A Short Story Translation: Nurit Kotler’s “Next to the Traffic Signal, Under the Streetlight”

Haim Watzman

Rue de Faubourg
My translation of Nurit Kotler’s short story, “Next to the Traffic Signal, Under the Streetlight,” has just been posted on the Zeek website, after appearing in the Summer 2010 issue. Set in Paris, the story tells of an unscheduled and unlooked-for encounter between a nervous Israeli expatriate and an elderly Jewish man. Good stories are ones that reveal something new at each reading, and after reading this story again and again during the translation process, I can promise that this is one of those stories.

Nurit and I are currently in the final stages of work on the translation of another story, “Growing Up,” also set in Paris.