Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Conversation begins at 9:05
With her bewitching and beautiful novel NEVERMORE (Seagull Books, bookshop.org/a/4669/9781803093895) (translated from French by Tess Lewis (tesslewis.org/), who joins our conversation), Cécile Wajsbrot (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9cile_Wajsbrot) takes us on a tour of Chenobyl's Forbidden Zone, the High Line in NYC, Dresden, Paris, under the shadow of the Time Passes section of Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse (bookshop.org/a/4669/9780143137580). 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 became a stand-in for her fascination with destruction, why she's translated Woolf's The Waves (bookshop.org/a/4669/9780156949606) three times over thirty years (and whether the first one got her into the bad graces of the editor of Le Monde de Livres), 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. More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-640-cecile-wajsbrot • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Stripe (buy.stripe.com/dR603B83MbhS4XS3ce), Patreon (patreon.com/vmspod), or Paypal (paypal.me/vmspod), and subscribe to our e-newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
Conversation begins at 9:05
With her bewitching and beautiful novel NEVERMORE (Seagull Books, bookshop.org/a/4669/9781803093895) (translated from French by Tess Lewis (tesslewis.org/), who joins our conversation), Cécile Wajsbrot (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A9cile_Wajsbrot) takes us on a tour of Chenobyl's Forbidden Zone, the High Line in NYC, Dresden, Paris, under the shadow of the Time Passes section of Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse (bookshop.org/a/4669/9780143137580). 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 became a stand-in for her fascination with destruction, why she's translated Woolf's The Waves (bookshop.org/a/4669/9780156949606) three times over thirty years (and whether the first one got her into the bad graces of the editor of Le Monde de Livres), 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. More info at chimeraobscura.com/vm/episode-640-cecile-wajsbrot • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Stripe (buy.stripe.com/dR603B83MbhS4XS3ce), Patreon (patreon.com/vmspod), or Paypal (paypal.me/vmspod), and subscribe to our e-newsletter, https://buttondown.email/vmspod
