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Hope Campbell Gustafson

Biography

Hope Campbell Gustafson

Hope Campbell Gustafson has an MFA in Literary Translation from University of Iowa and a BA from Wesleyan University.

Her translation work can be found in various journals, and in the books BANTHOLOGY: Stories from Unwanted Nations (Comma Press/Deep Vellum) and ISLANDS—NEW ISLANDS: A Vagabond Guide to Rome (Fontanella Press). Ubah Cristina Ali Farah's COMMANDER OF THE RIVER, for which Campbell Gustafson received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, was published in 2023 by Indiana University Press. Her latest effort is her translation of Giulia Caminito's novel, THE LAKE'S WATER IS NEVER SWEET.

From Minneapolis, now in Brooklyn, Campbell Gustafson is Senior Program Associate for the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. 

Hope Campbell Gustafson

Books by Hope Campbell Gustafson

The Lake's Water is Never Sweet
written by Giulia Caminito, translated by Hope Campbell Gustafson - Fiction, Women's Fiction

In the 1990s, Gaia’s family moves from the neglected peripheries of Rome to an idyllic lakeside town in search of a new life that will lift them out of poverty. When Gaia meets two local girls, Agata and Carlotta, the trio builds a fragile friendship throughout their adolescence based as much on their insecurities and jealousies as it is on their mutual affection. Gaia’s encounters with callous boys and contemptuous teachers convince her that she might always be an outsider. Faced with bullying and betrayals among her peers and immense pressure from her mother to excel, Gaia turns inward and her world becomes increasingly insular. Then tragedy strikes her friend group. As more friends slip away and her family fractures, Gaia vows to make the world pay for all the things it has denied her.