Description
Fiction. Translated from the Swedish by Jennifer Hayashida. INNER CHINA is the first of Eva Sjödin's books to be translated into English. It is the poetic narrative of a young girl navigating a tenuous yet vibrant landscape of hardship and neglect, resilience and self-reliance.
"By turns catastrophic and luminous, INNER CHINA, in Jennifer Hayashida's translation, is unflinching in its gaze, economical in its language, and fearless as it enters the difficult terrain that is childhood. Here the interior and exterior worlds, the magical and the mundane collide—brutally and beautifully."—Genya Turovskaya
"In Eva Sjödin's INNER CHINA, the imaginative life born of the desire for heaven, for somewhere else, is the starkest reminder that we reside not there, but here: on earth. While 'heaven and dirt cave in, twist together,' the young narrator makes a life and language of the fertile and porous nature beyond her cold realities, an emotional world marked by decay and resilience. This tale is then, also, a map of the human psyche as it maneuvers around that which threatens its body."—E. Tracy Grinnell
"INNER CHINA, the first of Sjödin's works to be translated into English, consists of a series of poems that form a narrative about a young girl dealing with hard times and being neglected; by relying on herself and never giving up, she embarks on a moving journey of self-discovery."—Translation Review
Author Bio
Eva Sjödin was born in Östersund, Sweden, and currently lives in Stockholm. INNER CHINA (Litmus Press, 2005) is her third book. She debuted in 1993 with the collection The Sisters with Yellow and Black Hair, followed by Come Thistle Rugged Longing in 1997.
Author City: STOCKHOLM SWE
Poet/translator/artist Jennifer Hayashida is the author of A MACHINE WROTE THIS SONG (Gramma Poetry, 2018) and the chapbook Översättaren som arkiv/Arkiv som översätter (Autor). She is the Swedish/English translator of writers including Athena Farrokhzad, Ida Börjel, Kim Hyesoon, and Don Mee Choi. She has received awards from, among others, the New York Foundation for the Arts, PEN, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She is based in New York and Stockholm.
Author City: BROOKLYN, NY USA