Excerpt: We Only Live Twice on Words Without Borders!
https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2022-06/we-only-live-twice/
Call Me Nathan
by Catherine Castro and Quentin Zuttion
translated by Evan McGorray
“C’est dimanche. Je scrute les volumes qui s’empilent sur le bord de la fenêtre et forment une petite bibliothèque assez inutile puisque aujourd’hui personne ne viendra m’en faire la lecture. Sénèque, Zola, Chateaubriand, Valery Larbaud sont là à un mètre, cruellement inaccessibles. Une mouche toute noire se pose sur mon nez. Je tortille la tête pour la désarçonner. Elle se cramponne. Les combats de lutte gréco-romaine qu’on a vus aux Jeux olympiques n’étaient pas aussi féroces. C’est dimanche.”
Le scaphandre et le papillon. p.108 Jean-Dominique Bauby
Evan McGorray (they/them), born 14 July, has a visceral connection to the French Language, seeing that they share their birth with la République Française. 14 July, which is also International Non-Binary People's Day, makes it seem as though Evan was born to explore how these two rich topics converge. After obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree with High Honors in French at the University of Cincinnati in 2014, Evan spent two years in France as a Teaching Assistant participating in constructive cultural exchange. Upon their return to the United States, wanting to share their French literary enrichments with friends and family, Evan poured their passions for global and linguistic interchange into translation. The unique perspective that queer Francophone writers and stories have on the intersectionality of language and gender-identity drives Evan, through the art of translation, to share this enlightening approach with English speakers worldwide.
Based in: Rocky River, OH, USA
“It’s Sunday. I scan the volumes that have piled up on the window sill and make up a little useless library; for today no one will come read them to me. Seneca, Zola, Chateaubriand, Valery Larbaud are all a meter away, cruelly inaccessible. A jet-black fly lands on my nose. I writhe my head to buck it off. It hangs on tight. The Greco-roman wrestling matches you’ve seen at the Olympics weren’t this brutal. It’s Sunday.”