escriptura

Translating is the most respectful form of reading. For me, translating Sebald involves reading him more carefully than I would otherwise have done. The only thing I regretted was not being able to translate all of Sebald. The translator is a strange being with an overweening sense of possession: not only does he want to translate somebody; he wants that somebody to be his. At any rate, Sebald once said, cheerfully mixing languages: “I always try to write for ceux qui savent lire”.

Writers are often asked how they write: where, what with. I don’t know if Sebald ever answered, but if I had to imagine his reply I would say that he wrote inside a chamber of silence.

In this first essay from SEBALDIANA, the art historian Terry Pitts, autor of one of the leading blogs of reference about the work of WG Sebald Vertigo, selects a number of authors and books that seem to offer the most interesting variations on the literary legacy of the author of Austerlitz and The rings of Saturn.