Category Archives: Literature in Translation

May 23, 2016 · 12:00 am

Review: Byron and the Beauty by Muharem Bazdulj

I received an advanced review copy of this title from the publisher, Istros Books.  This English version has been translated by John K. Cox.

My Review:
byron-and-the-beauty_55f97422708f7_250x800rThis latest release from Istros Books is a fictional account of Lord Byron’s tour around parts of the Ottoman Empire in 1809 during which trip he is the guest of a local Albanian ruler, Ali Pasha.  The story takes place during a period of two weeks on his travels when Byron is accompanied by a retinue of English servants as well as his good friend John Hobhouse.  As they reach the city of Ali Pasha, they are greeted by a severed arm that is hanging from a tree and being slowly eaten by birds of prey.  There is an undercurrent of uneasiness throughout their stay in Yannina as they immediately understand that the political and social landscape of The Ottoman Empire is very different from England.

When Byron and his retinue arrive in Yannina, Ali Pasha is not at his palace because he is off in the north fending off one of his enemies.  So Byron is entertained and shown around the town by a man named Isak, who is a personal doctor of this local despot.  Isak has lived all over Europe and his English is quite good so he serves as Byron’s interpreter.  He also tells Byron many stories about the Balkans and also educates him about Eastern European customs.  The most important lesson Isak teaches Byron is about the Balkan words Dert and Sevdah, which mean a yearning and a craving desire, love and passion.  In the Balkans there is a woman born once every three hundred years, Isak tells him,  who are known for their beauty throughout the Empire.  Men feel Dert and Sevdah if they are lucky enough to set their eyes on one these beauties who are usually hidden by their families until they are given away to a Prince for marriage.

One such woman, whose name is Zuleiha, is rumored to be in the vicinity of Yannina.  Isak starts acting very strangely when he hears this rumor and he disappears for long periods of time in an attempt to get information on her whereabouts.  Byron listens to Isak’s story about this beautiful woman, but to him it is just a story, just a myth, until Byron sets eyes on Zuleiha himself.

It is apparent that Ali Pasha will not make it home in time to greet his British guest, so he invites them to his palace in the north.  Byron and his fellow travelers are accompanied by Isak on a long, arduous journey during the rainy season through the Balkans.  The rain is so intense at one point that they have to take shelter in a cave and then in a han, which is the Balkan word for hotel.  It is at this han that Byron gets a glimpse at the rare beauty of Zuleiha.  Byron is instantly smitten with her and at the sight of this woman he fully comprehends the meanings of Dert and Sevdah.

The exciting culmination of the book deals with Byron’s crazy plan to win Zuleiha as his wife.  I thoroughly enjoyed the entire story which, although brief, brought to life the personal details about this famous English poet.  We experience the fascinating mythology, cultural and landscape of the Balkans through Byron’s point-of-view and we better understand its influence on Byron’s writings.  When I was reading this book the image of Byron in his elaborate Albanian costume, which in the book is given to him as a gift, kept coming to mind.

About the Author:
m bazduljMuharem Bazdulj, born in 1977, is one of the leading writers of the younger generation to appear in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. He writes in a wide variety of genres, including novels, short stories, poetry, and essays; he is also active as a journalist and a translator. Bazdulj’s work has been published `Best European Fiction 2012´ (Ed. Aleksandar Hemon, Dalkey Archive Press) alongside Milan Kundera, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Vladimir Sorokin, Victor Pelevin, Péter Esterházy and Andrzej Stasiuk. Short stories and essays in `World Literature Today´, `Creative Nonfiction´, `Habitus´, `Absinthe´ etc.Translations:One of his short story collections has appeared in English (The Second Book, Northwestern University Press, 2005). Bazdulj is the author of nine books in all, including his most recent set of stories, Magic. He currently lives in Travnik and Sarajevo. – See more at: http://istrosbooks.com/products/authors/muharem-bazdulj-68/#sthash.xWNOQwUS.dpuf

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May 18, 2016 · 9:03 am

Review: The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas

I received an advanced review copy of this title from Archipelago Books through Edelweiss.  This was published in the original Norwegian in 1957 and this English version has been translated by Torbjørn Støverud and Michael Barnes.

My Review:
The BirdsThis book was an unexpected surprise that pulled at my heart strings.  Mattis and his sister Hege live in the Norwegian countryside in a simple cottage by a lake.  Mattis is mentally challenged and he is constantly attempting to navigate a world that he doesn’t understand and that doesn’t understand him.  He has the mind of a child; he becomes excited at the simplest things like the woodcock which flies over their cottage.  He has a deep fear of abandonment and is afraid that his sister, who is his only caretaker, can be snatched from him at any moment.  And when he cannot make others understand him he becomes bewildered and frustrated.  I became completely absorbed in Mattis’ simple and constricted world.

The hardest parts of the story to read were those in which Mattis goes out into the surrounding countryside to look for work.  His sister supports them both by knitting sweaters so money is always tight and they live very simply.  Even though Mattis has a hard time doing the simplest tasks, like thinning turnips and stacking hay, his sister still insists on sending him into town to find a way to make some income.  His mind cannot coordinate with his hands and he becomes easily confused and frustrated.  Whenever he goes to beg for work he is humiliated because everyone in town knows who he is and they call him “Simple Simon.”  The people in town, however, are never cruel to him; they came up with what is supposed to be a harmless nickname for Mattis who is a well-known figure in town.  But every time someone calls him Simple Simon he is embarrassed and frustrated because he hates being defined by this phrase which he can never escape.  There is a deeper lesson in this book about being careful with our names or labels for others even when we are not intentionally being hurtful.

One day at the suggestion of Mattis’ sister, he decides that he will use his old, worn out boat to ferry people across the lake.  Rowing is something that he is good at and he loves spending time on the water.  On his first day of work, Mattis is lucky enough to come upon one customer, a lumberjack who has arrived in town looking for work.  Jørgen is the first and only person to take a ride on Mattis’ ferry service.  That fateful ferry ride brings Mattis’ sister Hege joy and companionship while it brings Mattis frustration and loneliness.

Although the story is mostly told from Mattis’ point of view, we do get a glimpse of what Hege’s life has been like trying to take care of Mattis.  Hege is forty years-old, has never married or had a family of her own and she doesn’t seem to have any friends either.    She has pretty much devoted her whole existence to taking care of her brother.  Hege becomes easily agitated with Mattis’ constant questions and emotional neediness. When Hege has the chance to find love and companionship with Jørgen, she begins to act differently towards Mattis because her time and attention are no longer completely devoted to him alone.  One the one hand Hege has the right to her own life and her own happiness, but on the other hand she still has an obligation to care for and protect her brother.

This is a quiet novel that deserves much more attention.  As a teacher I am confronted with students who have a vast array of mental, emotional and physical disabilities.  But seeing the world through the eyes of Mattis has made me even more sensitive and acutely award of what it is like to be labeled as “different” by the rest of the world.

About the Author:
T VessassTarjei Vesaas was a Norwegian poet and novelist. Written in Nynorsk, his work is characterized by simple, terse, and symbolic prose. His stories are often about simple rural people that undergo a severe psychological drama and who according to critics are described with immense psychological insight. Commonly dealing with themes such as death, guilt, angst, and other deep and intractable human emotions, the Norwegian natural landscape is a prevalent feature in his works. His debut was in 1923 with Children of Humans (Menneskebonn), but he had his breakthrough in 1934 with The Great Cycle (Det store spelet). His mastery of the nynorsk language, landsmål (see Norwegian language), has contributed to its acceptance as a medium of world class literature.

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May 10, 2016 · 10:21 am

Review: Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others and Me by Teffi

My Review:
TeffiThis book is a collection of autobiographical essays from the renowned, female Russian author Teffi.  The essays were all written during the early part of the twentieth century and reflect Teffi’s own struggles with having to flee a turbulent and oppressive Russia.  The collection is divided into four parts, the first of which is entitled “How I Live and Work.”  These first few essays in the book capture her inner thoughts and self-doubts as she becomes Teffi “The Author.”

The second part of the book, “Staging Posts” deals with various aspects of Teffi’s personal life from her upbringing in a wealthy Russian family to her emigration to Paris during the Russian Civil War to her time in France during the German Occupation.   Teffi is well-known for her wit, but these essays show us an emotionally tender and serious woman.  She begins her essay entitled “Valya” on a sad and brutally honest note: “I was in my twenty-first year.  She, my daughter, was in her fourth.  We were not well matched.”  In this essay Teffi has a difficult time connecting with her daughter and I was not surprised to find out that her marriage was dreadfully unhappy and she eventually leaves her family in order to pursue her writing career.

My favorite essay in the third section of the book “Heady Days: Revolutions and Civil War” is the one that describes Teffi’s bizarre encounters with Rasputin.  This essay is a perfect example of Teffi’s ability to write a humorous essay but also to display her serious and emotional side.  When Teffi meets Rasputin, he is smitten with her and he tries to seduce her.  But Teffi sees right through his act; although many women have fallen for his smooth words and intimate gestures, Teffi finds his behavior strange and a little pathetic.  Rasputin comes across as a buffoon and we do laugh at his antics, but at the same time we also feel sorry for this ridiculous man who is finally killed by one of the many assassins who are after him.

The fourth and final part of the book is dedicated to some of the famous authors and artists that Teffi has come in contact with.  At the age of thirteen Teffi is enthralled with Tolstoy’s War and Peace.  She is so distraught by the death of Prince Andrei in this novel that she is determined to meet the author and ask him to change the story.   Teffi shows up at Tolstoy’s home but is so flabbergasted to meet him that all she can do is ask for his autograph and slink away in embarrassment.

The quality that comes through in every one of these essays is Teffi’s innate ability to read and truly understand people.  When she meets Lenin she senses a man who is crafty and cunning.  She meets many famous people throughout her life, from the Russian poet and novelist Merezhkovsky to the artist Repin to various other writers, journalists and politicians.  She is never fooled by the façade of their importance but instead she sees the true humanity beyond the exterior.

I have to admit that I am smitten with Teffi after reading this one volume from NYRB classics.  I ordered three more of Teffi’s books after I finished this one. I don’t think I’ve done Teffi’s writing justice in this brief review and so everyone must read a least one of her essays to experience her brilliant writing.

About the Author:
Teffi PicTeffi was a Russian humorist writer. Teffi is a pseudonym. Her real name was Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya (Наде́жда Алекса́ндровна Лoхви́цкая); after her marriage Nadezhda Alexandrovna Buchinskaya (Бучи́нская). Together with Arkady Averchenko she was one of the most prominent authors of the Satiricon magazine.

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May 4, 2016 · 10:07 am

Review: Seeing Red by Lina Meruane

I received an review copy of this title from Deep Vellum Publishing through Edelweiss.  This English version of Seeing Red has been translated by Megan McDowell.

My Review:
Seeing RedOur senses are our most precious natural gifts because it is through them that we are able to experience the world.  At one point we have all probably wondered what it would be like to lose our hearing or our sight or our sense of smell.  In Seeing Red, we are given a vivid understanding, through the character of Lina, of what it is like to lose one’s sight.  Lina, a young woman attending graduate school in Manhattan and living with her boyfriend Ignacio, suddenly loses her vision.  She has been a diabetic all of her life and from what we are told about her medical history in the book, the blood vessels in her eyes have burst and have caused her blindness.  She knows that this is coming and the opening of the book is the moment at which her nightmare comes true.

The title is both literally and figuratively appropriate for the story.  Lina actually sees red as her blood vessels burst and block her vision; her anger at the loss of her most precious sense makes her severely angry, thus causing her to figuratively “see red.”  The tone and setting of the first scene in the book during which Lina and Ignacio are at a party are unexpected.  It is at this party when her site begins to fade and when she realizes what is happening she calmly asks Ignacio to take her home.  They stay at the party for a while longer and when they finally take a taxi home their ride is also rather serene.  But this is the last moment of peace because it is from this point onwards that her anger and her anxiety build.

I was not surprised to find out that the author herself suffered from an episode of blindness because of a stroke.  Her personal experience with the loss of her sight made the story all the more convincing.  There are so many aspects of her life to which she must readjust; Lina has to learn how to navigate the streets of Manhattan, to walk around her apartment without injuring herself, and eat at a table without knocking over drinks.   The author’s own experience with blindness gives her writing a unique authenticity that provides us with a comprehensive understanding of what it means to lose this sense.

It is very uncomfortable and upsetting to walk through Lina’s life with her as she is trying to adjust to her blindness.  One of the hardest aspects of this situation for her to deal with is the ways in which other people act towards her.  Ignacio, her boyfriend, is a faithful and loving companion.  He washes her eyes and changes her bandages when she has surgery, he goes to her doctor’s appointments with her and he even spends a month with Lina and her family in Chile.  But there are times when even Ignacio loses his patience because of  Lina’s clumsiness.

The episode that was the most memorable in the book is one that takes place while they are visiting Chile.  Lina carefully and meticulously packs her own suitcase by feeling each article of clothing and putting the heavier clothes on the bottom of her suitcase and the lighter items on top.  Lina’s mother, in an attempt to be helpful,  unpacks and repacks Lina’s entire suitcase.  This causes Lina to be emotionally distraught because, as she explains between bouts of yelling and crying,  she wants to do simple tasks her own way and not have to be constantly dependent on others.  It is difficult for her loved ones to attempt to help Lina but without making her feel helpless.

Seeing Red is disturbing and uncomfortable but so worth the read.  I hope that Meurane’s books will continue to be translated into English so I can read additional works of hers in the future.  Thanks to Deep Vellum one of my favorite small presses, for bringing us a wonderful selection of literature from around the world.  Please visit their website for more fantastic translated literature: http://deepvellum.org/

About the Author:
L MeruaneLina Meruane is one of the most prominent and influential female voices in Chilean contemporary literature. A novelist, essayist, and cultural journalist, she is the author of a host of short stories that have appeared in various anthologies and magazines in Spanish, English, German and French. She has also published a collection of short stories, Las Infantas (Chile 1998, Argentina 2010), as well as three novels: Póstuma (2000), Cercada (2000), and Fruta Podrida (2007). The latter won the Best Unpublished Novel Prize awarded by Chile’s National Council of the Culture and the Arts in 2006. She won the Anna Seghers Prize, awarded to her by the Akademie der Künste, in Berlin, Germany in 2011 for her entire body of written work. Meruane received the prestigious Mexican Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize in 2012 for Seeing Red. Meruane has received writing grants from the Arts Development Fund of Chile (1997), the Guggenheim Foundation (2004), and National Endowment for the Arts (2010). She received her PhD in Latin American Literature from New York University, where she currently serves as professor of World and Latin American Literature and Creative Writing. She also serves as editor of Brutas Editoras, an independent publishing house located in New York City, where she lives between trips back to Chile.

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May 2, 2016 · 6:30 am

Review: Oblivion by Sergei Lebedev

The first book that I read from New Vessel Press was Guys Like Me and ever since then I have sought out their books again and again.  I received an advanced review copy of this title through Edelweiss.  This title was published in the original Russian in 2015 and this English version has been translated by Antonina W. Buois.

My Review:
Oblivion I have been captivated by the plethora of post-Soviet literature that has been published just in the last year alone.  The theme that is the most haunting to me is the one of waste: all of those wasted lives, all of that wasted time, and for what purpose?  I remember the attitude towards the Soviets in the 1980’s with the “us”, the free American democracy, versus “them”, the oppressive Soviet totalitarian regime, propaganda.  It seemed that the Soviet Union wanted everyone to believe that, not only was their system the best in the world, but their people were happy and thrived under that system.  But recent post-Soviet books, like Oblivion, have proven that this ideal that their leaders put forth could not be further from the truth.

When Oblivion opens, the narrator is middle-aged and living in Greece.  He is reminiscing about his childhood back in a dacha in the Soviet Union.  The one character from his childhood that looms over and dominates every memory he has is a man he calls Grandfather II.  He begins with an ominous sentence that states it was Grandfather II who decided his fate and the course of his entire life.  Grandfather II was an old, blind man who moved into the dacha and about whom no one asked any questions.

There are hints in the text that Grandfather II has a shady past that somehow involved the horrible gulag system.  He is adopted by his neighbors, especially the narrator’s family, as a sort of kindly and innocuous grandfather figure, and thus his nickname.  But the narrator has a very different view and opinion of this man which is chilling and frightening.  There is nothing that Grandfather II specifically does that is cruel to the boy or his family.  But Grandfather II has a presence and a demeanor that evokes feelings of fear and dread.

The narrator is further haunted by Grandfather II when, as a boy of about nine, he is attacked by a wild dog and Grandfather II comes to his rescue by crushing the dog’s spine.  The narrator is brought to the hospital on the brink of death because he has lost so much blood.  Grandfather II, despite being an old man, insists that he give his own blood to save the boy’s life.  Grandfather II’s heroic act saves the boy but in the end his own life is sacrificed because he was too old and weak to give up his blood.

The narrator is haunted for the rest of his like that he has this old man’s blood pulsing through his veins.  He decides that he must go on a quest to find out more about his mysterious man’s past and this leads him to a mining town near the Arctic Circle.  The mining town is a pathetic waste and shell of a town that was once home to a prison camp where its inhabitants worked in the mine.  When the narrator arrives in this northern town the prisoners are long gone, but the remains of the camp are still an eerie reminder of this wretched and miserable part of Soviet history.  The narrator confirms that Grandfather II was a founder of this mining town and in charge of the prison camps.  The most disturbing part of this this journey, however, is when the narrator realizes what a cruel and inhuman person Grandfather II really was.  The saddest part of the narrative, for me, was learning about Grandfather II’s seven year-old son was also subjected to this man’s insistence on dominating and controlling everyone and everything in his life.

Finally, I have to say a few words about the densely poetic language that the author uses for his tale.  It took me longer than it normally would to read a 300-page book because the sentences were so masterfully created that I oftentimes found myself reading entire sections more than once.  There is a dream sequence in the middle of the book during which the narrator has a series of three dreams just before he is about to embark on his journey to the north.  This section could almost stand on its own as a poetic and metaphorical reconstruction of the oppression and unjust treatment that so many suffered under this totalitarian regime.

Oblivion is a haunting, intense, descriptive literary Odyssey that you will not soon forgot.  The language that Lebedev employs and the detailed stories he tells ensures that the experiences of life under Soviet rule will indeed not fade into Oblivion.

About the Author:
S LebedevSergei Lebedev was born in Moscow in 1981 and worked for seven years on geological expeditions in northern Russia and Central Asia. Lebedev is a poet, essayist and journalist. Oblivion, his first novel, has been translated into many languages. Lebedev’s second novel, Year of the Comet, is coming out from New Vessel Press in 2017.

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