Join us this Sunday, December 12 at 5pm for a virtual reading and conversation with Hanne Ørstavik and translator Martin Aitken, hosted by City of Asylum! They’ll be joined by Nicole Rudick to discuss The Pastor, Ørstavik’s novel out with Archipelago in a new translation from Aitken.

This event will stream live on Crowdcast. You can find the link to register here.

With the publication of The Pastor, “Ørstavik distinguishes herself as a leading light in international literature,” Publishers Weekly wrote.

Hanne Ørstavik, one of the most admired and prominent writers in contemporary Norwegian fiction, published her first novel Cut in 1994. Ørstavik has written a number of acclaimed novels that have been translated into more than 16 languages. She has been awarded a host of literary prizes, including the Dobloug Prize, presented annually for Swedish and Norwegian fiction by the Swedish Academy. The English translation of Love was a finalist for a National Book Award. Ørstavik’s novel Te Amo is forthcoming with Archipelago Books.

Martin Aitken has translated numerous novels from Danish and Norwegian, including works by Karl Ove Knausgaard, Peter Høeg, Helle Helle, and Kim Leine. In 2012, he was awarded the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Translation Prize. The National Book Foundation wrote of his translation of Love, “The aerial beauty of Martin Aitken’s translation contributes to make the novel a successful rarity.” His translation won the PEN Translation Prize.

Nicole Rudick is an independent writer and editor based in New York. She has been an editor at The Paris Review, Artforum, and Bookforum. In 2018, she served as interim editor of The Paris Review. In 2015, Rudick won the prestigious ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award for editing Sam Stephenson’s Paris Review essay on John Coltrane’s biographer, Dr. Cuthbert Simpkins. She is currently at work on a visual life of the artist Niki de Saint Phalle, which will be published in early 2022 by Siglio Press.