POETRY TRAVELS with Anna Blasiak and Lisa Kalloo: extract from MOUNTAINISH by Zsuzsanna Gahse, translated by Katy Derbyshire

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A storm raged. Flooded roads, falling rocks, landslides,flowing mud, the news reported. We were warned to steer clear of rivers and watch out for falling rocks and debrison the roads. Disasters in the heavy mountain groups, mountain ridges.

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Sam regretted being unable to rebuild the Alps. He wished he could repair individual peaks, stabilise a good few rockfaces. The Alps aren’t volcanic, he said, so you can’t look down into their maws, they have no gullets. But their gigantic bodies are layered full of caverns, grottoes, shafts, mines, and then there are the tunnels. Sometimes he thought one of the mountains might collapse in on itself, he said, and that happens anyway in the fine detail, not just in the saltworks when the salt miners look for new salt stocks insidea stony belly.

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Astute experts drill their way into the mountains, theyhew the flanks into terraces, know all about rocks and theirveining. Deep down in the mining tunnels of the Limestone Alps slumbers ancient sea salt. A grey shade of pink.

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Exposed to the weather, the sheep of the Salzburg region graze in the mountains. They eat herbs at high altitudes, which makes their meat tasty, so that after their slaughter, generously portioned pieces need only roasting, barelyseasoning. In the oven, basted with a little water since wine or beer would falsify the flavour, the roast takes three slow hours and then you get a lamb-flavoured poem on your plate.

By Zsuzsanna Gahse

Translated by Katy Derbyshire

From Zsuzsanna Gahse’s Mountainish, translated by Katy Derbyshire, published by Prototype Publishing, 2025

Zsuzsanna Gahse, born in Budapest in 1946, has lived in Vienna, Kassel, Stuttgart and Lucerne, and is now based in Müllheim (Switzerland). Her literary work moves between prose and poetry, narrative and scenic texts. She has published more than thirty books, most recently Bergisch teils farblos (2021) and Zeilenweise Frauenfeld (2023), both with Edition Korrespondenzen in Vienna. A number of her stage projects have also been performed. She was awarded the Johann Heinrich Voss Prize of the German Academy in Darmstadt for her translations from Hungarian to German in 2010, and the Swiss Grand Prix for Literature in 2019.

Katy Derbyshire, originally from London, has lived in Berlin for over 20 years. She translates contemporary German writers, including Inka Parei, Heike Geissler, Olga Grjasnowa, Annett Gröschner and Christa Wolf. Her translation of Clemens Meyer’s Bricks and Mortar was the winner of the 2018 Straelener Übersetzerpreis (Straelen Prize for Translation), longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017, and shortlisted for the 2019 Best Translated Book Awards. She occasionally teaches translation and co-hosts a monthly translation lab and the bi-monthly Dead Ladies Show.  She helped to establish the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, awarded annually since 2017.

Photo by Lisa Kalloo

Check out the Poetry Travels book list on bookshop.org.

Read previous poems in the Poetry Travels series:

THE BEGINNING OF AUGUST by Silvia Choleva, translated by Kaloyan Ignatovski

HOW TO HOLD YOUR BREATH by Hasib Hourani

SALVO by Charline Lambert, translated by John Taylor

CATS BORN IN WALUTS by Tiziano Fratus, translated by Eleonora Matarrese

CYBORG by Volker Braun, translated by Karen Leeder and David Constantine

AVATAR by Laura Fusco, translated by the author and Alan Dent

SCATTERED by Floriana Ferro, translated by the author

OX AND MANDARIN // A COMPENDIUM by Milla van der Have

ROYAL PEACOCK by Veroniki Dalakoura, translated by John Taylor