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The translator is another residentofTROJICA AIRin Banská Štiavnica.Here are some of her notes fromthe residency.
Tünde Mészáros, atranslatorinto Hungarian, lives inBudapest. She has translated the books ofVeronikaŠikulová,PavolRankov, OndrejŠtefánik,DanielaKapitáňováand others.Last year, whenTünde Mészáros was a residentinBanskáŠtiavnica for the first time, we interviewed her about the project she was working on at the time(Nedeľné šachy s Tisom).You can read the interview here.
Between 16 Februaryand 15 March2021, she has beentranslating anotherbook bySilvesterLavrík:Posledná barónka (The Last Baroness).Here is herjournal entry from thisyear's residency:
It's great to get a residency. And it's even more great to get the residency inBanskáŠtiavnica.But what does a residency mean, actually.It means that one packs her bags and if they're not sufficient, one adds plastic and paper bags – to be chic and elegant is above all else –, one also doesn't forget her laptop, her extra laptop and her anatomical pillow to suit her poor neck. Once in the car, one finds out that the heating is broken and the window doesn't roll down. At the border, one lets a nice lady in a spacesuit clean her right nostril and witha positive mood and a negative text message in her phone, one continues her journey. Oh, the heating is working. And later, so is the heating in the apartment below the black sun and the old castle. Should it not be enough, a liquid, warming gift left and pre-tasted by the previous resident awaits– I'm much obliged.
After that, 30 days oftext-text-text–town–text-text. Snowman–short sleeves–minus-7C-at-night. The-man-from-the-corner-deli–carrots–potato chips –chocolate –text-text-text.
More specifically and almost at all timesPosledná k&k barónka by SilvesterLavrík. I'm trying to find theway, the words,the language. The language doesn't give in too easily, not to whomever tries to touch it up. So I'm still just feeling my way around. But it's OK, there's time untilnext year for the baroness to come out. Come out as a book, I mean.
I don't know about the rest of the text people but I rarely have only one text on my hands. Well, it does happen but only whenI'm forced by a date, a deadline,áő as a salesperson in the deli seven minutes before closing, over a just-mopped floor. So this time, too, I have dabbled into this and that, lyrical, epical, vaccination. For my mother.
Sometimes, some things get finished, too. Last year has all ben covid-ed up so some things have been postponed. They arewaiting in line, quietly: finished, finished, almost finished, soon to be finished.Balko, Forró, Kucbelová, Lavrík. Not that Lavrík, the other one.
And then readers. There could be readers. There could be more of them since both the partisan-activists and the supporting institutions are all activated to bring them literature from their neighbors.
Read your neighbors. And stay awake, people, get vaccinated.
Side toast:
The car window has been fixed. In the car service tucked between the hills above the refreshments stand U Paľa. And I'm leaving behind a bottle of Carpathian wine, still unfinished. Add a red primrose found underneath the castle stairs.Petrklíč, primula, kankalin.
Tünde Mészáros, March 9th,2021, Banská Štiavnica
