Peter Waterhouse
Peter Waterhouse, Vienna, 26 January 2024
“The only thing I remember is the first sentence.”
Autumn 2025 will see the poet and translator Peter Waterhouse release his most immoderate prose work to date: Z YPSILON X, set to weigh in at around 3,000 pages. “I’d actually meant to say as little as possible about this book because it took on such dimensions that I no longer recognize it—nor do I remember how it began. Perhaps that will do as an initial description.” The conversation then turns to a talking hotel, curious notes in the margins of books, a goat from the world of Tolstoy, and questions like: Can one draw any conclusions as to why people acted as willing accomplices in the murderous dislocations of the 20th century by looking at what they read? Can one ever really finish translating a text? And isn’t it mostly the case that reading Shakespeare is more fit for purpose than any staged production replete with directorial fancies?
“The only thing I remember is the first sentence.”
Autumn 2025 will see the poet and translator Peter Waterhouse release his most immoderate prose work to date: Z YPSILON X, set to weigh in at around 3,000 pages. “I’d actually meant to say as little as possible about this book because it took on such dimensions that I no longer recognize it—nor do I remember how it began. Perhaps that will do as an initial description.” The conversation then turns to a talking hotel, curious notes in the margins of books, a goat from the world of Tolstoy, and questions like: Can one draw any conclusions as to why people acted as willing accomplices in the murderous dislocations of the 20th century by looking at what they read? Can one ever really finish translating a text? And isn’t it mostly the case that reading Shakespeare is more fit for purpose than any staged production replete with directorial fancies?