An Interview with Poet and Translator Andrea Jurjevic

“I don’t write in my native language, so for me writing is inherently an act of translation.”

Andrea Jurjević is a native of Croatia. Her debut poetry collection Small Crimes won the Philip Levine Prize, and her chapbook Nightcall was selected for the ACME Poem Company Surrealist Poetry Series. Her book-length translations from Croatian include Mamasafari (Diálogos Press, 2018) and Dead Letter Office (The Word Works, 2020), which was shortlisted for the 2021 National Translation Award in Poetry. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Believer, TriQuarterly, The Missouri Review and The New Republic, among many other publications. She was the recipient of a Robinson Jeffers Tor Prize, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the 2018 Georgia Author of the Year award.

What do you consider your major inspiration?

Other writers are my biggest inspiration. My favorite poets are Linda Hull, C.D. Wright, Deborah Digges, Denis Johnson, Paul Celan, Wisława Szymborska. I read a lot of fiction, too, and these days I’ve been enjoying a lot of short fiction in translation. A couple books I read this summer that stand out are Baboon, a brilliant, explosive short story collection by the Danish author Naja Marie Aidt, and The Skin is the Elastic Covering that Encases the Entire Body, a very emotional, heart-wrenching book by Bjørn Rasmussen, another Danish writer.

I listen to a lot of music, too. If I come across a song or an album that moves me, I play it on repeat, especially while drafting a new piece. I take daily walks, too, and every so often I paint, and both those practices are great for resetting the mind; they naturally facilitate inspiration.

Could you explain how you view the connection between translation and poetry?

I don’t write in my native language, so for me writing is inherently an act of translation. Also, translation is something that has formed me as a writer and as a person. Most of the media I have consumed in my life has been in translation. I don’t know what my values, my aesthetics, my view of the world would be without books in translation. Many of my favorite poets are only accessible to me through translation. Also, poets translating poets is a tradition and a part of literary citizenship.

And yet there is a selfish part to my translation practice, too. I get frustrated with my own writing tendencies. Without varied cultural and literary influences, our writing risks becoming parochial. The more we engage with works in translation, the more our horizons open up, and our ability to think creatively enhances.

Why did you choose to pursue both translation and poetry?

When I finished writing my first book, Small Crimes, I wanted to continue writing, but I felt as if I had no material left in me. Translation seemed a practical solution. My first attempt was a book of prose poetry by the Croatian author Olja Savičević Ivančević. I was fortunate that Olja was hands-off but available if I had questions. The funny thing about translation is that it seems easy and straightforward at first, but once you start, you find yourself having to come up with one creative solution after another. The longer I translate, the more I respect literary translation as an extremely important artistic discipline. Only three percent of all books published in the States are works in translation. If we are going to keep the literary and artistic borders open, we need to do better.

Tell me more about what you mentioned earlier in regards to writer’s block and translation.

I am rarely short on ideas, but when I’m stuck on something I’m writing, I simply need to leave that piece aside for a while and move onto something else. This can be another one of my own works or a translation. With translation, I have a text that has already been written; I just need to recreate it in English. But there’s more to it, of course, and that is transferring the tone, the style, and so on. It’s a difficult process that takes a lot of patience. And it’s also a very educational process that allows me, as a translator, to see very closely the inner workings of a text.

How would you say you cultivated your style? What were the most pivotal times/moments for you?

I grew up in the former Yugoslavia, a small communist country in the Balkans, the southeastern corner of Europe. Yugoslavia had a phenomenal music scene, from early punk rock to New Wave. Punk was extremely important to youth culture as a way to rebel, escape, and mock the regime. The world opened up to me when at 13 I discovered music — many Yugoslav bands, but also the alternative music that was coming out of England. The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, The Sisters of Mercy, et cetera. I just fell in love. Instantly. I somehow discovered the Cure’s fan club address in London, sent them a note in my very basic English, and oddly enough, they wrote back! I remember getting a massive yellow envelope with the band’s newsletter and lots of Xeroxed photos and feeling as if the world had arrived to my home. The essence and mood of those bands really resonated with me. At the time I had been reading Poe and Baudelaire, Hesse and Nietzsche, and this music seemed like it complemented my favorite writers.

What is the relationship between you and your art once you put it out into the world?

Once my work is published, it belongs to the readers. And readers should feel free to hate it or love it and think about it as they please. My only hope is that with time, my work will grow in its reach.

That said, I tend to be most invested in what I’m working on at the moment.

When you approach a translation, what are the first steps you take to create the translation you want?

Usually, I read the text closely and note details I need to pay attention to, and then I do a rough translation. After that, I’ll go through a series of drafts in which I will take that rough translation further into more effective and creative use of English language, all the while being mindful of any music, wordplay, cultural reference, et cetera, that I need to recreate. I make many decisions during this process, such as how polished I want the translation to sound. The process consists of many drafts and small crises of confidence. It’s very similar to writing my own work. Sometimes the writers whose work I am translating are accessible and available to answer questions, while others like to be more involved in the final editing stages.

Here’s a little anecdote. I recently translated a play called Little Red Gretel by the Croatian playwright Katja Grcić. This is a funny, dark play that situates the Grimms’ fairy tales into a contemporary context and deals with, among other issues, the ethnic tensions in the former Yugoslav region. When I translate I have to think of whether the reader will be able to follow the translation. In this case, some of the references in the original play would only be understood regionally. This includes songs, humor, and bits of dialogue that reveal ethnic belonging. To an average American ear, these references would be lost. If this was a novel, I would’ve provided the necessary context either via footnotes or I would’ve written it directly in the text, but since this was a play, which primarily consists of dialogue, that wasn’t going to work. So, after some edits, the playwright decided to make a substantive edit to the original text: She replaced the ethnic tensions in the Balkans with the global migrant crisis. And the revision worked wonders!

Does working in both languages as a writer give you a different palette of words as it were?

It is not necessarily that my Croatian vocabulary expands my English vocabulary. What is broadened, or made more textured, is the way I experience life. We see and understand the world differently in different languages, and in different dialects, too. This can do with the way we describe the word but also with how we deal with love, loss, death, strife, and so on. It can also inform our notions of the function and role of comedy, or its need for survival. For example, in many places, obscene language is not seen as dirty and lowbrow as it tends to be seen here. Obscene language can also be an opportunity to express oneself in a creative, humorous way.

What is a tip you would give to poets today in crafting their poetry?

Read widely. Read in translation, and not just the usual suspects. While talent is crucial in writing, the most important thing is the ability to steel oneself and go back to work even when it seems like things aren’t exactly flowing. Stick with it. You will have crises when you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, and that’s a normal part of the process.

When I wrote my first book, I was so excited to see it published. There was something triumphant about it. It felt big. The book made me a poet. I think Zadie Smith said that first books tend to seem as if they’re saying something along the lines of, “See me, see this cool thing I’m doing!” They are wonderfully endearing and full of life. And I agree with that. These days I’m less invested in whether people “like” my work, I am less in need of validation. Now I more interested in exploring, going where I haven’t gone before in terms of subject, genre, tone, et cetera.

What is something you wish people asked you about your work?

I hope people ask what they really want to know, not just what they think they should ask. Surprise me!

Thank you for doing this interview, Andrea! I’m excited for your reading at In Process this fall!

Gloria Newton is a senior English major at MTSU with minors in Art, Psychology, and Mass Communication. She loves seeing other people’s stories as well as telling her own through all forms of art, and every genre of writing.