Damion Searls discusses his translation of Nescio’s Amsterdam Stories with novelist Joseph O’Neill

Prominent translator Damion Searls discusses his translation of Nescio’s Amsterdam Stories with novelist Joseph O’Neill (Netherland, winner of the 2009 PEN Faulkner Award), who wrote the introduction for this first English translation.

No one has written more feelingly and more beautifully than Nescio about the madness and sadness, courage and vulnerability of youth: its big plans and vague longings, not to mention the binges, crashes, and marathon walks and talks. No one, for that matter, has written with such pristine clarity about the radiating canals of Amsterdam and the cloud-swept landscape of the Netherlands. They are utterly original stories that contain some of the most luminous pages in modern literature.

Damion Searls has translated many of Europe's greatest writers including Rilke, Proust, Ingeborg Bachmann, Peter Handke, Nescio, Robert Walser, Kurt Schwitters, and Jon Fosse.