White Moss with Translator Irina Sadovina

About this event

Part of our season of translation.

Join us for an evening discussing art, indigenous writing, translation, community and trust.

Anna Nerkagi’s WHITE MOSS is a poetic and fiercely moving novel of tradition, change and thwarted desire by an internationally celebrated writer from the Indigenous Nenets community of northern Siberia. It’s been expertly translated by Irina Sadovina, one of the few people from the outside world who has been in touch with Anna. We’re lucky enough to have Irina join us to talk not just about the book, but process, politics and how language is fundamentally tied to humanity.

Anna Nerkagi, the author, belongs to the small Indigenous Nenets community and lives totally remotely. As a child, she was separated from her parents by the Soviet authorities and sent to a boarding school, where Indigenous languages and cultural traditions were banned. She published her debut novel, Aniko of the Nogo Clan, in 1977, and in 1980 she returned to the Yamal Peninsula and the nomadic way of life. There she started the Tundra School for Nenets Children, where she still works as a teacher, blending traditional and modern forms of education.

Irina Sadovina translates literature from Russian and Mari. Her translations and writing appeared in publications like Prototype, Meniscus, Calvert Journal, and ellipse. She received the 2021 Australasian Association of Writing Programs Translation Prize and was a 2021-2022 National Centre for Writing Emerging Translator Mentee.

Refreshments included