Sabine Richter - Translator of the Month

What would you be if you weren’t a translator?

I have always been passionately interested in people, by their multifarious stories and the choices they had to make: When visiting our children’s library for the very first time, as a seven year old, it was clear to me: I wanted to be a librarian! It would allow me to spend every day surrounded by books and read all the time, immerse myself, learn more, become wiser.

At the age of eight, I started going to the cinema with the children from my neighbourhood – that time a thousand years ago of course, without my parents: It was then I discovered a new profession: Cinema ticket inspector! And it meant that I got to see all the great movies, sometimes even repeatedly! Perfect!

At the age of twelve, I walked elatedly out of a German class where our beloved Ms. Löschner, an very elegant and refined lady who wore long skirts and amber necklaces with her hair up, had taught the North German writer Theodor Storm’s novella “Der Schimmelreiter” (1888. In English: The Rider on the White Horse), and I began to understand what literature as an art form could mean: experiences, insight, happiness! And then I thought: Hmm, writer or teacher (done) and literature lecturer (done) and communicator (done)?

And then in the years that followed I thought about becoming a prompter in the theatre, an actor, bookseller (done) a guide (done), an interpreter (done). Well, everything is connected to literature, storytelling and people, right? It could be that I’ll have to reinvent myself yet again. Is that enough of an answer?

What question should we have asked you?

If you asked me what fiction books I have read in the last few years and which of them have made a deep impression on me, I would recommend reading, for example, the following wonderful and inspiring texts:

- German W. G. Sebald Die Ringe des Saturn, 1995, (translated into Norwegian by Geir Pollen as Saturns ringer and into English by Michael Hulse as The Rings of Saturn.)

- Austrian Robert Seethaler Ein ganzes Leben, 2014, (translated into Norwegian by Ute Neumann as Et helt liv and into English by Charlotte Collins as A Whole Life.)

- German Dörte Hansen Zur See, 2022.

- Norwegian Margreth Olin Song til mor, 2024.

- Norwegian Kjersti Anfinnsen’s De siste kjærtegn, (The Last Signs of Love, 2019), and Øyeblikk for evigheten (Moments for Eternity, 2021) translated into more than 12 languages so far, but to my amazement not yet into English.

NB! A secret tip for all literature lovers, whatever their native language or geographical background – I had the great pleasure of translating Anfinnsen’s two novels into German for the Austrian publisher Septime in Vienna, who published them in one volume under the title Letzte zärtliche Augenblicke this January. This is, in my opinion, existential, beautiful literature that will be read for years to come.

Read more

Learn more about Sabine on Books from Norway.

Those of you who understand Norwegian can read her interview in full here.

See also other translators interviewed in the Translator of the Month series.