Hexes of the Deadwood Forest, the debut novel from Polish writer Agnieszka Szpila, was translated into English from Polish by Scotia Gilroy. The novel has been called “a torpedo of a book” by Olga Tokarczuk and follows a disgraced oil executive whose public scandal fractures her identity, sending her spiraling across time and consciousness until she is absorbed into a radical, centuries-old sisterhood of women whose ecstatic rebellion against patriarchy builds toward a violent and transformative reckoning.
In our latest interview series, “Writer/Translator,” we ask a writer and their translator to interview each other about their work. Below, Szpila and Gilroy discuss the origins and inspirations behind the novel, the role of sexuality and political/ecological themes, and the process of translation as a creative, transformative act.
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