TE22 Potpourri

You’re Not Dying (novel excerpt) Kathrin Schmidt Translated from German by Christina Les

In the blink of an eye There’s a clattering all around her. When her sister got married, their mother had put all the silver cutlery in a metal bowl lined with foil. Then poured in hot salty water. After a while the clean cutlery was taken out of the bowl and dried, and it had clattered just like this. Who’s getting married then? She tries to open her eyes. Nothing doing. She doesn’t attempt anything else. Enough for now. But she can very clearly hear hermother’s voice. Aha, so it is the cutlery! What’s her mother saying? ‘The right hand’s a lot colder than the left, though,’ she’s saying, ‘and the right foot’s the same.’ Why is her mother’s right hand cold? she wonders. And can’t help smiling, imagining her checking the temperature of her feet.

[Author Kathrin Schmidt speaks all about her experience which went into writing this novel in the November 7, 2021 episode of Women in Translation on Trafika Europe Radio—includes excerpts (45-minute audio).]

‘She’s laughing!’ says her mother.

‘It’s just her face twitching.’

Kathrin Schmidt

Did her father say that? Yes, that was definitely her father’s 41