And I’m very pleased to report that the exercise is remarkably successful. This collection, however, isn’t actually about the bigger picture, it was instead conceived with a much narrower focus in mind: as a befits a publication from the imprint of the Center for the Art of Translation, its mission is to show, by removing these texts from their natural habitats and plonking them on a stage devoid of context with no illumination but the harsh gaze of the quizzical reader, just how good translations can be. It’s entirely natural for these writers’ characters to be concerned with these issues because they’re issues that worry a vast proportion of the global population, ones that really ought to worry its entirety. In Japan, we’re concerned with radiation, on a remote island in the north Atlantic we’re monitoring plunging seabird populations, Madagascar is being burned to a crisp to further urban expansion… you get the idea, but while the urgency of each of these texts is tangible one never feels the victim of environmental agitprop.
If there’s a common theme to most of these very different texts it is, unsurprisingly in these crisis-stricken times, a heavy emphasis on humanity’s tinkering/altering/ravaging of the natural world. The good news is that in spite, or because, of our fug of ignorance there’s plenty of treasure to be found. Several aspects of the above paragraph might be enough to give prospective readers pause but that would be a shame: when was the last time, even in the company of the most surly bookseller or librarian that you could honestly say that you’ve picked up a book with no idea what to expect? Such is the experience of beginning Elemental we’re entirely at the mercy of this assortment of writers and translators. Thirdly, these reticent editors appear to have (very laudably) gone out of their way to track down texts that weren’t previously available-a little detective work from the copyright page suggests that only Ankomst, by the Norwegian writer Gøhril Gabrielsen has been previously published in English, by Peirene Press-and more disorienting still, only a couple seem to be a stand-alone texts, most are taken from a longer piece. Secondly, it’s an anthology of translated fiction-rare enough in itself-not assembled according to country, region, generation, gender or genre but rather the fairly amorphous concept of the “elements”, a category that might just as easily encompass ancient mystical whimsy as hard-nosed scientific data. Firstly, I can’t remember ever having come across an anthology that doesn’t have an introduction from the editor or editors. Elemental is an unusual publication for several reasons.
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