Barbara Sjoholm
Photo courtesy of Brbara Sjoholm
Bio
I’ve been very fortunate to be involved with writing and publishing most of my adult life, as a co-founder of Seal Press in Seattle, and the imprint Women in Translation, and as the author of many works of fiction, nonfiction, and translation. My focus as a translator of Norwegian and Danish has been women writers. Most recently I’ve taken a particular interest in the relatively unknown Danish artist and ethnographer Emilie Demant Hatt (1873-1958), and translated her travel narrative from 1913, With the Lapps in the High Mountains: A Woman Among the Sami 1907-8 and written a biography about her, Black Fox (both from the University of Wisconsin Press, 2013 and 2017). My translation from Danish of Demant Hatt’s illustrated collection of Sami folktales, By the Fire, will be published in 2019 by the University of Minnesota Press. Minnesota is also publishing my translation from Norwegian of Helene Uri’s Clearing Out (Rydde ut) in 2017.
I was exceedingly grateful to receive a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for Clearing Out. It gave me needed time to work on the translation and bolstered my confidence in the novel as an important work of literature that dealt with the theme of Sami visibility/invisibility in Norwegian life and literature. In 2016 I’d received a small travel grant from NORLA to visit Oslo after giving a talk in Sweden; in Oslo I had the opportunity to meet the author, Helene Uri, and her publisher, Gyldendal. I was encouraged to go on with the translation, even though no U.S. publisher had yet shown interest. The NEA grant, along with a prize for best translation in progress that same year from the American-Scandinavian Foundation, really cheered my spirits and kept me querying publishers (now being able to mention the NEA fellowship) as I finished the full work. When an editor at the University of Minnesota Press told me in detail how much he was affected by the novel, I knew Helene Uri’s story was in good hands.
From Clearing Out
[translated from the Swedish]
Anna Guttormsen’s house is all the way down by the fjord. Red clapboards outside, except for a short wall where unpainted logs are visible in a fashion that only an artistically-inclined architect could have dreamed up. Large windows have been set into the wall, while the entrance door is the original; in any case it is much lower than a modern door and is quite weather-beaten. She seems to hear her father lecturing, about the interplay between the traditional and the modern. It looks like a house whose owner has both taste and money. Along two sides of the house the snow has blown up, in drifts that reach the windowsills. Outdoor lamps are lit on either side of the door and make the entrance resemble a Christmas card. Ellinor isn’t the type to believe it’s no problem at all to approach strangers, but the house looks so welcoming that without hesitation she presses the doorbell above the brass plate where Anna Guttormsen’s name is written, in open, inviting capital letters.
The waves slam against the pier and the wind rarely rests in this city. It’s impossible to hear if there’s a sound inside the house, if steps are coming, if anyone takes hold of the doorknob from the inside.
––Yes?
The woman in the door opening has milk-white hair pulled back from her face and enormous earrings in hammered silver. The weight of them pulls down her earlobes. Ellinor knows that the woman in front of her, if this is Anna Guttormsen, is close to eighty, but she looks astonishingly young. The skin of her face is pale brown and tight across the cheekbones, and the eyes are large and clear. She’s wearing a woven tunic in shades of green and tight-fitting slacks of grass-green. On her feet are felted slippers. She tilts her head questioningly and smiles at Ellinor. Ellinor smiles back. Is she only imagining it or can she smell coffee?
––Anna Guttormsen?
––Yes?
––My name is Ellinor Smidt and I’m employed on a project that . . .
––So this is you. I’ve heard of you, Ellinor Smidt. You don’t speak Sami then? says Anna Guttormsen. Her mouth is narrow and closed.
––It takes a few seconds before Ellinor understands what the woman, the key person with whom it is so important to establish a good relationship, is actually asking. Ellinor’s right hand is moving forward to shake hands. Her hand stops midway and drops. Her smile falters. Anna Guttormsen’s earrings gleam hostilely.
––Do you speak Sami?
––No, answers Ellinor.
––Do you understand it?
––No.
––Not even at the most basic level?
––N-no, I. . .
––Perhaps you know a few words?
––I have picked up. . .
––You understand the paradox in registering and documenting something you yourself don’t have the possibility of understanding the meaning of?
––Well, yes, but. . .
––Do you know that none of our legends deal with where we come from? We have always been here.
The green-clad woman closes the door with a brief nod. Does Ellinor catch a glimpse of a smile as the door shuts?
About Helene Uri
Helene Uri is a literary author who additionally holds a doctorate in linguistics and has written a number of books about language. She’s been translated into 16 languages, but is relatively little known in the United States. Because of my own work with Sami subjects, I was attracted to this novel’s themes. I’ve read little in contemporary Norwegian fiction that deals so imaginatively and intelligently with the language loss and identity issues of the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia.