Etymological Gossip - by Uljana Wolf (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A collection of experimental essays exploring poetry, translation, and translingual writing against the resurgence of monolingual, nationalist, and border-obsessed ideologies threatening imagination and intermingled livelihood At once playful and rigorous, in constant dialogue with international and German language poets, Etymological Gossip is an invitation to interrogate notions of origin and originality and to get lost within the sounds echoing from other languages--a plea for delightful linguistic entanglement. What if we thought of translation as a visit to a bounce house where languages jump together, relating via sound and shape, forming illegitimate kinships to whisper in their "etymological gossip" into our poems, dreams and dictionaries? Could a translation be carried not out of a single language into another, but out of a translingual imagination?

Review Quotes

"Tongue-twisting aplomb." --Forrest Gander

About the Author

Uljana Wolf is a German poet, translator and essayist whose work explores the poetics and politics of translation and translingual writing. She translates poetry from English and other languages, such as that of Kim Hyesoon, Don Mee Choi, Erín Moure, Christian Hawkey, Valzhyna Mort, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki. Recent publications include: muttertask: Gedichte (2023), Etymologischer Gossip: Reden und Essays (2021) which was awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in the non-fiction/essay category. Sophie Seita is an artist, writer, and translator. Her recent publications include: a book of art writing, Lessons of Decal, a book of experimental performance texts, My Little Enlightenment Plays, a book of criticism, Provisional Avant-Gardes: Little Magazine Communities from Dada to Digital, and a translation of Uljana Wolf's poetry, Subsisters: Selected Poems. Seita is a Lecturer in Fine Art and Director of Critical Studies at Goldsmiths and also co-runs the interdisciplinary Sound/Text Seminar through Harvard's Mahindra Center. She lives in London.