Musings of a Babylon Lurker

Impressions from Eurocon 2007 (5)

Sunday, September 30th, 2007 | Eurocon, books, events

Sunday : Anne McCaffrey and Zoran Zivkovic readings :

Anne McCaffrey chose to read the short story “The Ship Who Sang” (is the title afaik) , a beautiful and very emotional story that I had not yet heard or read. The story, she told, was written in response to the too early death of a close relative, and she told the audience that this was the first time she could read through the story without breaking down.

For me the surprise of Sunday was the reading of Zoran Zivkovic from Serbia. A BBC recording of his story about a conversation with God (though strictly speaking not quite Science Fiction) was very humorous, and I will try to get some more of his work for reading.

Finally a talk by Lene Kåberbøl, a Danish author of childrens books and fantasy books. What she said about the role of translators of stories struck a cord with me, since I have attempted such a thing myself – and know some of the difficulties of making a good translation – not of the words – but of the essence of the story.

1 Comment to Impressions from Eurocon 2007 (5)

Jesper Rugård
October 3, 2007

I never got to hear Zoran read, but I saw the movies based on his Collector novel. And they kind of grew on me. The first one seemed very simple – on the point of not being about anything, but the repetitions, and variations made them better and better. And they also got funnier the more I watched. Nice work. I bought two his books I am really looking forward to reading.

I also really like Lene Kaaberbøl as a speaker, and I liked her “Skammer” series. i wasn’t that thrilled about the “Skyggelandet”. The world seemed card-board like to me, the plot itself was nicely executed, but the world seemed shallow.

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