{"id":17548,"date":"2025-05-27T17:42:33","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T21:42:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=17548"},"modified":"2025-06-11T17:26:16","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T21:26:16","slug":"episode-640-cecile-wajsbrot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-640-cecile-wajsbrot","title":{"rendered":"Episode 640 – Cecile Wajsbrot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virtual Memories Show 640:
\nC\u00e9cile Wajsbrot<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/virtualmemories\/Episode_640_-_Cecile_Wajsbrot.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“What struck me was the coincidence, the collusion between what Virginia Woolf was describing in Time Passes and the things I saw in that documentary about the Forbidden Zone.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>With her bewitching and beautiful novel NEVERMORE<\/a> (Seagull Books, translated from French by Tess Lewis<\/a>, who joins our conversation), C\u00e9cile Wajsbrot<\/a> takes us on a tour of Chenobyl’s Forbidden Zone, the High Line in NYC, Dresden, Paris, under the shadow of the Time Passes<\/em> section of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse<\/a>. We talk about the challenges of writing a first-person novel about translation, the strange ways Woolf has followed Cecile throughout her careers as author & translator, and how it felt to see her novel about translating Virginia Woolf into French get translated into English. We get into her literary career, how Time Passes<\/em> became a stand-in for her fascination with destruction, why she’s translated Woolf’s The Waves<\/a> three times over thirty years (and whether the first one got her into the bad graces of the editor of Le Monde de Livres<\/em>), what it was like to subvert the translator’s typical role of invisibility with this novel, and the language she wishes she had. We also discuss mourning and the ways we try to keep conversation alive with those we’ve lost, the time I impressed the Princess of Yugoslavia by transliterating the Cyrillic on her family’s jewels, and more. Give it a listen!<\/a> And go read NEVERMORE<\/a>!<\/p>\n

“Translation as a process is almost a character in this book.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n