#OrendaMonth The Team’s Tree: The Branches (part 1) @OrendaBooks

Now that we met the trunk of the Orenda Books team last week, it is time to take a look at its inspiring and diverse branches!

Just like the Trunk team, authors and translators have been kind enough to give me 5 facts about them. You may wonder why I got this idea. Well, since I started blogging, my relation to book has evolved and now that I see books in their entirety, meaning with their publisher and author, and not just as stories coming out of nowhere. That’s why I thought it would be nice to take a closer look at who is behind the words that transports us by getting details we can’t find in their official biographies. Yep, told you I was nosey! Plus, I realized I never read the biographies and after preparing this post I realized I should start doing so!!

Many authors sent me a little something so I decided to explore the branches in different posts. Meet the first branches today!

What do you know about Louise Beech?

I know she is a lovely woman with a magical way with words. I know I gave her book The Mountain in my Shoe plenty of stars. I know she is a delight to chat with on social media. I know I can’t wait for her next book to come out. I’m ashamed to say it’s way too little information! I have a remedy for that!

I never remember birthdays! Every year, I miss important ones and feel terrible about it. I tried to jot them down in my diary but nope, I am a person who can’t do birthdays.

Louise, I am happy you did not become a nun! The world would have missed out on too gorgeous stories!!!

Now that you’ve seen what Louise has to say about herself, here is her official bio, because this definitely made me want to know more about Louise!

Louise Beech has always been haunted by the sea, and regularly writes travel pieces for the Hull Daily Mail, where she was a columnist for ten years. Her short fiction has won the Glass Woman Prize, the Eric Hoffer Award for Prose, and the Aesthetica Creative Works competition, as well as shortlisting for the Bridport Prize twice and being published in a variety of UK magazines. Louise lives with her husband and children on the outskirts of Hull – the UK’s 2017 City of Culture – and loves her job as a Front of House Usher at Hull Truck Theatre, where her first play was performed in 2012. She is also part of the Mums’ Army on Lizzie and Carl’s BBC Radio Humberside Breakfast Show. How To Be Brave is Louise’s first book. The Mountain in My Shoe was published in 2016.

Great news: her next book will be ours soon!!

Find Louise on Twitter @LouiseWriter

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What do you know about Yusuf Toropov?

I know his book Jihadi had me on the fence on whether or not I would include it to the Orenda Month due to its subject. I was not sure I would be able to review it properly. But I know I really want to read it as it seems to me this is a brilliant and eye-opening piece of work.

Nabokov’s name always gives me a rash, haha! I had never heard of Pale Fire, it somehow escaped my teacher’s biography of the man!

Man, I do want to visit Ireland!

Grace Slick was a cutie! Yes, I had to google her but who cares??

Now off to the official biography!

Yusuf Toropov is an American Muslim writer. He’s the author or co-author of a number of nonfiction books, including Shakespeare for Beginners. His full-length play An Undivided Heart was selected for a workshop production at the National Playwrights Conference, and his one-act play The Job Search was produced off-Broadway. Jihadi: A Love Story, which reached the quarter-finals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, is his first novel. He currently lives in Northern Ireland.

Find Yusuf on Twitter @LiteraryStriver

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What do you know about Kari Dickson?

I know she is the fantastic translator behind the acclaimed Cursed by Thomas Enger. I know that translators don’t get their share of recognition and this is a small thank you for bringing us a fantastic story.

I have always had a weird relation with translating. I see it as an art, and I hate picking a French translation of a book I read in English and see the story and writing butchered by a terrible work. At the same time, I feel I myself could never do justice to an author and his piece, so I left my Translation studies, but I truly admire people like Kari who make it look brilliantly simple and can respect the original piece.

I couldn’t dance even if I was paid for it… I’m a terrible terrible dancer!!

KARI DICKSON read Scandinavian Studies at UCL and then went on to work in various theatres. While working in the theatre, she was asked to do literal translations of two Ibsen plays, which fuelled her interest and led to an MA in Translation at the University of Surrey.  Having worked initially as a commercial translator, she now concentrates on literary translation, a good deal of which is crime fiction. Her translation of Roslund & Hellström’s Three Seconds won the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) International Dagger in 2011. She is also an occasional tutor in Norwegian language and literature, and translation  at the University of Edinburgh.

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It doesn’t matter that I can’t be at the London Book Fair or any book event, those posts make up for the wonderful meetings with authors we can’t always attend 🙂

I would like to send my biggest thanks to all the authors and translators for finding the time to take part in the Orenda Month and for allowing people to get to know them better. Go Team Orenda! 

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