Queer literature – “research what you feel like – and sleep a lot!”

You have translated the novel “Lote” by Shola by Reinhold from English. It deals with the young black mentally worker Mathilda Adamarola and the historic black poet Hermia third. The two separate a century, but it also connects a lot, right? Can you briefly introduce us to the protagonists?

Mathilda lives in London’s present, as a marginalized person outside and contrary to the institutions on their own archive searches to their so-called transcinations: queer people from the history with whom she feels such a deep, trans-historical connection that in the best sense you run a shiver over your back. One of these transcinations is Hermia third, a black poet from British modernism. In fact, she didn’t exist, it is a fiction of the novel – but what does that mean? Maybe she or someone like her. The novel asks the question of the forgotten presence of black people and especially artists in Europe in the past centuries. The novel tries to fill the gaps in historiography speculatively, fictional and fragmented.

Interview

Lisa Jay Jeschke is a translator from the English and poet and lives after a long stay in Great Britain in Munich. Jeschke is interested in poetry as a subculture, language work and place that is open to everyone who needs a break. Last poetry publication: (Critical Documents, London 2024).

Now Mathilda is not made her work easy: Right at the beginning of the book, the gatekeeper does not want to let her in the archive – her workplace – because in his opinion it does not look like someone who belongs in such a place. It seems too eccentric in its appearance. What role do eccentric appearance, eccentric clothing in the novel?

A big role! Mathilda and Hermia dress eccentric. And again and again it is pointed out that this is a transgression that black people are not actually allowed. In order to say it: What is “eccentric” for the white aristocracy is quickly devalued in black people as “madness”. Even in an expanded sense, detailed and indulgent descriptions of fashion, hairstyles, interior lining, architecture are important for the novel. Because the western history of the intellectual history of Plato to Hegel to the modernism of Adolf Loos has repeatedly seen ornament, excess and play as a mere decoration and also associated and devalued Misogyn with femininity. On the other hand, the novel sets a celebration of the surface, also of beauty and luxury – a recovery from a precarious position.

To stay with the description art you mentioned: You write poetry in German and in English and have experience in translating poems. What are the challenges for you when translating “Lote”? Did you get in touch with the author?

First of all, there are relatively many overlaps between our interests, in how feminism can also be articulated about the form, on writing from a trans position, perhaps on a trans-aesthetic anti-capitalism, and must imported, we are both fans of queer British modernisms! On the other hand, it was good again that we were writing in different genres, I couldn’t just put my letter over it, but I had tackled the matter with respect for the distances between us. This also affects the fact that I am not a person of color. So such a careful navigation between closeness and distance and then also between autonomy – intended as trust – and translation as a collective work. I was in contact with Shola and in the end we exchanged ourselves for some questions. Likewise, the cooperation with my editor Utku Mogultay and the publisher was important. As a Pollesch-Echo: Yes, nobody works alone!

Let’s go back to the beginning, but stay in production: the title “Lote” is an acronym. Do you want to spell it out briefly? And also throw a few sneakers on the plot? Among other things, the novel plays in an artist residence – such literary production locations do not come into account as often in the literature itself.

The novel deals with what could mean this mysterious acronym “Lote” all the time, which is also fun to follow the different turns. But shortened: Mathilda finds out that Hermia lived in an indefinite continental European place called Dun for a while and belonged there together with other admirers of aesthetics and decadence of a secret company called Lote. I just notice that for the exact meaning I would have to take out so long that it would be worth a whole article – so I would like to leave this puzzle work to the reader!
In any case, it is the case that Mathilda encounters a current Residency in Dun in her research on Hermia, is applying and being accepted there. She has no idea what it is about, but since she is bankrupt, she drives to this town. An attitude is emphasized again and again, according to which you somehow exploits the scholarship, in the sense of: take cultural funding, meet the minimum of official conditions, research what you feel like – and sleep a lot!

The Scottish author Shola von Reinhold also affords some likeable extravagances compared to the stubborn literary company: “Shola von Reinhold” is probably not her pass name, she indicates the date of birth in 1892, claimed that he has danced at the Bolschoi ballet for 100 years. This game with the biography may also be a queer criticism of the grant that many young authors from professionals print as a biography list their awards, indicate the same courses, ultimately disappear behind markers, which only mean: this person is very qualified.

Yes, in this respect I can’t say much more about Reinhold Shola – or I don’t want to be because that would be exactly about this setting! This denial of a fixed bourgeois identity comes in in the novel itself via the concept of the so-called escapade: For various reasons, several protagonists change the name and the entire social environment again and again, try to free themselves from a pre-determined biography. Queen logics play a role, but also class questions-and it is always negotiated how almost as possible it is to pull through an escapade. But only almost, because on the other hand, solidarities always form to support each other. Yes, I hadn’t realized that yet: that it is also a novel of friendship – accomplice!

Shola by Reinhold: Lote. A. d. English v. Lisa Jay Jeschke. Merve, 456 p., Br., 25 €.