Writing alum, former faculty, and acclaimed translator Katrine Øgaard Jensen '17 has published her first book of poetry, Ancient Algorithms, with Sarabande Books.
Ancient Algorithms takes Jensen's award-winning translations of Danish poet Ursula Andkjær Olsen and reiterates them with rules and rituals that include other poets—including Olsen herself. The book is an experiment in form and collaboration, an argument for the art of translation in its own right.
The rules and rituals Jensen outlined for Ancient Algorithms create an independent voice that uses each translator's choices, including Olsen's and Jensen's, without being led by them. These poems become mistranslations and remixes and totally original.
Jensen's first translation of Olsen, Third Millennium Heart, won ALTA's National Translation Award in 2018. She went on to translate the rest of Olsen's trilogy, including Outgoing Vessel (Action Books, 2021) and My Jewel Box (Action Books, 2022). Olsen describes the trilogy as a fairy tale of the universe.
Jensen was recently named executive director of ALTA, a prestigious nonprofit that supports the work of translators worldwide. Before this position, Jensen was the Acting Director of Literary Translation at Columbia from Fall 2019 to Fall 2020. She led a period of record enrollments and a successful campaign to fund travel and exchange between Columbia's MFA Program and the Danish Academy of Creative Writing (Forfatterskolen) in Copenhagen.
