Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, “The Poetics of Titles,” in Countries That Don’t Exist: Selected Nonfiction
Countries That Don’t Exist took shape at the IU symposium Planting the Flag: The Nonfiction of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky in 2016, where I got to play in the translation sandbox with some of the best literary translators in the field. What a delight! Our “translators’ collective” owes a large debt of thanks to Jacob and Sasha for shepherding this volume through to publication, as well as for their erudite, generous, and meticulous editing.
“Consider the kernel, unfurling its steadily increasing, elongating leaves as it grows; in this way the title, too, slowly opens out, leaf by leaf, into a book. That’s what a book is: a title that’s completely unfurled, whereas a title, in turn, is a book condensed to the size of a few words. Rather: a title is a book in restricto, while a book is a title in extenso.”
— from “The Poetics of Titles”
Read my craft essay on translating the witty wordplay of “The Poetics of Titles,” published in 2017 in Delos, here!