University of Nottingham
The Hemsley (Staff Club), room B2, University Park, NG7 2RD
A Slovene Encounter in Nottingham: Jela Krečič and Olivia Hellewell
Encounters: Writers and Translators in Conversation
We are very happy and proud to announce that our very own Phd student Olivia Hellewell has translated a Slovene novel by author Jela Krečič, entitled None like her ('Ni druge'), into English. Jela Krečič and Olivia Hellewell will come together in front of an audience to read from and discuss Jela's debut novel in English translation, allowing an insight into the working relationship between author and translator, as well as discussing practical and theoretical aspects of translation.
Jela Krečič Žižek is a Slovene journalist, columnist and philosopher. Her 2015 literary debut Ni Druge (None Like Her) tells the story of Matjaž, a photographer who embarks on an odyssey of dates around the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana in an attempt to prove that he has moved on from his previous love. The women he meets are wildly different from one another, and the interactions of the characters are perspicuously and memorably observed. Their preoccupations – drawn with coruscating dialogue – capture the mood and challenges of Slovenia’s Generation Y, and in Matjaž, the hero, Jela Krečič has created a well-observed crypto-misogynist of the twenty-first century, whose behaviour she offers up for the reader’s scrutiny. None Like Her appears in English for the first time, published by Istros Books and Peter Owen Publishers, as part of their World Series collaboration.
Olivia Hellewell is a literary translator and PhD student with the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies and the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham. Her PhD research explores the socio-cultural functions of translated literature in Slovenia, looking at image-making through translation since Slovenia’s declaration of independence in 1991. Olivia has previously translated short stories, poems and literary extracts including the prize-winning Dry Season by Gabriela Babnik for the European Commission’s EU Prize for Literature. None Like Her by Jela Krečič marks her full-length literary translation debut.
All are very welcome to join! Slovene wine will be served, kindly provided by the Slovenian Embassy in London.
This is event is sponsored by Beletrina Academic Press, the Centre for Slovene as a Second/Foreign Language at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana and the Embassy of Slovenia in London.