The Birdcage Archives

Saturday 30 June 2018

An Alternative Nobel – What Noble Satire


Hello Gentle Reader

It is often said: “when you hit rock bottom, someone always tosses you a shovel.” In the case of the disrupted and disputed Swedish Academy, it comes in the form of a one hundred and one strong Swedish organization, who calls itself: “The New Academy.” The dishelmed Swedish Academy, who has been forced to postpone this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, due to internal governance issues and concerns related to: ethics, morality, and integrity; as well as the conduct of a certain member’s significant other and his predator like sexual advances; has forced the embroiled and controversy stricken academy into postponing this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature—the first time in seventy-five years.

The New Academy is built up on an eclectic group of individuals, from a varied professional background which includes but is not limited to: librarians, academics, writers, translators, editors, publishers, journalists and actors; as well as: comedians, interior designers and musicians. Among its members include, Swedish punk rock icon and industrial music legend: Joakim Thåström; as well as actress and screenwriter: Bianca Kronlöf—who also operates as the group’s spokesperson; television host, columnist and writer: Alexandra Pascalidou; as well as casual writer, presenter and interior designer: Lulu Carter. As mentioned: it’s an eclectic group of individuals.

The New Academy, seeks to fill the void left by the Swedish Academy, when it (correctly) decided to postpone this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature. The New Academy, has chosen to award a stand in literary prize in order to solidify the importance of the literature award, but also chooses to set an example in how it selects and chooses its writer for their alternative Nobel.  Bianca Kronlöf has stated the award is democratic in conception, and will reflect the public’s tastes, and will be based on voting and popular appeal.

The New Academy would not be considered revolutionary (at least in my opinion); but rather a good dose of counter measure to distract away from a distraught Swedish Academy, whose remaining members are right now on summer break. This New Academy (for lack of better terms) has quickly formed through social media—especially twitter and Facebook—where numerous cultural figures (which includes the above mentioned professions) shared their ideas, their expertise, and their opinions on the Nobel Prize for Literature and the Swedish Academy, and have decided to create their own academy which will operate under democratic processes and transient conventions. For example, the award is established to allow libraries in Sweden to nominate their chosen authors by July 8th, at which the authors listed will be set to a vote internationally, whereupon the public across the globe will be set to vote on their authors, at which point a shortlist will be compiled, and a winner selected in October, and a awarding ceremony taking place on the tenth of December. When it is all said and done with, this New Academy, will dissolve and start fresh and anew once again. As Bianca Kronlöf points out, they are not an academy appointed or elected for life, but rather ever changing, with ever changing perspectives.

Of course, this ‘alternative award,’ has not been met with praise on every angle. When it was initially conceived back in May, there were a few hurrahs and a few cheers; but there were plenty of backlashes on social media as well. Some advised the original spearhead behind this idea— Alexandra Pascalidou—to create her own United Nations, in order to create and solve issues regarding world peace; others accused her of Olympic megalomania. Yet the idea has gathered more traction, and some more press coverage; though it should not be taken seriously. At best the entire idea should be seen as good humored satire, as the entire idea is riddled with administrative errors, populist ideals, and a sheer disregard for literature in favour of a majority popularity contest.

Now there is no word from any member of the Swedish Academy—currently presiding or resigned—and their thoughts on the entire ordeal. I imagine: Horace Engdahl would simply scoff and call it nonsense and churlishness; Göran Malmqvist might do what he does best and state the entire idea is stupid and pisses him off, as he storms off; and Sture Allén will most likely remain impassive on the outside and strict stone silent on the matter—or disregard it as irrelevant, much like he did with previous sexual assault allegations, back in the nineties. My advice, however, would be: stay silent, say nothing, do not react, do not respond, and do not comment. But then again: I am not a public relations professional, and therefore my advice carries no weight. Yet to continue expressing caution: any time one engages with a satirical forum or force with the airs of superior severe seriousness, you’re bound to make a fool of yourself even further.

For now though Gentle Reader, all one can do is sit back and watch another take the piss at the Swedish Academy’s expense. I would feel sorry for them, but it is difficult to offer sympathies and pity, to individuals who have failed to operate and govern accordingly, and allowed themselves to become embroiled and embittered in a scandal worthy of the term.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary

For Further Reading:


The New Academy 

Alternative Nobel Prize for Literautre

Thursday 21 June 2018

For Isabel: A Mandela


Hello Gentle Reader

Patience and dedication as virtues are in short supply in today’s world. Numerous forms of media vie for attention of the consumer, reader, and viewer. Attention is divided to the point of fragmentation. The commodities of today’s world are: instant gratification and instant relief. In today’s consumerist driven society, consumers want products, services, materials instantaneously. Patience, the once preached and revered virtue, is now a mythological concept, which is no longer featured in today’s high demand and high volume society. Now days waiting in line are not a testament of virtue; it’s an exercise in tolerating inconveniences. Admiration can only be expressed for the sheer will, patience and meditative tenacity possessed by Buddhist monks, when they design, form, construct their beautiful sand paintings, called mandalas. A mandala is a visual feast. The beauty of the mandalas comes from their intricate superficial simplicity, which only hides their complex symmetry and geometry, which creates their striking patterns, which is only accentuated by the bold and striking spectrum of colours included. By geometric pattern and shape and infused with colour becomes one of the most beautiful and transient piece of art, utilized in religious ceremonies and other liturgies. The craftsmanship and detailed oriented design, is rivaled only by the dedication and meditative patience displayed by the monks who diligently and patiently spread, weave, and guide the different colours of the sand in different patterns, to create a geometrically cerebral picture infused with a bold spectrum of colours. The dedication and detailed hard work, however, is quickly brushed away after it’s completed in a ceremony. The beauty of the sand painting and its quick transient erasure, speaks to the materialist metaphor and disengagement the Buddhist theology convicts itself to when discussing the meaninglessness of material goods. Yet, the entire process and finished product is truly an amazing spectacle to observe and admire.

The mandala as a symbol is important to Antonio Tabucchi’s posthumous published novel: “For Isabel: A Mandala.”  In other words: if it isn’t made clear enough by the title; it’s an important element to Tabucchi’s final novel. In this novel, Tabucchi’s narrator is a dead Polish writer by the name of: Tadeus, to come back from the dead (or to travel from the Dog Star— Sirius or Canis Major (Greater Dog))—to review and find answers to the mysterious woman of his youth, Isabel. Moving through different rings, Tadeus, is tasked with meeting with an eclectic group of acquaintances, friends, cohorts, saviours, and connections of Isabel’s life, in order to piece together her identity, her life, as well as the mysterious circumstances in which she disappeared. Tadeus, openly introduces and explains his journey as moving through the mandala, to the individuals in which he meets, and explains his interest in finding out the fate of Isabel, in order to make peace with her, and find peace for himself. The entire novel is not subtle in how it is crafted like a mandala sand painting. Each of the nine chapters, opens with a fragmented title, starting with the numbered circle, character being interviewed, location, and finally the abstract theme or trope of that circle of the mandala; such as: Evocation, Orientation, Absorption, Restoration, Image, Communication, Worldliness, Expansion, and Return. Throughout it all, Tadeus and the reader, journey through Salazar’s Fascist Portugal, in search of Isabel, who came to the attention of the secret police and the paranoid totalitarian government due to her activities with student demonstrations and a explicitly critical view of the government, as well as finally forming connections and allegiances with the Communist Party (the spiritual opposition of fascism). This would make Isabel, oh sweet Isabel, an enemy of Salazar’s Portugal. But her opposition to Salazar and his totalitarian government made her the speaker and orator of the discontent of Portugal. She wrote articles and essays in underground newspapers, she spoke freely, criticized with fire, and protested with conviction. She inspired both awe and worry in the common people, but also her colleagues, school friends, and family. Most importantly, though—perhaps in her own eyes—she had yanked and attracted the ire of the government, who sought to disband and subject the citizenry to obedience not dissidence.

Through meeting the individuals who had some coherent connection to Isabel, Tadeus, seeks to piece together her fate. Through a friend, who explains Isabel’s antigovernment activities, she confesses a pregnant Isabel, had overstayed her welcome, and the government had grown intolerant to her propagation of revolt and resistance. She was arrested. It is there in her prison cell, (allegedly) pregnant, and alone, Isabel dies. Tadeus, however, cannot accept this account of events. They don’t add up. If her life was so easily finished and final, why is he all of a sudden called back to piece together her life for his own eternal peace and rest? He refuses the accounted narrative, and seeks to find someone else who may find more answers, and so his quest continues. From nanny, to musician, to prison guard, to priest, to poet; Tadeus searches endlessly for the complete piceture and fate of Isabel, and in doing so begins to pass through his mandalas, with greater accomplishment as he begins to orbit on the peripherals of the centre, were surely, Isabel, will be waiting for him; and if not, at least at long last her fate will have been made clear, and he can finally return to his dog star, and continue his final end once again.

If one were to request that I draft a list of my favourite writers, Antonio Tabucchi, would most certainly be on it, alongside so many others (as to this day the list continually grows). Discovering, Antonio Tabucchi, numerous years ago was a wonderful reading experience; but it did take a long time for me to finally allocate the courage in order to read him. Every article, entry, interview, and profile, described an Italian who had become a scholar of Portuguese language and literature, with a particular fascination with the elusive and mystically fragmented Portuguese Fernando Pessoa, and all of his heteronyms. Reading the prefaces, articles, profiles, and digressions on Tabucchi, created a portrait of a cerebral and unique writer; one whose obsession with the obscure and almost schizophrenically mystical Portuguese poet, made him even more curious; but the term: scholar—or Portuguese language scholar—always appeared in his discussions, which immediately led to hesitation (and not due to the language) but rather due to the idea of scholar, meaning dry, stuffy and sophistic. Nothing is more boring to read or endure, then the self-absorbed monologue and intellectual masturbation, of someone droning in a monologue about their niche interest. For the longest time, I held Antonio Tabucchi with reserve and uncertainty. I scouted and stalked; but never pounced. Until finally, I took a chance on his most famous novel:  “Pereira Maintains,” or “Pereira Declares,” (pending on your translation available). The novel is slim and short; fast paced and engaging. The novel is a colourful display of political protest, and awakening. Pereira harbours a fugitive revolutionary, which stirs and disrupts his own political apathy, as he submits censorship as just an aspect of political change in Salazar’s renewed vision of Portuguese society. Yet the young man he harbours revolts, refutes, and expresses disdain to this shift in authority and power, and promotes widespread dissidence and protest. This without a doubt begins to gather the attention of the government who see this radical perspective as dangerous and counterproductive, and begin to harass Pereira, who despite receiving the articles and reportage and reviews, from the young man never publishes them. yet the more they are sent, the more they are received, the more they are read—even by Pereira himself—the begin to resonate and influence the individual change necessary to begin influencing grander change. The novel during its time was often picked up and used as a symbol, icon and image of protest against unpopular governments in Italy. From there Antonio Tabucchi, proved to show himself as a masterful writer, a writer who can tackle complex political and societal issues, with skepticism and critique without adhering to any particular ideology other than one which fixated on humanities and universal ideas of freedom. His novels and short stories could shift between the cerebral and mystical (“Requiem: a Hallucination,” “Indian Nocturne,”) to the political (“Pereira Maintains,” or “Pereira Declares,” “The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro,” “The Edge of Horizon,”) to his masterful experimental novels (“It’s Getting Later All The Time,” “Tristano Dies,”) and of course his famous short stories (“Little Misunderstandings of No Importance,” “Time Ages in a Hurry,”) and prose fragments and stories which defy genre and expectation (“The Woman of Porto Pim,” “The Flying Creatures of Fra Angelico,”). Yet the unifying elements of his work, is also his humanistic spirit, his political engagement and recognition of historical importance, his masterful use of language, and his ability to tell narrative in sometimes the most complex and unusual ways—be it letters written to an unknown recipient, who in the end comes full circle, and responds, comforts and confronts her epistolary ghosts; or a morphine infused monologue, from a dying soldier recounting his unreliable life, which grows more hazy as the dosage increases, and memories by their construct in themselves unreliable. Ever masterful and always engaging, Antonio Tabucchi, never truly seems to dissapoting; and he when he does—such as: “The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro,”—it can be overlooked and absolved.

“For Isabel: a Mandala,” is slightly different than the rest of Tabucchi’s backlog and oeuvre. Its unique and blends the dream and unrealistic (Tadeus confesses to being dead, and coming from the great dog), but it also holds his preoccupations with Portugal and his political involvement and willingness to criticize ideologies and dictators. It shows his preoccupation with the shifting and fluid idea of identity, and how others perceptions make up in part our own identity. Yet, of his previous novels, “For Isabel: a Mandala,” appears uncharacteristically unpolished. I have my doubts the novel was ready for publication upon the authors untimely death of lung cancer back in two-thousand and twelve; as certain sections appeared like they could have been fleshed out a bit more, there could have been more philosophical conversations, more intrigue, and the ending seems quickly forced and even kitschy for Tabucchi. It is certainly one of his more interesting narratives, but not entirely the most successful. It is, however, masterfully translated by the exquisite hands of Elizabeth Harris; but it shows its imperfections and carries the shadow of its authors untimely demise. Yet, if one is looking for an ontological and cerebral mystery in a hundred and some pages, it’s a good read. Reading, “For Isabel: A Mandala,” is being able to once again meet an old friend, and rekindle and clear the weeds away of a well-established respect and principle of enjoyment as reader and author. I look forward on a personal note to see more works of Antonio Tabucchi’s work published further; and perhaps his out of print works republished to find a new audience again. Antonio Tabucchi truly is and was one of the greatest writers of the past century and early twenty-first; and one of the best Italian writers since Italo Calvino.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary

Thursday 14 June 2018

Nobody Checks the Time When They’re Happy

Hello Gentle Reader

The only Korean writer I have had the pleasure of reading has been, Bae Suah, with her two novels: “A Greater Music,” and “Recitation.” What had initially attracted me to Bae Suah was her reputation as being the dark horse of Korean literature. She has been described as a writer, who has committed violence against the Korean language. This accusation has been leveled against Bae Suah for numerous years, as she does not follow the traditional literary methods of Korean literature. Her style has been called experimental and original, which stems from her autodidactic experimentation with language and writing, making Bae Suah, one of the most avant-garde Korean writers currently at work. This being said, Bae Suah, has expressed discomfort at being described as experimental, as she has stated she is not working to revolutionize or undermine the established literary tropes of language and literature, she is just working it in her own unique way, without any desire to subvert, reject or reform the predominate literary canon. Her two novels: “A Greater Music,” and “Recitation,” show Bae Suah’s interest moving away from geographical locations and fixations, and instead traveling into the most abstract realm, where she tackled themes such as: language, identity, philosophy, and time; with her own unique style, which has slowly eroded the traditional tropes of typical prose and narrative, by eschewing plot, story, narrator, and even at times concrete characters; all the while filling the space with abstract and disconnected ‘voices,’ who recite the loose plot or story, and engage the reader with questions the author wishes to propose and discuss. Though thoroughly enjoyable as well as cerebral, Bae Suah never quite offered something strikingly Korean to her work. She had obviously moved past the peninsula, and into the greater world of testing the limits of language and literature; while also exploring other cultures and languages—she is now also a translator of German into Korean.

Despite the flooded market of Korean literature in translation, the only two writers who appear to have successfully made themselves relatively well known to the English language world are: Bae Suah and Han Kang. Han Kang, of the two is slightly more popular, her works are known for their emotional resonance, and she has won the Man Booker International Prize, which certainly assisted her novels finding a greater and wider readership. Bae Suah, has come to prominence thanks to her being mentioned by the Best Translated Book Award longlist back in two-thousand and sixteen, with her novel “Nowhere to Be Found,” and since then three more of her works have been translated into English. Both Han Kang and Bae Suah, have become the faces of Korean literature in translation (roughly), and they are strikingly different then Ko Un, who for years held a monopoly as the only Korean voice, speaking on the global stage of literature. Now a multitude of voices are speaking. Dalkey Archive Press has published a series of novels and short story collections, in conjunction with The Literature Translation Institute of Korea; while other publishers have also grabbed the grants and financial assistance to begin publishing Korean literature into English—including White Pine Press. The problem with a saturated market is it is often difficult to decide on a book and a author one wishes to take a chance upon and devote their time to and read. The problem now is not a lack of publications, but rather an abundance of saturated media, making it difficult to make a decision. It is remarkable to think both Bae Suah and Han Kang, made were able to separate themselves from the pact, and not be drowned out in the torrent of a publishers craze. From the flood, however, one does have the opportunity to pick through the jetsam and flotsam, and find a real gem amongst the debris, and that is exactly what Eun Heekyung is; she is an overlooked gem in a publisher’s torrent of publications and translations.

As a child Eun Heekyung showed an affinity for reading and writing. She has described her childhood as filled with books, stories, and fairytales. She has often remarked, that when would often be so engrossed in reading, she would miss the bell to leave at the end of the school day, and would only realize school had ended after being surrounded in silence and absence. She is also a dedicated diarist, where she documented and wrote extensively in her journals, and soon begun to fabricate stories once she found out other students and friends were reading her diaries. Yet after graduating from university, she did not immediately begin to write. She instead worked as a teacher, an editor, and a reporter, before finally making the leap to become a writer after entering a writers retreat with a few books and decade’s worth of old journals. In the end, she walked out with one novella, and five short stories. The novella she had written, “A Duet,” would go on to win a literary contest. From there they say the rest is history. Since her initial debut, she has written six short story collections and four novels, and has become one of the most respected and critically acclaimed contemporary authors of Korean fiction. Be it intentional or otherwise, her debut took place during the mid-nineties, when ideologies concrete ideologies were beginning to collapse under their own self-importance and their antiquated inabilities to adapt to an ever changing world—this includes both communism and capitalism. For this, Eun Heekyung’s work is often praised for her sophisticated prose, but also is deeply known for her cynical streak, which skeptically views ideologies, trends, and new ideas being flouted in modern society. This skepticism and cynicism can be portrayed in a clownish caricature, or in other moments a brutal depiction of a monumental failure. Many critics point to her novel: “The Gift of the Bird,” and quote the following passage, to show her fundamental doubt with regards to ideologies:

“Preposterous and petty coincidences dominate our life. Therefore, don’t bother to find the truth. After all, life is a joke.”

This immediate sense of disenfranchisement as well as disregard for set ideals and conventional believes, has become a focal point of attraction for readers to Eun Heekyung, who explores the unfortunate wastes and forgotten aspects of society. However, in her later years she has mellowed out in her outright vicious claims of the absurdity and pointlessness of life or society, and has softened her skepticism—if only a little—in order to create far more subtle, and deeply more complex psychological portraits of contemporary individuals seeking direction, meaning and purpose to their life—some grand scheme to make sense of the confusion—only to turn around and show this pursuit of meaning is in itself pointless. This is exactly what “Nobody Checks the Time When They’re Happy,” is like; as much as it is skeptical, sharp, it also poignant and subtle, and humanely depicts the characters (without sympathy or pity) in their pursuit of trying to understand their place as an individual in their life, while balancing the obligations of society, family, as well as the callings of the heart. Tragedy and unhappiness befalls all those who do not obey these set conventions and orderly rules which have been instituted for a reason; but tragedy also arises when those who conform and meet all obligations while denying their own individualist pursuits. In Eun Heekyung’s world, winning is rarely if ever an option; while failure is an inevitable fate.  The narrator from the short story: “An Obviously Immoral Love,” explains the complicated dynamics of family versus the individual:

“[ . . . ]the members have their teeth sunk into each other’s backs. If they loosen their bite, everyone will scatter and the family will break apart. But if they bite down too hard, they’ll rip each other apart. That’s love.”

Throughout the short story collection, characters and narrators are expected to put their lives on hold for the lives of others. In one a narrator takes care of her mother, who suffers from cancer, while in turn recounts the suffering of her youth, the lies of her father and his death; her complicated relationship with her mother, as well as her own mothers selfishness. Yet she is both bound of societal obligation and perhaps familial devotion to pay her mother the kindness, at her own expense. In another story, a woman’s father wishes to divorce her mother; while the narrator/daughter, becomes the mistress of another man. She becomes contrarian and self-flagellating. On one hand she argues against her mother, defending her father, his decisions, his rights. While on the other, she prosecutes her lover, defaces herself, forces herself to suffer the sins of her father and perhaps herself, by explaining to her lover how she terrible she is, and how terrible he is for taking her on as a mistress—after all how is she any different than his wife? In another story, life’s tragedy is intertwined and coupled with a failed writer, who is still seen as a student demonstrating student, but in reality was a coward; while his wife is forced by her own marital obligation to take care of him, as she stumbles from one drunken stupor to the next, from one suicide attempt to yet another drunk fueled depressive episode, all the while attempting to maintain some sanity and safety for her daughter.

Everything and everyone is unreliable in the world of Eun Heekyung—be it identity or narrative. In her fictional world, depicting a modern Korea, everyone is expected to atone for ones sins, and if not their own then their fathers, their mothers, their husbands or their children’s—and so the cycle would repeat over and over again. Morality is loose, and treated with a cautious even sarcastically skeptical perspective; as if the concept is an ideology created by society to enact against the individual, but is paraded as some cosmic or holy code, yet everyone fails its measurements, and of course forgiveness is in short supply, and many brokers parade a forgery of the substance, for the exact cost.

Eun Heekyung’s stories describe a bleak and mundane world. Her characters and narrators are hapless and helpless, as their lives unfold. They are isolated and alienated from forming lasting and formative relationships, due to the impossibility of real communication and understanding ever being reached between individuals. The narrators and characters are at times baffled and confused by their situations, but are powerless to change their predetermined fates. Success and ideas of happy endings, brings only stability, but never any deeper relief or complex sensation of happiness. They walk through their lives unable to comprehend their situations fully, and instead resign themselves to them. The expectations of youth give way to the realities and compromises of both time and age. Eun Heekyung, presents herself as a unique writer, as she describes the situations and circumstances of the narratives, while not focusing or fixating on plot. She clearly shows the idea that every move and action, has an equal cost in return—even inaction. Her stories truly depict the plight of the modern and unsure world of today, where the individual now more than ever it seems has been pitted against external factors, inhibiting both freedom and meaning—if the ideal or idea of ‘meaning,’ is even relevant anymore. It’s subtle and well crafted selection of short stories. Eun Heekyung lacks the cerebral preoccupations of Bae Suah, but instead offers a unique perspective of modern Korean society—one riddled with numerous obligations and expectations, and no hope left kindling or flickering for any resemblance of what one may deem or call happiness, and if it does exists, its taxing expenses, would make one reconsider just how much they are willing to pay in order to achieve it.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary

Thursday 7 June 2018

Daša Drndić, Dies Aged 71


Hello Gentle Reader

Daša Drndić was a critically acclaimed Croatian writer, whose works were just beginning to set root in other languages, specifically: English. Not surprising considering she was a doctorate and professor in English language/literature and creative writing, and English language and literature were her areas of study throughout most of her education—her bachelor’s degree focused on English language and literature philology; her master’s degree was in communications and theatre, while her doctorate degree returned to English language and literature—alongside being a professor and lecturer on English language/literature and creative writing, Daša Drndić was editor and translator; most importantly she was a writer. As a writer, Daša Drndić, literary perspectives were more homegrown, historical and tragic. Throughout her literary overview she tackled the themes and scenes of horrors from the twentieth century; including the Holocaust, Soviet Union, and the Balkans war. Yet unlike many writers who wrote long and dry academic passages and investigations, documenting the horrors through dates, stats, and facts; Daša Drndić imagined and reimagined these tragedies, and the personal stories lost in the horrors of the time. Her work was often called a sucker punch to the stomach, relentless in depicting and retelling the horrors that have taken place during the past century, yet despite the tragedy often researched, investigated and retold in her work, there are moments of grace, beauty and humanity. Beyond writing fiction and prose, she often wrote radio dramas performed in her native Croatia, as well as writing scripts for radio programs; as well as writing articles and opinion pieces for newspapers. Before her death, Daša Drndić, spoke forlornly and with unease about the rise of fascism and the terrors of the common age, which she has called an age of “aggressive revisionism,”—and offered a warning that there is no such idea of concept as moderate fascism or favorable Nazism; and worries the dark face of fascism is once again on the rise and steadily so.  Daša Drndić died on June 6th, after succumbing to a battle with cancer, which she has fought for the past two years. She was renowned for being a striking, frank, and humanely concerned writer, one who wrote about the darkest points of history, and gave voice and an identity to the victims; and brining the personal to the historical.

Rest in Peace, Daša Drndić

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary

The Best Translated Book Award Winners, 2018


Hello Gentle Reader

The past week was busier than previously anticipated; between work, cross training for yet another position, as well as an exam, I had mistakenly and unfortunately forgotten about the Best Translated Book Award, and its new winner. Now, almost a week later, I am here to report the winners of this year’s Best Translated Book Award are: Argentinian writer, Rodrigo Fresán, with his novel “The Invented Part,” for fiction; and the late Greek poet, Eleni Vakalo, with her poetry collection: “Before Lyricism.”

I am not surprised to see Eleni Vakalo’s poetry collection “Before Lyricism,” win the award, after all the collection itself has had a reputation for ages as being untranslatable, difficult, demanding, and a monumental work of poetic genius. Thankfully, the book was translated by the accomplished and skilled scholar, Karen Emmerich. Of all the poets and their collections shortlisted, Eleni Vakalo carried a heavy and intellectually frightening weight, which could not be overlooked or missed—and this may I add, comes from someone who rarely reads poetry.

Admittedly I am surprised that Rodrigo Fresán won the Best Translated Book Award for fiction, with his novel “The Invented Part.” The shortlist struck me as strong and diverse, and certainly thought the best contenders for the award were: Fleur Jaeggy, and her short story collection “I am the Brother of XX,” the late Wolfgang Hilbig, and his stream-of consciousness’s novel of childhood and growing up, “The Old Rendering Plant,” the French superstar, Marie NDiaye and her novel “My Heart Hemmed In,” as well as the long sprawling novel “Compass,” which tackles numerous subjects and themes, while dancing around orientalism, by the French author Mathias Énard. I however, gave no real consideration to Rodrigo Fresán or his novel “The Invented Part,” which is a strikingly postmodernist tale, fit with a writer who wishes to die a cosmic death (due to his lack of approval of contemporary literary culture and the world at large) seeks to turn himself into a ‘meta-writer,’ where he will be able to rewrite reality. The novel was also praised for its humour (the premise alone is bitterly comic), its vibrant characters, its pop culture postmodern references, and its dance between madness and genius; it is no wonder Rodrigo Fresán has been called a ‘pop culture Borges.’

There you are Gentle Reader (though late) this year’s Best Trnslated Book Award Winners! Congratulations to both writers and their respective and admirable translators!

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary