Dear Ági,
Thank you for sending us your translation of the short story, “The Danube Never Sleeps.” Contrary to its title, our editors grew dozy by the time they had finished reading it. We’d like to apologize for the slight delay in getting back to you—we wanted to give your submission the due consideration it did not deserve. We’re afraid a big part of this had to do with your language: the mostly passive constructions and long-drawn-out clauses made for a dry, almost clinical reading that bored all of us to death, despite an initially interesting premise (the stable boy fleeing his beloved motherland after the Hungarian Revolution, being forced to abandon his native culture in some form of valiant, Western-emulating mentality). Although your work made our shortlist—like every other piece you had previously submitted to us and we declined—we regret to inform you that we’ve decided to pass on it in the end. Regardless, we hope you’ll check out our upcoming Winter 2023 issue, featuring translators whose work is much better than yours. Please don’t feel discouraged from sending us other works in the future. We look forward to declining more of your submissions.
The Editors
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Ági Bori originally hails from Hungary, and she has lived in the United States for more than thirty years. A decade ago, she decided to try her hand at translating and discovered she loved it. She is a fierce advocate for bringing more translated books to American readers. In addition to reading and writing in Hungarian and English, her favorite avocation is reading Russian short stories in their native language. Her translations are available or forthcoming in Apofenie, Asymptote, B O D Y, the Forward, Hopscotch Translation, Hungarian Literature Online, the Los Angeles Review, Litro Magazine, MAYDAY, Northwest Review, Parnasszus, and Rejection Letters. She is a translation editor at the Los Angeles Review.
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image: Blake Wood
Rejection Letters 