LONGLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE

Do you ever feel like you’re not speaking the same language?

Swedish immigrant Kristin won’t talk about her pregnancy. Her Brazilian-born Scottish boyfriend Ciaran won’t speak English at all; he is trying to immerse himself in a språkbad or ‘language bath’, covering their Edinburgh apartment in post-it notes to teach himself Swedish.

As this young couple is forced to confront the thing that they are both avoiding, they must reckon with the bigger questions of the world outside, and their places in it.

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‘A novel brimming with ideas and promise.’

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‘Unique and playful.’

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‘Jessica Gaitán Johannesson has a very fresh voice that packs everything with so much new meaning that you won’t think about language or communication the same way again … I’ve never read anything quite like How We Are Translated before, but I very much hope that Gaitán Johannesson will follow her debut with more of the same.’

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‘An incredibly creative, entertaining, and thought-provoking novel … fizzing with ideas, wry humour, and linguistic contradictions.’

"‘A novel that you might end up reading in one sitting … this is writing with breathing space, with room for the ever-shifting spectrum of life.’" - Bath Magazine

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‘Eccentric, but likeable ... In Gaitán Johannesson’s novel, Swedish words and phrases appear in one column with their English translation in another ... The innovation is effective. The way a foreign word looks, together with its literal translation, seems to tell us something specific, not only about another culture but about humanity generally.’

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‘This is an excellent book for those who love Edinburgh, the oddities of language, and other people’s drama. One of the best books that I have read recently. It is full of moments which would be pivotal in anyone’s life and they are described with the kind of dry self-deprecation I can't help but adore.’

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‘Johannesson's tender and madcap debut explores themes of family, history, and language [with] a spiritedness reminiscent of the work of Elizabeth McKenzie … a delightful romp.’

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‘Concepts of ethnicity, intimacy, and identity are woven into Jessica Gaitán Johannesson’s quirky, contemplative novel … Poignant, perceptive, and clever, How We Are Translated is a novel about the human beings who exist beyond ideals of diversity, and about the emotional implications of language.’

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‘Well-written.’

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‘How We Are Translated is a gentle and meditative look at relationships—romantic, cultural, familial. Gaitán Johannesson creates a soft world populated by simultaneously mundane and quirky characters. This is a tender story handled with soft, deft hands.’

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‘Fans of Anne Carson and Maggie Nelson will like How We Are Translated. This is a beautiful book, both inside and out … a meditation on self: how a self is both lost and found in language and translation, and how a self is both lost and found in the body and all the body, especially the female body, can and can’t do.’