The publication of Egana Djabbarova’s My Dreadful Body by New Vessel Press earlier this year is an important contribution to feminist russophone literature available to readers in English translation. Following the excerpt from this novel we published recently from the opening of the seventh chapter, “Tongue,” we’re taking the opportunity to dive a little deeper into the context, structure, and language of this remarkable book in our interview with its translator, Lisa C. Hayden. We are deeply grateful to Hayden, who also brought to anglophone readers books by Guzel Yakhina, Margarita Khemlin, Narine Abgaryan, Marina Stepnova, and Katerina Gordeeva, among others, for insights into her translation work.

Olga Zilberbourg: What considerations went into your decision to translate My Dreadful Body?

Lisa Hayden: The simplest answer is that I enjoyed the book and had a very clear sense of the narrative voice during my first reading. Clarity and enjoyment are always my initial cues to take a translation project. There were other factors, too, including the fact that Azerbaijan, a country I visited several times during the 1990s, features in this novel. And then there’s Egana herself, with her angles on feminism and family strife. The health themes interested me, too, since I used to write, as a freelancer, articles about drug discovery and medical devices. Among other things, I’d long wanted to translate a book for New Vessel Press. All the emotions flowing through Egana’s text felt stronger to me with each draft, telling me I’d made the right decision. I was nearly in tears by the time I finally read the version I turned in to New Vessel. And again when I read an advance copy of the book. I’d never received a printed advance copy of a translation before My Dreadful Body and it was a very moving experience to hold a book I’d translated before the book was finalized.

Olga Zilberbourg: Djabbarova first came to literature as a feminist poet. She has published three collections of poetry in Russian (as well as novels), and in English her work has appeared in F Letter: New Russian Feminist Poetry, edited by Galina Rymbu, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Ainsley Morse. Did her poetry affect your approach to this translation?  

Lisa Hayden: There is a bit of poetry in My Dreadful Body, so Egana’s poetry definitely affected my translation work! It was especially interesting (and challenging, since I rarely translate poetry) to work with lines from an Azeri lullaby and Russian-language responses to it. Egana’s prose often feels poetic, too, with lovely imagery and a rich compactness. That compactness and lovely imagery combine with beautiful cadences and use all five senses, creating a very vivid world. I recommend watching Egana recite some of her poetry during an online event held in May 2025 at Amherst College, hosted by Polina Barskova and Catherine Ciepiela. Egana’s event felt like a litmus test to me because it happened right around the time my translation was due. Had I gotten her tones right in my translation? I’m very voice-oriented, so hearing Egana speak – and recognizing many of the themes and even wording in her poems – was (how to say it?) an amazing experience. I love her strong feminist voice, both on the page and in speech. I tend to work very intuitively, so it feels almost as if I absorb Russian voices and then attempt to transform them into English. I don’t know quite how else to explain things.

Olga Zilberbourg: The narrator’s medical condition alters the course of her life quite dramatically. She describes it with precision and vivid details. Vivid descriptions of suffering can be emotionally challenging to read, let alone translate. How did this affect your work?

Lisa Hayden: I see the narrator’s medical condition and treatments as one of the most important layers of the novel, for all sorts of physiological, emotional, and metaphorical reasons. This layer of the book is medical, scary, and perhaps even physically painful, too, since I suspect that most of us have fears about our health. I certainly find it significantly harder to translate texts with physical and/or emotional pain than to read them; all the text’s words and emotions flow through me many, many times during the course of the work, even when I’m away from my desk. I can’t claim that my translation process is even close to, say, method acting, but, as a colleague and I were discussing just a few hours before I sat down to answer your question, translations about human pain and suffering leave traces on us. Just as they leave traces on their readers. There’s a ripple effect.

Olga Zilberbourg: Though this novel has a chronologically unfolding plot that has to do with the course of the narrator’s neurological condition, it’s also delightfully nonlinear. The book is divided into eleven sections, each titled for a particular body part: “Eyebrows,” “Eyes,” “Hair,” etc. In each section, the narrator often circles back to the attitude of her mother and grandparents to a particular subject. I wonder if this unique structure presented any challenges for you as a translator?

Lisa Hayden: I love the way Egana structured the novel, focusing on one body part per chapter. This is the sort of framework that keeps me interested, both as a reader and as a translator. I love that there’s always a new perspective, another way to enter the text and the issues it presents. Her chapters combine numerous motifs and threads from her characters’ lives: childhood and adulthood, family and Egana’s own personal life, healthiness and illness… One passage, in the “Hair” chapter, uses very poignant repetition when discussing Egana’s grandmothers. Egana’s writing is so wonderfully clean and clear that I didn’t find the translation unusually difficult. Though of course it was difficult! Every translation is difficult in its own way. The biggest challenges in translating Egana’s text lay in writing the translation as cleanly, clearly, and concisely as possible. Fortunately, Egana patiently answered many (many!) questions so I could feel comfortable with the wording and details in the translation.

I’m also beyond grateful that New Vessel Press is publishing the book. Publisher Michael Wise, who’s also a fantastic editor, takes tremendous care of his books, their writers, and their translators. It was a joy to work with him. My Dreadful Body was expertly and very thoroughly edited and proofread in several stages. Michael’s advice and ideas enabled us to replicate as many of Egana’s text’s rhythms as possible while retaining lots of Azeri words, too. I’m thankful that loads of patient and creative suggestions from Michael and his team improved the translation so much by admirably and tactfully balancing the wonderfully unique and nuanced aspects of Egana’s writing with understandability and clarity for anglophone readers.

Olga Zilberbourg: Do you see Djabbarova’s feminism influencing the structure, themes, or language of this book?

Lisa Hayden: One of the reasons I love My Dreadful Body so much is that I identify very closely with how Egana writes about the limitations that society, traditions, and family members inflict on women. The strictures she mentions range from things like grooming to choices of bathing suits to behavior at diaspora weddings. The fact that each chapter is titled for a body part goes a long way in demonstrating linkages between a woman’s physical body and how her upbringing affects her thought processes. Egana’s account of her relationships and interactions with family members is also telling. I’m hesitant to write too much about any of these aspects of My Dreadful Body because I hope readers will discover details and meanings that are especially significant to them so they can form their own relationships with Egana and her story. I love the power of her writing and hope our readers will, too!

Punctured Lines: Buy Egana Djabbarova’s My Dreadful Body in Lisa Hayden’s translation from New Vessel Press or at your favorite bookstore. Rate and review!

Lisa Hayden is a literary translator who lives in New England.