AustLit

'I was offered the opportunity to translate The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas into Czech in November 2010, two years after its original publication in Australia. The offer came from the publishing house Host, a growing and quite prestigious publisher focusing on original Czech poetry and fiction and quality literary translations of various genres. I was considered suitable because I had at the time five translations of full-length novels under my belt. The publishing house also relied upon my knowledge of the Australian context and my ability to conduct research in areas unfamiliar to me as I was a student of comparative literature in a post-graduate programme. Therefore, it entrusted me with a novel as complex and extensive as The Slap. There was also a very personal reason why the publisher picked me: like Tsiolkas, I have Greek ancestry, and the publisher thought that this, in particular, would help me understand the Greek dimension of Tsiolkas’s novel. After The Slap, I also translated Barracuda into Czech in 2014 – the last book by Tsiolkas published in Czech to date.' (Publication abstract)