Rights sold to North Macedonia
Kim Simonsen’s Nordic Council Literature Prize nominated book: Lívfrøðiliga samansetingin í einum dropa av havvatni minnir um blóðið í mínum æðrum has been sold to North Macedonia.
The Macedonian publisher PNV has bought the rights to the book, to be translated by Julijana Velichkovska.
The publisher Verksmiðjan say about the book:
What is the philosophy of fish? Did trees see us when we were children? Do mushrooms care for us? Here all imaginable living beings meet in their diversity around the sea as an element, water, origin of life, and death. The transience of existence is woven into a cosmic whole of waves, sea, and life and death, where humanity's relationship to the world, the sea within us, and humanity's relationship to water are examined. The book revolves around death, specifically the death of the self's father. How can we narrate life after death, seen through loss and love in a meeting with invasive birds, insects, bacteria, fungi, and viruses? What is the connection between us, the things we cannot see? The work poses questions rather than providing answers. The book thinks with other literature, medical science, and Greek mythology about humans, death, the biological abundance of life we find ourselves in and are ourselves, and the sea as an element. Thus, it is the stories we tell stories with that matter, to quote Donna Haraway. What can we learn from microscopic things, a square meter of wildlife in a frozen lawn, or a small part of a beach after a storm in the North Atlantic? This is a lyrical journey among overlooked and precarious life forms, where the sea is mirrored in everything, the unimaginably small and in a cosmic whole, where everything begins and ends, in the sea.
The nominating committee from the Nordic Council Literary Prize wrote about the book:
With this work, he’s managed to create a work and a language about grief and sorrowful father-son relationships that transcend the familial and the private, and never become either bitter or sentimental. It’s a strong eco-poetic work that allows the reader to accompany the poet in his quietly existential journey. Kim Simonsen’s Lívfrøðiliga samansetingin í einum dropa av havvatni minnir um blóðið í mínum æðrum is a consistent, wise, poetic, and impressively good poetry collection.
About Verksmiðjan: the publisher Verksmiðjan is dedicated to showcasing diverse voices and narratives that challenge and inspire readers.
About the translator Julijana Velichkovska: she is a poet, writer, editor and translator. PNV Publishing have also previously published two books by Bárður Oskarsson and one by Kim Simonsen as well.
