Jente Posthuma & Sarah Timmer Harvey Q&A

JENTE: Do you remember when you slid into my DMs?

SARAH: I do! I remember using my now-deleted twitter account to slide into your DMs, so sadly, I no longer have access our original correspondence. Sliding into people's DMs isn't something I regularly do but I was just so compelled to reach out to you after reading What I'd Rather Not Think About, and we had some mutual friends so I thought I would shoot my shot. However, it wasn't the first novel of yours I'd wanted to translate. I read People with No Charisma back when I was still in grad school and was only just discovering how much I loved translation. I started out by translating poetry but PWNC was the first novel I felt I wanted to translate. I didn't get the chance to work on it back then, which is why it feels extra special to me to finally be sharing People with No Charisma with the world. I never asked you but how does it feel to have your work translated into so many languages? And was the process of working with a translator what you expected it to be?

JENTE: Getting translated has always been a wish of mine, so now that it’s actually happening, all I can say is: it feels really good. In the Netherlands I can sometimes feel a bit exposed when all eyes are on me, because my work is so personal. Strangely enough, I don’t feel that way when the attention comes from abroad – even though that actually means more eyes. My experiences with translators really depend on the language. Sometimes my role is minimal and other times I’m deeply involved in the process. Actually, that’s only ever happened with you. You’re my first translator, and the only one I’ve worked with so closely. It’s a unique connection. I don’t have long conversations with anyone else about question marks – I don’t like question marks – or about the difference in hairstyles between mechanics in the U.S. and in the Netherlands. Do you always collaborate this closely with authors?

SARAH: Your reference to our conversation about hairstyles of mechanics in various countries made me laugh! That was definitely one of my favourite exchanges we've had. You are absolutely the author I work with most closely and the one I laugh with the most. My preference is always to collaborate where possible, I like to hear the way a writer speaks and understand their thought patterns. And I find it useful to hear directly from the writer how their characters sound to them. Of course, there have been a couple of writers who were too busy to field questions or didn't speak enough English to want to weigh in my translation. And I totally respect that. In a way, it's the ultimate form of letting go. I've only had my fiction translated once, into Finnish (which I don't speak or read) by the brilliant Finnish Playwright Ellie Salo. It was so valuable for me to know what it felt like from the other side.

The upside of a good collaboration is that it always pushes any project to another level, and there are few things better than the energy of a thriving creative partnership. As far as downsides, I don't see many. Maybe, it's that a lot of Dutch writers and editors speak excellent English but don't realize that what they speak and write is most often a form of Euro English, which has its own distinct vocabulary, grammatical quirks, and syntax. There is also a Dutch form of English or "Dinglish" that I actually really love and wish I got to play with more in my translations. But neither of these Englishes are the British or American English that I am usually asked to translate into. So, I spend a lot of time explaining to Dutch writers and editors that their suggestion won't work in our target English, or that a word has a slightly different meaning in this region or time, or we can't replicate that exact sentence structure because it will read like a grammatical error or a typo rather than a cool experiment. Sometimes this slows down the editing process, and I don't like having to tell people that I'm unable to take on their suggestions. 

But on the other hand, it's good to hear what comes up for any person that reads my work. There's value in revisiting particular choices in translation and being able to explain why I made them. People are often surprised to learn how much time and thought I put into every sentence I translate. I know that in the past you’ve said that you write very slowly. Is that still the case, or is your process changing?

JENTE: No, unfortunately that’s still the case. I find it incredibly hard to get myself to start, and then to keep going. Getting into a flow just isn’t something I know. I wrote People with No Charisma in between watching reality shows, scrolling social media and searching online for nice sweaters. My procrastination behavior has become less panicky though, compared to when I started writing years ago. And I’ve come to accept watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, New York City, Salt Lake City and Orange County as part of the process (I just treat it as work now). Still, I really want to be more productive. At the moment I’m working on a memoir and when people ask me what it’s about I say ‘fear’. When I try to be more specific, I end up with words like fear of writing or existential dread, and I suddenly feel very tired. Sometimes I say it’s about my fear of what lives inside me, and the ways I try to run from it. But actually, this book is also about charisma. Charisma doesn’t have to manifest itself in some exuberant way, as the mother in People with No Charisma rather insistently tells her daughter it should. For me, it begins with not hiding myself, not shrinking and not puffing myself up, which is just another form of hiding. This is a cliché, but to find a way outward I must get over myself. Writing is a way to get over myself.

SARAH: It takes a lot of work to get over yourself as a creative! You have to be incredibly brave to put any kind of creative work out for public consumption. Especially now, when every piece of criticism lives on the internet forever and even the critiques that are ridiculous or misinformed stay attached to your name. It's hard to detach from the noise and to learn which criticisms are valid and deserve a thoughtful response. I will say that I'm really glad not to be on Twitter/X anymore. I had my largest social media following on that platform, but complete strangers have tweeted some truly vile things about me and my work. Now I just have a private Instagram and I'm really careful about who follows me. I'm also on Bluesky, which seems a little kinder and more supportive, though I'm not super active. 

I'm a pretty private person and generally don't share my personal life in the public sphere. I don't love the idea that everyone should have access to you all the time. A lot of writers, translators, and artists in every discipline feel the pressure to be constantly online and engaging with followers, but that is a full-time job in itself, and it takes you away from whatever it is you're creating. I know you're on an Instagram hiatus at the moment, while you write your new book, and I really admire that. It's important to protect your energy and creative space. I'm curious to hear how it felt for you when People with No Charisma first came out in 2016. It was your first novel and I’ve always wondered how you experienced that. Were there any reactions that surprised you?

JENTE: Pretty much all the reactions to my book surprised me. I hadn’t expected it to draw that much attention at all. And people genuinely understood the book. That was hugely encouraging. At that time, I was already 41. At 28, I did make a first attempt at a novel. I went to Paris for a month and came back with pretentious rambling about Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin. I really had no idea who I was yet. Only around thirty-five did I try again (not in Paris), and suddenly I found the right tone. I think I felt from a young age that I had to write, even when I still wanted to be a backup singer for Tina Turner, but I denied my ambition because I thought I couldn’t do it. In the end, of all the reactions to my debut novel, my own reaction surprised me the most. Because of the strong response to my book, I suddenly realized how cut off I had always felt from the world around me, as if I didn’t belong to it. That had changed. Before People with No Charisma, I moved through life rather aimlessly. The protagonist does that too, though I only recognized this after I had finished the book.

Fear can cause you to shut yourself off from others, making you feel less involved. That was how it worked for me, though I didn’t see it at the time. I wasn’t afraid of a natural disaster, or the growing influence of fascism, or a terrorist attack. After all, I felt outside of it all. But I would break out in a sweat if I ran into a vague acquaintance at the supermarket or if an unknown number called me. I was afraid of being seen. A week after the book came out in 2016, I said in an interview that I wasn’t very engaged, but as I was saying it I realized that it was no longer true. Publishing my first book made me feel present in the world in a way I hadn’t before. And with that came a growing awareness of my position in that world, and of the role you can take on within it as a writer.

Not that I’m entirely purposeful now. I’d love to be the kind of person that withdraws completely when that’s what writing requires and then throws herself back into life. But I keep finding myself somewhere in between. Yes, I took a break from social media to focus on my writing, but then my husband and I found a new apartment, so now we’re moving and all I can think about is floor insulation and built-in storage. There’s always new chaos to manage. How are you with chaos, how does it affect you?

SARAH: I'm generally not a very chaotic person, but, you know, these are chaotic times. Living in the US, I'm particularly conscious of how much impact the daily news cycle can have on my stress levels. I'm usually good with deadlines too, but last year, when I was working on People with No Charisma, things got a little messy. After being shortlisted for the International Booker Prize with you for What I'd Rather Not Think About, I was suddenly flooded with requests and offers of work. I said yes to everything, thinking I was never going to get all these opportunities again. At the same time, a family member passed away and it took longer to recover from that than I'd anticipated. This meant that some of the scenes in People with No Charisma were emotionally intense for me to translate. But it didn’t occur to me to take a break, instead I worked through most weekends and until late at night, trying to give everything enough attention. At some point, one of my eyes kept twitching uncontrollably and I realized I was pretty close to a burn out. 

This year, I've been saying no a lot more, doing less work for free or reduced fees, and resisting the pressure to work faster and harder. Instead, I’ve been trying to rest and make sure I read for pleasure, not just work. And I’m trying to be less serious, spending time with people who make me laugh. Luckily, your work always makes me laugh. Recently, I was in Australia – my home country – for a few weeks and I realized how much humour is woven into almost every interaction there. It used to annoy me when I was younger, I longed for a more serious, “literary” milieu. I thought that being an intellectual meant perpetual seriousness, but now I really appreciate that levity. This is probably why I'm so drawn to your work. The way you infuse even the heaviest of scenes with humour and absurdity feels very familiar and authentic to me, maybe that's why we work so well together.