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Contributor

Karen Emmerich

Contributor

Karen Emmerich

United States

Karen Emmerich is a translator of Modern Greek poetry and prose....

Her translations include Rien ne va plus by Margarita Karapanou, Landscape with Dog and Other Stories by Ersi Sotiropoulos (longlisted for Three Percent’s Best Translated Book Award for fiction in 2009), I’d Like by Amanda Michalopoulou (longlisted for Three Percent’s Best Translated Book Award for fiction in 2008), Poems (1945–1971) by Miltos Sachtouris (nominated for a National Book Critics’ Circle Prize in Poetry in 2006), and The Few Things I Know About Glafkos Thrassakis by Vassilis Vassilikos. She is the recipient of translation grants and awards from the NEA, PEN, and the Modern Greek Studies Association.

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Articles by Karen Emmerich

Piece by Piece They’re Taking My World Away

By Christos Ikonomou

I say we go. It can’t be worse than it is here.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich

The Making of Originals: The Translator as Editor (Part 2)

By Karen Emmerich

Read the first part of this essay here. My answer to this question—an emphatic yes—is undoubtedly colored by my own experiences translating unstable originals. The first book-length translation…

The Making of Originals: The Translator as Editor (Part 1)

By Karen Emmerich

As a translator and scholar of modern Greek literature, and now as a professor of comparative literature, I am what André Lefevere would call (not without some degree of irony) a “professional…

Tomorrow

By Auguste Corteau

A girl will head toward the taxi stand, dragging a noisy suitcase far too small for her hopes.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich

From “Overdue Loans”

By Petros Markaris

There are riot police trucks blockading the street, not even a mosquito could squeeze by.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich

Woman in Tree

By Amanda Michalopoulou

Today we have with us the woman who toppled the government.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich

Multilingual

Someone Around Here is Looking for an Equation

By Dimitris Athinakis

My fingernails grow; they reach the ceiling.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich

From “Inside a Girl Like You”

By Angela Dimitrakaki

I’m writing to send you my new address.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich

From “The Sleepwalker”

By Margarita Karapanou

Alan leapt out of bed. It was a quarter to seven and he had missed the boat.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich

From “Suit in the Soil”

By Ioanna Karystiani

His passenger had gotten out and was sitting on a rock, talking to himself and wiping sweat from his face and neck with a handkerchief.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich

Can Anybody Hear Me?

By Ersi Sotiropoulos

There were only two blocks to go, but she had started dragging her feet.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich

Modern Greek Literature, Inside (and) Out

By Karen Emmerich

It has never been possible to speak of Greece in terms of a simple opposition between what it contains on the inside, and what lies beyond its borders.

Light

By Amanda Michalopoulou

After the rain, the clouds shrank and the sky shone silver.

Translated from Greek by Karen Emmerich