To the Right of the Creek

Karen Van Dyck’s English translation of To the Right of the Creek, an adaptation of Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus by Yiannis Palavos, was recently published on Asymptote.

“Six years I’ve been away. This morning on the bus ride here, I read a book. A customer had ordered it but hadn’t yet picked it up. I flipped through and liked it, so I threw it in my bag. I’ll return it tomorrow when I’m back at work. In the book a musician is recounting his life; another musician—can’t be a coincidence. He writes that for years, until he turned forty, he spilled his heart out every night in stadiums and theaters, before thousands of strangers, but with his own people he was afraid to open up. He’d turn his secrets into songs and tell them to strangers, never to those the songs were about. That’s the way it goes; the one you love wears a Medusa face—looking at him turns you to stone. It’s easier to tell the truth to a stranger, and easier still to someone who’s not there. And best of all if they’re dead. All of you, buried here in the old cemetery to the right of the creek.”

Read more here.