Kristin Mathis TALKTALKTALKS the Art of Translation

Classics Scholar Kristin Mathis is on a mission to translate all 87 Orphic Hymns

Kristin Mathis is the only person I know who translates Sappho’s poetry for fun. It’s a hobby that sustained her during the years between dropping out of a Phd program at Princeton to work as an AIDS activist in New York City and launching her rogue academic career on Substack, where she shares her writing and commentaries on what has become her life’s mission: translating all 87 of the Orphic Hymns into living, breathing, English texts that preserve the esoteric content of the Ancient Greek. 

While I’ve sat down in conversations with Kristin many times over the past year, the following interview was conducted over email. In it we discuss many things, including her relationship to magic and her complicated history with academia. 

There are also many things we didn’t get to discuss. Like Kristin’s childhood spent in Malaysia. The time she met a Sun Bear. All those summers she spent in Paris.…