Читать книгу The Darkness that Divides Us - Renate Dorrestein - Страница 5

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AUTHOR

‘I want to know what it means to be human, how we can remain a decent person under all circumstances. So I read stories; when you read a book something changes in you. Books have the potential to confront us with things we really know, but do not dare to face. A book has to unsettle, because anxiety causes something, it loosens up things hidden inside us. And this is good.’

TRANSLATOR

‘This book presented two irresistible challenges for a translator. The first: how to convey in English the idiosyncratic, plural voice, the “we” of the amorphous gang of children who turn from being Lucy’s followers to her relentless tormentors. It isn’t until you are charged with translating that slyly subversive child’s view of the world that you understand what a tour de force it was on the author’s part. The second: when the action moves to the Outer Hebrides, I had to take Renate’s Dutch version of the local dialect and deliver it in an actual Scottish brogue, which required some sleight of hand and a fair bit of audacity.’

PUBLISHER

‘Renate Dorrestein masterfully evokes the inner thoughts and feelings of children, as if she herself never ceased to be one. Her characters are lonely and vulnerable, yet at the same time they are courageous survivors. I feel for them as much as I admire her work.’