How Literary Translation Upgraded my MFA
Asymptote2015/6/11 — 11:27
【Text by Katrine Øgaard Jensen】
Our new blog editor Katrine explains how literary translation transformed her creative writing MFA & writing practice overall
First, I did it for the money. I used to work as a freelance journalist, and to support myself on the side I translated tv-shows, computer games, websites, you name it. It paid well. So when I came to Columbia University to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing, I thought: hey, I’ll just do a double-concentration in fiction and literary translation so I can support myself as a translator of books while trying to make it as a writer. Ha! Ha.
I remember the writing program hosted a mingle with drinks on the first evening of our intro week, and halfway through the event I was already drunk on a) wine, b) nerves, and c) an incredibly long conversation with poet Timothy Donnelly about the great Danish poet Inger Christensen andBuffy the Vampire Slayer.