Translator's Introduction to Lace — Web Exclusive
By Julia Sherwood
Uršuľa Kovalyk is a poet, fiction writer, playwright and social worker. She was born in 1969 in Košice, eastern Slovakia and now lives in the capital, Bratislava. She currently works for the NGO Against the Current, which helps homeless people, and is the director of Theater With No Home, which features homeless and disabled actors.
Uršuľa Kovalyk’s plays include Vec (The Thing, 2003), Oktagon (Octagon, 2006), Día de muertos (2008) and Squat (2009). She has published two collections of short stories, Neverné ženy neznášajú vajíčka (Unfaithful Women Lay No Eggs, 2002) and Travesty šou (Travesty Show, 2004), and a novel, Žena zo sekáča (The Secondhand Woman, 2008). A selection of her short stories appeared in a Czech translation, and one, “Mrs. Agnes’s Bathroom” (“Kúpeľňa pani Ágnes,” from the collection Travesty Show), was included in the 2010 Slovak fiction issue of Dalkey Archive Press’s Review of Contemporary Fiction.
Kovalyk’s early stories are set in Czechoslovakia of the 1970s and 1980s, while her more recent work, for example the novel Žena zo sekáča, depicts post-Communist society gripped by rampant consumerism. Most of her writing focuses on women, and although Kovalyk dislikes labels (saying she prefers them on fridges) she does not mind being referred to as a feminist writer. What feminism means for her is “an urge to seek out female models in history, to write about women’s experiences, and to criticize men and women who abuse power.”
Literary critic Dana Kršáková has said: “Kovalyk’s writing is a kind of rebellion against traditional female stereotypes, conventions and patterns of behavior. . . . Uršuľa Kovalyk focuses on her characters’ inner lives as that is the only area where they can truly unfold. Their true, authentic self is transposed from the real factual world into a world of dreams, visions, and fantasies, which enable her characters to question reality and make it more bearable. The situations, frequently on the verge of dream and reality, are often dangerous and threatening for Kovalyk’s characters, but the closeness of death provides the breakthrough that awakens depressed, apathetic, or resigned women to life.”
The main challenge in translating this story was to maintain a balance of the deceptively simple, matter of fact language and the increasingly surreal and dark narrative.
Julia Sherwood is a freelance translator. In 2011 her translation of Slovak author Daniela Kapitáňová's novel Samko Tále's Cemetery Book was published by Garnett Press.
This introduction is published in conjunction with Counterfeits, the 18th volume of TWO LINES, which includes translations of over 30 international writers. To learn more and order your own copy, visit this page.