Nina Schuyler

When renowned translator Hanne Schubert falls down a flight of stairs, she suffers a brain injury and ends up with an unusual but real condition: the ability to only speak the language she learned later in life: Japanese. Isolated from the English-speaking world, Hanne flees to Japan, where a Japanese novelist whose work she has recently translated accuses her of mangling his work. Distraught, she meets a new inspiration for her work: a Japanese Noh actor named Moto. Through their contentious interactions, Moto slowly finds his way back onto stage while Hanne begins to understand how she mistranslated not only the novel, but also her daughter, who has not spoken to Hanne in six years. Armed with new knowledge languages both spoken and unspoken, she sets out to make amends.

The Translator

When an accident leaves translator Hanne Schubert without the ability to speak her native language she heads to Japan to fight demons from her past and her present after a Japanese novelist accuses her of sabotaging his work.

Afterword

In 1869 Japan, a young woman escapes the confines of her arranged marriage by painting memories of her lover and secretly wrapping the painting around a ceramic pot bound for Europe, where it falls into the hands of a disenchanted young man, in the story of how the lives of four very different characters are transformed by the painting. A first novel.

The Painting

Literary Nonfiction. Writing. Composition. You've got a great story, but do you have great sentences? Stylish sentences have their own powerful energy that mesmerizes and even rearranges a reader's world. Think of this book as a private lesson with Nina Schuyler--award-winning author and professor of creative writing at the University of San Francisco--featuring guest appearances by the masters, including James Baldwin, Grace Paley, John Updike, Saul Bellow, and Toni Morrison. They've arrived to show you the mechanics of their magic. With 25 essays and over 100 writing prompts, HOW TO WRITE STUNNING SENTENCES is the best way to expand your writing style.

How to Write Stunning Sentences

“Schuyler writes with piercing intelligence and real insight into the complex worlds of literary translation and human relationships.” —Ellen Sussman, author of the New York Times bestselling novel French Lessons When renowned translator Hanne Schubert falls down a flight of stairs, she suffers from an unusual but real condition—the loss of her native language. Speaking only Japanese, a language learned later in life, she leaves for Japan. There, to Hanne’s shock, the Japanese novelist whose work she recently translated confronts her publicly for sabotaging his work. Reeling, Hanne seeks out the inspiration for the author’s novel—a tortured, chimerical actor, once a master in the art of Noh theater. Through their passionate, volatile relationship, Hanne is forced to reexamine how she has lived her life, including her estranged relationship with her daughter. In elegant and understated prose, Nina Schuyler offers a deeply moving and mesmerizing story about language, love, and the transcendence of family.

Nina Schuyler

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