Abigail Wender : part one

Abigail Wender’s poetry collection, Reliquary, was published in February 2021 (Four Way Books). Her translation from the German of The Bureau of Past Management, Iris Hanika’s award-winning novel, was published in October 2021 (V & Q Books). Poetry and translations were published or are forthcoming in Asymptote, Bodega, The Cortland Review, Disquieting Muses Quarterly, Epiphany, Kenyon Review Online, Massachusetts Review, New Orleans Review, No Man’s Land, SWIMM, Tupelo Quarterly, among others. She lives in New York City.

Photo credit: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

What are you working on?

I’m working on a translation of a new German novel by Iris Hanika called Echo’s Chambers. Our first effort, The Bureau of Past Management, was published in the Germany and the UK in October 2021. Hanika is a poetic fiction writer, and there is a lot of poetry in her work. This book begins, for example, with a 1937 poem by Daniil Charms. It floored me—I’ll be looking for more of his work. The poem begins:

“Is there anything in the world that has meaning and might even change the course of events, not only on Earth but also in other worlds?” I asked my teacher.
“Yes,” answered my teacher.
“And what is it?” I asked.
“It is…” began my teacher and suddenly fell silent.