Getty Images

The fourth in a series on translated work features a poetic investigation of the relationship between two sisters who share the same mother and yet are divided – by their different fathers, their skin colour, and the Atlantic Ocean. Translated from Danish by Martin Aitken

By Julie Sten-Knudsen and Martin Aitken for Translation Tuesdays by Asymptote, part of the Guardian Books Network

In the light of the desk lamp

that is yellower than the daylight

the skin of my hand looks almost green,

almost red, with a golden wash.

It is not white.

The wall is white.

The used tissues

and the unpaid bills are white.

My hand has a different colour. The colour has a name.

I learned it when I was small. I used it

in the kindergarten, in the recreation club after school

when I needed a felt tip

in that indeterminable shade of pink

to draw a fleshy arm or a face:

I need the skin-coloured one.

There was no other use for that felt tip…

Read the entire poem here.

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