The Eichler fellows reacted with either defensiveness or contempt. Those who sometimes lamented their could-have-been UN pensions, this time rallied to literature’s defense: “Stories are the midwives of empathy! A thousand tracts on poorhouses did less than one copy of Oliver Twist.” The more satirical translators raised a boisterous toast, “To us, the IMF.” But whereas her colleagues let themselves be provoked, or made a fuss of not taking the bait, Katya discounted the insult. The man’s metaphors were messy; his concerns were full of bycatch. She recommended that students like him drop her graduate class. So while the others at her table drew their outrage out, Katya used the minutes to think of the most resonant English approximate for Brun’s “les soi-limites.”

A saga translator won the jury prize. She made a very few remarks about the fatalism of Ragnar Lodbrok’s death song.

The man’s metaphors were messy; his concerns were full of bycatch. She recommended that students like him drop her graduate class.

The next day, after a short preface sketching her theory of Translator as Microscope, Katya read the fulcrum chapter, which ricocheted dizzyingly between the girl, the man, and the unembodied, but suggestedly female narrator. The crowd was thinner than she might have wished, due to her loss of the jury prize, but nonetheless the first comment in the Q&A was an accolade for being “the American amanuensis of such an original elucidator of the individual consciousness.”

The second comment came from the abdicator of the New Voice in Translation Prize, who was sitting in the middle of a row of girls and boys, all of whom had haircuts like reckless potted plants. He said, “I’d like to know your thoughts on the work of Yannick Ibrahim, please.”

She replied equably that she did not know Ibrahim’s work.

“I see. Then please tell me your opinion of Miriam Djannou.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know her work either.”

“Astonishing. You don’t know the work of Ibrahim and Djannou, when all of France is riveted, and repeats their rhymes, and blazons their couplets in subway tunnels? But you do know the work of some grande bourgeoise who eats plums out of season and bilks her gardener?”

Katya had never, in fact, seen Yolande eat any kind of fruit.

“Next question, please,” said the moderator.

A female companion of the non-New Voice piped up. She waved the French edition. “I have to take issue with your translation of the word ‘farouche’ as ‘shy,’ referring to the protagonist. You must be aware that farouche has a second register, ‘savage,’ which opens depths and sows danger in the original French text, and which was the locus of a provocative critique of the book in France. Since you’ve spoken about your scrupulous attention to word choice, ‘shy’ can’t be an accident. So my question is, why did you block this avenue of criticism?”