Naja Marie Aidt: A Reading and Conversation with CJ Evans
The Lab | 2948 16th Street | San Francisco, CA
In collaboration with Litquake we were pleased to welcome author and poet Naja Marie Aidt to The Lab in San Francisco, CA, to discuss her novel, Rock, Paper, Scissors, recently translated by K.E. Semmel for Open Letter. Naja discussed her book with Two Lines Press’s own CJ Evans. Their conversation delved into the book’s plot, the breakdown suffered by its protagonist, the appearance of a Paul Celan poem in the book, the differences between writing poetry and fiction, and Naja’s relationships with her three English translators.
AUDIO TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Introductions
1:20: Reading from Rock, Paper, Scissors by Naja Marie Aidt
9:46 When Naja first decided to become a writer
12:25 How Naja moved into fiction from poetry
16:40 Does Naja take a different approach to writing different genres
19:25 Do you use poetic tools in Rock, Paper, Scissors?
21:54 How Naja controlled information throughout Rock, Paper, Scissors
28:20 The mash-up of literary genres in Rock, Paper, Scissors
42:35 The relationships between characters in Rock, Paper, Scissors
48:04 Paul Celan’s “Death Fugue” in Rock, Paper, Scissors
50:30 Where exactly Rock, Paper, Scissors takes place
54:42 Naja and her translators
58:50 Are translations of Naja’s books still her books
1:04:17 Audience Q & A
Naja Marie Aidt was born in Greenland and raised in Copenhagen. She is the author of seven collections of poetry and five short story collections, including Baboon, which won the 2008 Nordic Council Literature Prize.
CJ Evans is the author of A Penance (New Issues Press) and The Category of Outcast and received the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship and a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship.