Katharina Herzberger
Katharina Herzberger is a German literary translator working on her debut novel. Born 1993 in London, she grew up near Frankfurt, studied English at Leipzig University, then worked in Munich’s publishing industry for five years. She went freelance in 2021 and has since translated almost twenty novels, children’s books and non-fiction titles from English into German. She holds an M.A. in Literary Translation and works as a guest lecturer for HHU Düsseldorf and LMU Munich. In 2025, she co-curated About Bookshop’s exhibition of literature about work (“Arbeit, who?”), with a focus on female work, for the feminist publishing cooperative ZoraLit.
Take your meds
Why are you so lazy, I asked, but she had no answer. Just sat on the couch instead, cheek rested against the pillow, eyes closed. She knew the list by heart, each and every item, seeing as she’d written it herself, just a couple of hours ago, with a drive in her eyes that she’d already lost. Didn’t know why, didn’t know where it’d gone to or what she might do to retrieve it, she only knew her to dos wouldn’t get done by themselves. Her weekly shop was waiting, no, the meal plan first, then the shopping list, then the shopping itself; the dust bunnies were waiting; the wrinkled load of laundry was waiting, should’ve just taken it out yesterday. But she’d already lost her energy then, she’d told herself it’d be better today, really believed it too, even still when she’d written out the list in her cute notebook, a little circle in front of each item where she’d happily cross it out once she was done. Her translation work was waiting; her e-mails were waiting, for an embarrassingly long time too, even though she’d been teaching herself, forcing herself not to start every e-mail with an apology.
Why are you so lazy, I ask, and she doesn’t know why. Why her body feels so heavy, why she sees everything through a thick fog. Why she doesn’t even manage the easiest to dos on her list, why she doesn’t even take out the trash or reply to her best friend’s message. She knows exactly what she wants to write, thinks it through again and again, has spent more time thinking about it than it would take to type it out.
Why are you so lazy, I ask again, and she hides her face behind her hands, sighing. Take your meds at least, I say. She sits up, takes three, four, five seconds to swing one leg off the couch, then loses her momentum. It takes her a while to move again, then, with all the strength she can muster, she pushes herself off. Shakily, she moves forward, unknowing, unseeing, unfeeling. How about a shower, I call out behind her, and don’t forget those meds. Just because you don’t have a flare-up right now, doesn’t mean you won’t have one again soon, I say, and she actually does go into the kitchen where she keeps her pills. Good work, I shout, but then I understand what’s actually happening, and say, no, no-no, don’t do that again. But she doesn’t listen, pulls open a drawer, doesn’t just take a piece of chocolate, but the whole bar instead. That’s no breakfast, I say, you need fibre, your colitis won’t like this at all, I say, and it’s not on your list either. She knows now that she’s not just being lazy, but also unhealthy, taking bad care of her bad body. Are you actually pretending, I say, that you don’t have a chronic illness, that it’s just as invisible for you as for everyone else. The sugar rush won’t fix this, I say, not knowing how to help myself, not taking my meds for another day, eating chocolate for breakfast. Giving myself up for another day.
Why am I so lazy, I ask myself, and I have no answer.
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