Translator Damion Searls on Aliss at the Fire by Norwegian Author Jon Fosse

Called “the new Ibsen” in the German press, and heralded throughout Western Europe, Jon Fosse is one of contemporary Norwegian literature’s most important writers. In 2000, his novel Melancholy won the Melsom Prize, and Fosse was awarded a lifetime stipend from the Norwegian government for his future literary efforts.

Aliss at the Fire‘s translator Damion Searls is interviewed by the Center’s Scott Esposito on this book. Searls is a translator from German, Norwegian, French, and Dutch and a writer in English. He has translated many of Europe’s greatest writers, including Proust, Rilke, Robert Walser, Ingeborg Bachmann, Thomas Bernhard, Kurt Schwitters, Peter Handke, Jon Fosse, and Nescio, edited a new abridged edition of Thoreau’s Journal, and produced a lost work of Melville’s.