Judith Schalansky and Jackie Smith on An Inventory of Losses
‘For me, writing has a lot to do with the desire to explore this diffuse space of longing and make it narratively fruitful.’
With an engaging intensity of feeling, Judith Schalansky's strange and wonderful book pays elegant homage to past beauty now lost to this world. Translated by Jackie Smith.
Each of the pieces within An Inventory of Losses follows the conventions of a different genre, as it considers something that is irretrievably lost to the world. These include: the paradisal pacific island of Tuanaki, the Caspian Tiger, the Villa Sacchetti in Rome, Sappho’s love poems, Greta Garbo’s fading beauty, a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, and the former East Germany’s Palace of the Republic.
Judith Schalansky
About the Author
Judith Schalansky was born in Greifswald in the former East Germany. She works as a freelance writer and book designer in Berlin.
Jackie Smith
About the Translator
Jackie Smith studied German and French at Selwyn College, Cambridge, then undertook a post-graduate diploma in translation and interpreting at the University of Bradford.