Join us for an evening with German author Isabel Bogdan and Scottish translator Annie Rutherford as they chat about the novel “The Peacock” and the joys and challenges of translating.
The book
Take a dilapidated castle in the Scottish Highlands; add a peacock gone rogue, a group of bankers on a teambuilding trip, an overwhelmed psychologist, a housekeeper with a broken arm, and an ingenious cook; get Lord and Lady McIntosh to try and keep it all together; and top it off with all sorts of animals – soon no one will know exactly what’s going on. Selling 500,000 copies, Isabel Bogdan’s book is a big hit in Germany – and now it’s coming home to roost.
The author
© Heike Blenk
Isabel Bogdan was born in Cologne and studied English and Japanese. She is an enthusiastic Hamburg-dweller, reader, writer and translator into German (including Jane Gardam, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nick Hornby, Jasper Fforde). Her first book
Sachen machen came out in 2012, followed in 2016 by
The Peacock, and in 2019 by
Laufen. She has won prizes for her translating, her writing and the online interview project “
Was machen die da?”
The translator
© Perry Jonsson
Annie Rutherford champions poetry and translated literature in all its guises. She works as Assistance Festival Director for
StAnza, Scotland’s international poetry festival, and as a writer and translator. Her published translations include German/Swiss poet Nora Gomringer’s
Hydra’s Heads (Burning Eye Books, 2018) and Belarusian poet Volha Hapeyeva’s
In My Garden of Mutants (Arc, 2021).
If you would like to further discuss the novel, why not join our
book club meeting on 21 September?
Registration
To participate please register your interest via Eventbrite.
Participation is free of charge.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
We will use
Zoom for our meeting. We recommend the use of a headset, as speakers can create disturbing echo effects. To participate, simply follow the link we will send you when you register.
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