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Esther Kinsky: Sommerfrische

Translation:

Writer born in 1956 in the German town of Engelskirchen grew up in Bonn and since than moved around several places: between 1990-2004 she lived in London, spent four years in Hungary since 2004 and currently lives in Berlin. She has also been working as a fiction translator of Polish, Russian and English literature since 1986. To date she translated more than 50 pieces of works. In 2002 she won the Brücke-Berlin Award for the translation of Olga Tokarczuk, in 2009 the Paul Célan Award. Aside from translating she published her own pieces of prose and poetry in journals. The fiction Sommerfrische, drawing inspiration from author’s stay in the Hungarian town of Battonya, takes place in heat summer at a recreational facility located by a river. Seemingly a quiet place where very little is going on, however under the tenacious heat the rest home becomes a breading ground for subtle stories, woven together by author’s gentle sense of humour and a position of uninvolved observer.