Description

A meditation on loss and recovery through the act of translation and its recuperative powers. An unnamed translator mourning the loss of a close friend retreats to Dresden to translate the Time Passes section of Virginia Woolfs novel To the Lighthouse. Translating this lyrical evocation of time and its devastations in a city with which the writer has no connections and where neither her language nor Woolfs are spoken offers an interruption to the course of her life. She immerses herself in this prose poem of ephemerality. The narrator delves into phrases from Time Passes and subjects them to the inexact science and imperfect art of translation. This, in turn, leads her to wide-ranging reflections on other instances of loss, destruction, and recoverythe Chernobyl disaster, the High Line in New York City, the bombing of Dresden and Wallmanns commemorative Bell Requiem Dresden, the evacuation of the Hebridean island Foula, Hiroshi Sugimotos photographs of seascapes, Debussys La cathdrale engloutie, and Ceri Richardss series of paintings by the same name. She reflects on places that are destined for decay and yet are returning to life, broken worlds in which there is still strength for a new beginning. In Tess Lewiss visionary English translation, Ccile Wajsbrots lyrical exploration of the role of the writer and translator becomes an exquisite meditation on loss and recovery.