Kristiina Drews

I translate literature, mainly fiction but also some drama. The most recent of my translations is There But For The by Ali Smith (in Finnish Oli kerran kello nolla), 2013. I have translated, among others, works by Nadine Gordimer, Julian Barnes, Anne Tyler and Margaret Atwood. In addition, I have together with my colleague Jukka Virtanen translated a dozen musicals. Les Misérables, the very first project in the line of our musical collaboration, is even now being shown in the Tampereen Teatteri and is running for full house.

Here in the Saari Residence, I am concentrating on Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. In Finland, Nabokov is best known as the author of Lolita. Many of his works were translated into Finnish in the 60’ies and 70’ies, but Pale Fire was left unpublished, maybe due to its challenging structure. Pale Fire is a linguistic, literary and historical picaresque, or perhaps detective story, including a long epic poem of 999 lines and a parodic commentary to the poem. The book shows Nabokov’s verbal genius at its most brilliant. My colleague Jukka Virtanen is once again joining me to translate the poem.

Find out more about Kristiina’s work from HERE.