International translation day 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saint Jerome is the patron saint of translation and it is the day we celebrate translation on international translation day. Well, maybe a look back over the eight years of this blog 750 books 90% in translation. Has seen me travel in my armchair with books from Afghanistan to Yemen in books. But also has seen an explosion in people publishing books from Peirene, Istros, tilted axis, honford star and Noir to name a few, have seen books reach us in English that would have not have done when I started the blog. The future is bright with two new prizes in the pipeline for books in translation and Booker behind what was the Independent foreign fiction prize, people seem more willing to try world lit . As for me the blog has grown and still gives me pleasure especially discovering places and writers. I now start to try and improve navigation of the blog as I want to divide  the reviews into a number of sections such as war, village life, experimental, family, cities, crime and short so as to show the common themes we see in literature no matter of place. How do you think translation has moved on in the last eight years ?

Goodbye, bird by Aram Pachyan

Goodbye, bird by Aram Pachyan

Armenian fiction

Original title – Ցտեսություն,_Ծիտ

Translator – Nairi Hakhverdi

Source – review copy

Well, I haven’t added many new countries in recent times, since getting over 100 countries the task gets harder. So every time I come to a new country to review a book from it is a bonus.This is another title from Glagoslav and their decision to bring us lit from a lot of Post-Soviet countries this time Armenia. This book was a best seller in its homeland.Aram Pachyan was born into a family of doctors and studied law. But also wrote getting his first story published in 2007 he now works as a journalist and columnist and hosts a radio show. This was the first novel after he had a collection of short stories.

I am 28 years old. That’s what it says at the beginning of every page of his notebook, which he opens every hour and leafs through, and incessantly repeats it with his skin turning dark red with anxeity, first looking at his arms to check that two has not suddenly turned into three.then he hangs his melon-looking head like the limp head of a dead man over one of the pages in his notebook and write two will never become three, because after being discharged the only governor of space and time is you, just like your grandfater who, at the break of dawn, finally closed the books on history.

The opening line shows the complex nature of this book

This novel finds a 28-year man has returned to his hometown and is now trying to piece together his life. The man is fragment like the book itself which drifts through time as we see his childhood years the friends he had then. Then the major part of his life in the Army seeing action losing comrades as he remembers a cat called bird, returns home and regains a girlfriend. But all in a fragmented style of almost PTSD world of the ex-soldier it all harks back to events in the army one horrific events and his trying to piece all this together and move forward. But there is also the everyday side of life listening to pink Floyd discovering Madame Bovary and other things as he pieces his world together.

“Everyone is guilty of my suicide. Is this not your creation, a mutual killing factory where time is killed until it’s time to kill and where everyone is forced to wait until the next time to kill, and then the next, the next time to kill, until a sniper’s bullet bores into your eye and you retun home for the last time,even if it’s in eternal silence in a coffin

This reminds us of the brutal nature of war at times and the repative effect of being in battle.

This is like a giant jigsaw of a book the pieces are there but this is like opening the box and piece it together without a picture. It is a young man’s world but told from his view others point of view and in a third voice at times. This makes it a compelling and challenging piece of prose. I was reminded at times of another recent book the novel Fado Alexandrino even down to what one may say is a feeling of Saudade in that book is also tinged in this book. A man looking back as well to his life in the army in the army and after the army.Also how to deal with PTSD in the fragmented nature is about trying to grasp life once again.  This was one of the most challenging books I have read recently but also one of the most interesting for any world lit fan this is an interesting first book from Armenia to read.

Two new shorts and a german seagulls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m off for a night out later so not time to do a review. So I have chosen to show a few recent arrivals at Winstons towers. Sweet Potato. The first is from new publisher Honford Star. The collection from Kim Tongin is an insight into the first fifty years of the 20th century in Korea a time before its rise in power.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pushin press has a new collection of stories by the mast of the short story Chekov in a new translation from Nicolas Pasternak Slater the nephew of Boris Pasternak. There are thirteen stories in the collection including ones such as a day in the country, The lady with the little dog and the kiss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now some purchases first is a collection of short stories from Robert Wasler from a few years ago. I have read one of his books but now how well regarded he is as a writer. The book covers most of his life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then two books by the late Swiss writer Urs Widmer. The first the Blue Soda siphon is an adult fairy tale that follows a man returning to his childhood in the 40s then his younger self, going forward to the 90s and the gulf war. In the congo follows a man that works in a retirement home where his father has just moved in and it follows the discovery his father wasn’t a boring man as he thought he was.The journey takes him to Congo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A trip for a grandfather and grandson to China goes slightly wrong. when then grandfather dies the grandson carries on writing back to family fantastic tales of what they were doing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then a second book for the tbr pile from German poet Hans Magnus Enzensberger. Tumult follows his life and the world from 1963 til 1970 as he was a left winger, spend time in the Soviet Union and Cuba. the last four books are all from Seagull books.

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A different sea by Claudio Magris

A different Sea by Claudio Magris

Italian fiction

Original title – Un altro mare

Translator – M.S.Spurr

Source – Library copy

Claudio Magris in yesterdays list of Nobel hopefuls, earlier in the summer. I read this short novella by him. But have waited till now to review it. Claudio Magris has won many prizes with his books like the Stega for his book Danube. Which I hope to bring to the blog at some point. He has also won some prizes for the body of his works like the Prince of Asturias and Franz Kafka. 

In those brief, still days, Enrico had seen the threads of his destiny, had seen the coins of his life thrown up high  and glitter for a moment as they turned over in the air. When Argia was not on the beach she was indoors playing the piano, Playing Beethoven for Carlo she revealed the abyss that comes between the individual and his destiny; she annulled time and with it the misery and transcience of life, and she demonstrated the tragic joy to be gained by living only for the moment.

This piece shows how Enrico lived his life, like his friend had said .

 

This book follows Enrico, a young Greek man, in the early part of the twentieth century. He is good friends with the Italian Philosopher Carlo Michelstaedter. A man who passed away to young. But his philosophy was about living in the moment by living in the moment is how a man can set him free. There is a third friend, Nico whom Enrico keeps in contact with over time. We Follow Enrico after his friend died. He sets forth to try and live in the moment By setting off to Patagonia. The life there where he lives with his Greek books and the idea of his friend. He spends over a decade working herding animals. Whilst he reading as he escaped National service by escaping to South American. He then returns to Trieste and the Istria coast. In those inter-war years, as we see through his eyes. The political landscape  of the time in that region and also what living in the moment can make on one’s life. 

After all , he left the country to avoid military service, and he is fed up with hearing about the Great War. What do they expect of him, sitting there at their desks? Let them learn the aorist tense: that is already enough

In patagonia he kept in his pocket both the Odyssey and the Agamemnon edited with commentary in Latin by Simon Karsten. But a discourse on the fate of the sons of Atreus, or on the suffering of Electra- Carlo liked her best of all – would be out of place in front of these boys.

I was remind of my step grandfather who carried Dickens in his pocket all his working life .

 

This is a sparse novella, that shows how to follow an idea of what happens. When one chooses to live in the present as Carlos had chosen to do so. It is a wonderful insight into the lone life on the Pampas as he searches for a life free of Social falsehoods. The search for who we are set off by the early death of a friend and also wanting to act out on his ideas of Michelstaedter. A man I knew very  little of her is an interesting piece about him here.I liked this novella it left  me thinking of what life is about and also the world they lived in which when Enrico returns is one that is in flux as the clouds of the following years are seen through the world of Istira and Trieste.

Nobel lit 2017 who will follow Dylan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well it is fast approaching the time of year when the betting for the Nobel literature prize opens

Ive look at odd checker and here are the top ten runners-

 

 

 

 

1. Haruki Murakami – Always near the top of the list Not sure it is his year myself review 
2. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o – For me, this may be the year, a review of one of his books
3. Magaret Attwood – Only read one of her books I did like it so maybe
4. Amos Oz – I loved his latest Judas  when we read it for Man Booker my review of it
5. Adunis – always near the top he is another one I feel may win I did have one poem by him
6. Claudio Magris – A writer I love and pleased to see him here my review of blindly 
7. Don Dellio – probably one of the best American writer around  I reviewed him a few years ago
8. Ko Un another poet I did feature one poem a few years ago
9. Javier Marias – he has written one epic trilogy and a number of good books  have reviewed him before .
10. Jon Fosse – could it be a home win I have reviewed him here 

Then I have a few names outside to mention

Laszlo Krasznahorkai – brilliant writer

Antonio Lobo Antunes – another favourite of mine

Ismail Kadare – a solid writer like Pamuk!

Peter Handke – maybe to outspoken but has written some great books

Cesar Aira – A writer I’d like to read more of !!

Who do you think will win after Dylan last year ?

The House with the Stained-Glass window by Żanna Słoniowska

The house with Stained-Glass window by Żanna Słoniowska

Polish fiction

Original title – Dom z witrażem

Translator – Antonia Lloyd-Jones

Source – review copy

This is another from Maclehose new collection of press editions of books from around the world. This book is by one of the rising stars of  Polish fiction. Żanna Słoniowska she won the Conrad prize a prize for a debut novel and also the Znak prize which had over a thousand books in contention for it. She was born  In Lviv in Ukraine but now lives in Krakow. She works as a Journalist and Translator.

On the day of her death, her voice rang out, drowning many others, rancous sounds. Yet death, her death, was not a sound, but a colour. They brought her body home wtrapped in a large, blue and yellow flag – the slag of a country that did not yet exist on any map of the world.She was tightly shrouded in it, like an Egyptian mummy, thoug in one spot on the surface a dark, blood-red stain was breaking through. As i stood and starred at that stain, I was strucj by the feeling someone had made a mistake.

The opening and her mothers death and the first mentio of Blue and Yellow .

This book is set in the town of Lviv, in fact in a way it is as much as a character in the book as the people that live in the House with Stain glass. The story is told through the three woman who all live in the house and really cover the whole of the last century. The house in Lviv in Ukraine is home to Great Grandma grandma Aba and Mother Marianna and her Daughter. All live in the house the books open as Marianna is killed, she is a famous Opera star and leader of the movement to free Ukraine from the Soviets. The story is told from the daughter’s point of view she tells of her grandmother’s  struggles and during the wars. The loss of the fathers in history. Also, the grandmother could have been a painter and due to circumstances missed out. The daughter herself many years later start an affair with an older man as we see how the fight to get the blue and yellow flag was flown has affected all those living behind the stained glass window in Lviv four woman and hundred years of history.

That winter in the mid -1990’s , Balconnies started falling on peoples heads and walking close to the houses became dangerous.

“Mind your head!”wnet the refrain to anyone who ventured outside.

“Yesterday, on So and Son Street, balcony mouldings from tje second floor of house number six collapsed onto the head of a woman walking below” I read in the newspaper “Although the pieces of plaster were not heavy, she was seriously injured and taken to hospital.#

This made me thing of those advert” have you had a balcony hit you !! ” as the kept falling on people .

The other great female writer about Ukraine Svetlana Alexievich this book shows the true spirit of females in the Soviet Era. Also the constant struggle of the sleeping giant that was Ukraine. This is a portrait of family but also on a great scale of the country. from the grandmothers war time and exile from the original homeland through the mother’s struggle to lead the first movement to freedom, To the present day told from the daughter and those recent years we also saw on the news where the country kept going one way to another. The other character in this book is Lviv one of those great towns full of ghosts and touch so much by the history of the 20th century. An amazingly confident book for a debut novel.

 

Warwick prize for woman in translation Longlist

One of the things that has come about due to things like the woman in translation month is this new prize. The longlist has announced a mix of Adult fiction, Children’s fiction and Poetry. It is great to see a mix of lit in a prize. My personal favourite is the book from Istros life begins on Friday as Susan has been so supportive of this blog over the years.

• The Art of being a Tiger by Ana Luísa Amaral, translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa (Liverpool University Press, 2016)
• The Song of Seven by Tonke Dragt, translated from Dutch by Laura Watkinson (Pushkin Children’s Books, 2016)
• Clementine Loves Red by Krystyna Boglar, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones and Zosia Krasodomska-Jones (Pushkin Children’s Books, 2016)
• Second-hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich, translated from Russian by Bela Sheyavich (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2016)
• Life Begins on Friday by Iona Pârvulescu, translated from Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth (Istros Books, 2016)
• Memoirs of a Polar Bear by Yoko Tawada, translated from German by Susan Bernofsky (Portobello Books, 2016)
• The Fox was ever the Hunter by Herta Müller, translated from German by Philip Boehm (Portobello Books, 2016)
• Eva Sleeps by Francesca Melandri, translated from Italian by Katherine Gregor (Europa Editions, 2016)
• Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors, translated from Danish by Misha Hoekstra (Pushkin Press, 2017)
• Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg, translated from Polish by Eliza Marciniak (Portobello Books, 2017)
• Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell (Oneworld Publications, 2017)
• Swallow Summer by Larissa Boehning, translated from German by Lyn Marven (Comma Press, 2016)
• The Dutch Maiden by Marente de Moor, translated from Dutch by David Doherty (World Editions, 2016)
• Record of a Night Too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Lucy North (Pushkin Press, 2017)
• Mårbacka by Selma Lagerlöf, translated from Swedish by Sarah Death (Norvik Press, 2016)
• The Coast Road by Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, translated from Irish by Michael Coady, Peter Fallon, Tom French, Alan Gillis, Vona Groarke, John McAuliffe, Medbh McGuckian, Paul Muldoon, Michelle O’Sullivan, Justin Quinn, Billy Ramsell, Peter Sirr and David Wheatley (The Galley Press, 2016)

I have read four of the books from the longlist and have also reviewed other books by a couple of the writers. Nice to see the first longlist of this new prize more details about the prize. Have you read any books on the list?

The sixteen trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting

 

The sixteen trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting

Norwegian fiction

Original title – Svøm med dem som drukner

Translator – Paul Russell Garrett

Source – Review copy

I missed his other novel when it came out in English. The book was a huge success,  Norweigan Wood chopping, stacking and drying wood the Scandinavian way. The book has since been brought to be made into a movie. he works as a journalist and editor. he has written four books, this is the second of his books to be translated into English.

Why did he torment the trees? I stood there for a long time that night, between the white trunks that seemed to be an infinty of flagpoles, rehearsing an anger towards a man who was dead, an an anger which I soon set aside because I realised that I was merely copying Bestefar.

His Grandfather  Bestefar still hits out at the Uncle the great wooodworker by his treatment of wood far different.

This is the story of one man trying to unravel his families past. Edvard is a farmer in a remote part of Norway. He only has his grandfather, as his parents died in France to a poison gas grenade.His grandfather is a simple man that makes simple things in wood. But also has a dark past as he fought on a theNazii side in the Norweigan Legion in the war the haunts the family as well. Then there is his grandfather brother his great Uncle Einar a renowned woodworker in his day. But something happened in the past and he left the family home and ended up living in the Shetland Islands. When a wonderfully craft coffin arrives at his grandfather home. Edvard decides it may be time for him to start setting straight all that had happened in the past. But what happens the number they have for Einar inj SHetland is said to be that of a Hairdressers, but as he goes there and he starts to discover his great uncles past he finds he was in love with the said Ladies Hairdresser. He also meets Gwen a posh English girl also looking into her past and Einars past lead him to the Somme and the wood he found in the horror of the war.

“There’s a bit of Einar in you ” the priest said. “He coukd capture the form of something he had seen and use it in another context. Einar interpeted everything the experienced, he was a thinker and a dreamer”

“But when did he make the Coffin? ” I said

His gaze grew distant. When he answered,it was as though he had not grased what I had said

“Einar” he disappeared from us. Twice disappeared. The villag’s foremost cabinetmaker. One of the best in all of Gudbrandsdalen

The local priest sees some of his great uncle Einar in Edvard himself.

This is a sort of mystery novel about families past. It is showing the rigs of the family like the trees that keep cropping up it shows the ages of this family. As we follow Einar as he tries to piece together the jigsaw of his grandfather and great uncles falling out. But also his own parents past and their deaths that he never really knew much about. A trip that goes from Norway via Shetlands and then France in the present day, but then the Russian front and the Somme in the past. Edvard has taken his past like a lump of wood in a lathe and worked it into a family tree unique and maybe full of dark parts but also love and love of wood. I also loved Edvard talking about the music he listens to through out the book.

Dance by the Canal by Kerstin Hensel

 

 

Dance by the Canal by Kerstin Hensel

German fiction

Original title – Tanz am Kanal

Translator – Jen Calleja

Source – Review copy

Well, I always love reading the Novellas Peirene, choose every year. Over the time I have blogged, Peirene has been publishing books. I have been reviewing them on this blog. This third book of the year is by Kerstein Hensel the German writer initially trained as a nurse in the former East Germany and then studied literature. This book originally published in Germany in 1994. Only a few years after the reunification of Germany. She has won numerous prizes for her works. Including the Lessing Prize for the body of her works.

I avoided Fraulein Brinkman. I knew that I had to do something to not stand out.The “I” was a sign in the register. From then on I did my fair share of staple throwing and chair rocking. My fellow pupils cheered me on and accepted me as one of them; Ha , the doctors kid wants to play too!

The first teacher at school had her down as an I from the intelligentisa the only one in the class !!

Told from the point of View of Gabriela. Gabriela is born into a family of Nobility in the Former East Germany. Her full surname is Von Haßiau. She is the daughter of a Surgeon, her mother is a society Hostess. Now, this would be great a wonderful start to life in the west but this is the old east of Germany. Gabriela is expected to follow in the family way so when she is just five she is appointed a Violin teacher. Although her playing never amounts to much it is her teacher that touches her. after she lost her Uncle the one they called the Bad German is shot by the regime. Frau Popiol and her red hair have a lasting impact on the young Gabrielia as she compares her first school teacher unfavourably to this woman. On her first day at school, her fellow pupils laugh at her name. As she is described by the teacher as A bourgeoisie relic for using the Von piece of her name. But as her father intervenes for her next day is different. But she has one friend at school. Katka is the poorest in the class is her friend they connect most to her mother’s dismay. THey get on til the teen years where Katka grows up after her first period. But Gabriela starts to go down hill. Ending up under the bridge living by the Kanal.We also see through her childish eyes. The family fall apart, early on in the book she describes her mother drinking. Then later finding her in bed with another man. Then Her father who she says only talks about Varicose and his clinic. He like many fell foul of the east German regime. We see all this as Gabriela tells her story when the wall falls down as a homeless woman in East German to a west German Magazine.

Katka left me standing there. I wasx suddenly alone. Wanted to get away. Where to? Whereever you want. I walked through the city. The city eneded aty the canal. Where to now? Yes or no.Wherever you want. I don’t know where I wantto go. Yes. No I’ve never been kissed. Don’t lie.On the canal there’s a little house. Who lives in this little house ? Yes of no. Steer clear of it. Why? don’t know wherever you want.Dance by the Canal

The passage icluding the title she had danced earlier there with Katka in thr town of Liebnitz she grew up in.

 

The parents say the daughter is Blnka when she was bad and Ehlchen when she was good.But this is a story of a girl that never really fits. Her parents you see from her point of view are distant then her school doesn’t work. This doesn’t help when her father won’t let her join in certain organizations within the school that all the other pupils are in but her. It is a story of a downfall. In the intro to the book on the Website says you look into the face of a homeless person and wonder why them not me. I get this sense myself. If our lives twist one way or another would we be Gabriela? What she shows is that even the highest can fall but also I feel the path is laid for Gabriela in a way. She has parents that we see maybe have other agenda in their lives but her and then she puts her self straight on the back foot at school. One downfall is a maybe the voice of thousands that fall through the cracks.  Also, shows the darker side of life on the streets when Gabriela has something happen and isn’t believed.