New in Hungary
Hungarian publisher of Nordic literature, Ø Kiadó // Észak, has published Kim Simonsen’s 2023 poetry collection Lívfrøðiliga samansetingin í einum dropa av havvatni minnir um blóðið í mínum æðrum in a Hungarian translation by Kata Veress. The Hungarian title is Egy csepp tengervíz biológiai összetétele olyan, mint a véremé. Ø Kiadó has previously published works by Nordic authors such as Einar Már Guðmundsson, Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen, Gunnar Gunnarsson and Johan Harstad.
Lívfrøðiliga samansetingin í einum dropa av havvatni minnir um blóðið í mínum æðrum has received critical acclaim and was nominated for the 2024 Nordic Council Literature Prize. The poetry collection works with the ocean as an element. Thematically the speaker deals with his dead father, who has been a sailor his whole life and the ocean that is eating away the land, which simultaneously is our organic original home. In four parts the collection dissects everything that we touch and the joy of turning to the world, our skin, mites, viruses, and the whirlwind of bacteria, that is the biological foundation of every living thing. Simonsen’s widely acclaimed work was published in Italy earlier this year, and the rights have also been sold to North Macedonia. Simonsen is one of a handful selected writers currently participating in the LLIF Residency at the Tŷ Newydd Writing Centre in Wales.
Kata Veress is an experienced translator working mainly from Nordic languages into Hungarian and German. Besides Kim Simonsen, her translations of works by Oddfríður Marni Rasmussen, Katrin Ottarsdóttir, Tóroddur Poulsen, Vónbjørt Vang and Sissal Kampmann have previously been published in Hungary. Veress was one of 13 translators that attended a translation seminar in the Faroe Islands last summer, organised by FarLit.
