Hot Docs

Swetlana Geier is considered the greatest translator of Russian literature into German. Best known for her recent translations of Dostoyevsky, she continues to work well into her eighties. Bent, fiercely independent, and dynamic, Geier tackles every new project with a cup of tea and an unparalleled passion for language. Whether she’s making a salad or showing off handmade linens, every object becomes a text in Geier’s hands, including the woman herself. The secret to her talent lies in her ability to internalize the text, just as the original writer had, and to draw from her own life story. Geier’s survival through both Hitler’s and Stalin’s dictatorships echoes themes found in Dostoyevsky’s masterpieces. As Geier travels back to her birthplace in Ukraine, she visits her “stork well,” the symbolic source of her greatest pain and creativity, putting her past into poetry—the translation of which is her most essential, exact expression yet. - Angie Driscoll