Category Archives: Books in translation

To the Back of Beyond: Peter Stamm, translated by translated by Michael Hofmann

24 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in Books in translation, Fiction

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What happens when a man walks out of his seemingly perfect life?

Thomas and Astrid live in a village in northern Switzerland. Thomas has a steady job, they have two children, a nice house and a marriage that seems to work. Until one evening, back from a holiday in Spain, they put the children to bed and sit outside with a glass of wine and the paper. Astrid goes in to check on the son, Konrad. Thomas leaves his unfinished glass of wine and walks out of the gate. And keeps walking.

Astrid, in the meantime, goes to bed, thinking Thomas will follow. She doesn’t really notice his absence until halfway through the day. She makes excuses for his absence to his secretary and the children, hoping that he would come back. But he doesn’t, and she goes to the police.

The book alternates between the two: Thomas, as he manages to survive with whatever he had in his pockets, staying out of sight, sleeping rough; and Astrid, trying to maintain an appearance of normality, especially for the children. She tracks down his whereabouts when he uses his credit card but he has already moved on.

Thomas does not have any obvious motivation for leaving: the day he walks out is like any other. But Peter Stamm, in summing up Thomas’s life so far, gives you a glimpse of what he was escaping from: “he had functioned in the way expected of him, without it being ever discussed”. The freedom Thomas craves is the freedom from expectations. Now, wandering through the countryside, he lives in the moment, surviving in whatever way he can, with nothing to prove to anyone.

Stamm’s writing is spare and deceptively simple. He describes the events dispassionately: there is emotion but for the most part it is kept just under the surface. The writing emphasises the way both Thomas and Astrid keep an emotional distance from their lives and from those around them. When their daughter Ella was a baby and cried incessantly, Astrid would sometimes leave her alone in the house and go and sit on a bench by the station. And in a strange way, she seems to understand Thomas’s need to leave.

I loved Stamm’s writing and the economical way he can capture a scene. The family goes to a barbeque with Thomas’s handball teammates. “Astrid sat at a table with three couples who seemed to be friends and were sharing village gossip, with loud shouts of laughter. … By the time Thomas finally jammed onto the bench facing her, laughing at some comment or other that someone had called out, she said she was tired and wanted to go home… she had the feeling that she couldn’t stand the noise and merriment for another minute. In spite of that, they didn’t go home until much later, after midnight, when there was a chill in the air.”

This book is about relationships and love, and also loss, the empty place at the table, the slowly fading memory of someone dear. Astrid, describing him to the police, “had the sense that Thomas was rigidifying as she described him, becoming unrecognizable, the image of a dead man”. At one point when she thinks he is dead, she imagines Thomas’s family and friends trying to keep his memory alive by telling and retelling stories about him which “over the years would come to stand in for him, and finally, ironically, cause him to disappear.”

But the core of the book is the love between Thomas and Astrid. In an odd way, their relationship strengthens away from each other. Stamm has written an unusual and rather haunting book.

Shadowless: Hasan Ali Toptas, translated by Maureen Freely and John Angliss

19 Sunday Aug 2018

Posted by in Books in translation, Fiction

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I am honestly not sure what to make of this strange, hallucinatory book. Reading it is like wandering into a dream where not everything makes sense. In spite of its title, it is full of shadows and fog. In essence, this is a book about memory and what it means to exist.

The story takes place in a remote village in Anatolia: “there was no village further from the State than this one, and no village further from God”. The day after the muhtar is re-elected, the barber Nuri disappears. The muhtar sends out men to look for him but they return without any news. Another barber mysteriously shows up in the village and takes over Nuri’s shop. Then when the most beautiful girl in the village goes missing, things really start to fall apart.

Meanwhile, Nuri reappears in a barbershop in Istanbul. The people in the barbershop in Istanbul wait, forget the past and sometimes vanish. They either turn up in the village or are never seen again.

The story moves between mirror worlds that are in some way connected. Characters go back and forth between the two worlds, not sure how they got there. Narratives loop back on themselves. It’s not even clear how substantial these two worlds actually are. When the muhtar hears people knocking on his door, he expects the villagers but finds only insubstantial shadows.

People contain within them multiple versions of themselves, all of whom coexist; but sometimes two versions of a person are doing different things. One of the main characters is the watchman, who becomes increasingly depressed as things unravel. “He wafted from street to street, like an empty sack, blown from one wall to the next. He seemed to be shrinking as he went: leaving crumbs of himself on the roads and plains and cliffs and nights he left in his wake.

“But still, inside that crumbling watchman, there were hundreds of other watchmen, each very different from the next. One watchman found the energy to search for the muhtar from time to time. … One wanted to gather up his things and leave the village. One had a good, long cry.”

And there is a writer in the barbershop in Istanbul who seems to know more than he should about the village (it’s the only time the book uses first-person narrative). Do the people exist only in his imagination? Is he writing this story, making the reader part of the creative process, or is he just a part of the story?

The writing is beautiful and lyrical, but trying to make sense of it is trying to grab a fistful of mist. I think I shall reread it, slowly, and allow it to carry me instead of trying to bend it to my reality.

No sweet song, this

03 Sunday Jun 2018

Posted by in Books in translation, Crime / Thriller, Fiction

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book coverLullaby by Leila Slimani

Translated from the French Chanson Douce (2016) by Sam Taylor (Faber & Faber, 2018)

I encountered Leila Slimani and her work in the New York Times Review of Books, months before the English translation came to market. My fingers raced across the keyboard to Amazon, only to find I had to wait four months before copies would become available, and for the first time ever (okay, outside of pre-ordering the Harry Potter books for my daughter) I placed an order and held my breath.

The opening sentence, which plays on the book jacket above the title, and repeated in multiple reviews in multiple papers around the world, is a bare, unadorned statement.

The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds.

So you have the grisly end to the story, which is the beginning of an exploration of the multiple complexities that structure our lives and the dynamics that ensue when people from different worlds come together. A young couple, intelligent, ambitious, and aware in the manner of the urbane liberal middle class, wish to hire a nanny to care for their two children when the mother, a brilliant lawyer, goes back to work after a baby break. “No illegal immigrants, agreed?….to look after the little ones, it’s too dangerous.” Says Myriam to her husband, Paul, as they stage their small apartment to convey an assurance they barely feel, to receive the applicants for the post. “She is awaiting this nanny as if she is the Savior.”

Louise is perfect (the title of the North American edition is The Perfect Nanny), with a face “like a peaceful sea, its depths suspected by no one.” She brings the much-needed order to their household, coaxing the children into good behaviour and rustling up delectable home-cooked meals that win the work-worn hearts of the parents who return from their demanding jobs, tired and grateful. Most importantly, she gives them back their time with each other, allowing them to rediscover an intimacy they had lost to parenthood.

But Louise’s own life is cold and empty, one of rejection, deprivation, and a million broken dreams and as she fills it, more and more, with the lives of Miriyam’s children, Mila and Adam,  “The silent apartment is completely under her power, like an enemy begging for forgiveness.”

Lullaby is a thriller told in reverse, a deliberate forensic examination of how something comes to be. The deliberate distance maintained by the narration, as if you are watching it all unfold through a six-inch thick pane of glass, in slow motion, makes it all the more powerful. Slimani takes us deep into the emotional labyrinth of motherhood, where it is not all sacrifice and smiles, but also resentment, rage, regret, confusion. She carefully dissects the hypocrisies of class difference, complicated as it is these days with carefully hidden attitudes to race, ethnicity and gender. She explores what it means to nurture children that are not your own, who unhesitatingly betray your love by running into a parent’s arms the moment you set them down. Miriyam and Paul love Louise, but they are also a little frightened of her, and at times, hate that they are reminded that they have so much, and she, so little. After all, they live in a fashionable part of Paris, a neighbourhood where people “offer friendly greetings even if they don’t know each other” while Louise escapes every day from a bare one-room apartment to fulfil Miriyam’s “guiltily nursed” fantasies of an idyllic family life.

We know how it all ends, but the fascination with the question of why keeps one reading. Apart from the central characters—Louise, Miriyam, Paul and the children—there are others, bit players in this drama that shapes people, shapes events.

Slimani’s style is one of short, sometimes even brusque, sentences that allow the scene to unfold, but don’t let you linger. The novel moves forward in tension-filled bursts, told almost entirely in present tense, giving the reader the sense that you can’t tarry or you might be left behind as the narrative moves relentlessly towards its end.

It’s no surprise that the novel won France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2016. It is nothing like your regular whodunit; after all, we know who did it right from the start.

Recognizing the Talent of the Translator: The Subtle Art of Translating

21 Monday May 2018

Posted by in About reading, writing and books, Books in translation

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From time to time, this blog showcases books in translation to tempt readers to explore writing from countries that do not always make it to the bestseller lists. But we often overlook the work of the translator, who has not only to be fluent in two languages but has to be able to write. The fact that we read books written in other languages is not simply because they have been rendered into another language (English, in this case) but also because the translation does justice to the original.

Rachel Cooke in this article for The Guardian, says that the quality of the translation is paramount.

“Last year, I decided to treat myself to a new copy of Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, a novel I have loved ever since I first read it as a teenager, and whose dreamy opening line in its original translation from the French by Irene Ash – “A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sadness” – I know by heart. But which one to get? In the end, I decided to go for something entirely new and ritzy, which is how I came to buy the Penguin Modern Classics edition, translated by Heather Lloyd.

Some days later, in bed, I began reading it. The shock was tremendous, disorienting. “This strange new feeling of mine, obsessing me by its sweet languor, is such that I am reluctant to dignify it with the fine, solemn name of ‘sadness’,” went the first sentence, which sounded to my ears a little as though a robot had written it. For a while I pressed on, telling myself it was stupid to cling to only one version, as if it were a sacred thing, and that perhaps I would soon fall in love with this no doubt very clever and more accurate new translation. Pretty soon, though, I gave up. However syntactically correct it might be, the prose had for me lost all of its magic. It was as if I’d gone out to buy a silk party dress and come home with a set of nylon overalls.”

Read the full article on The Guardian website. Cooke’s article is followed by short pieces by translators of some well-known foreign writers.

A Land Without Jasmine: Wajdi Al-Ahdal, translated by William Maynard Hutchins

07 Monday May 2018

Posted by in Books in translation, Fiction, The reading challenge

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Over the last year, Yemen has been in the news, its people suffering the ravages of war and famine. I realized that I knew very little about the country, especially what it had been like to live there before the troubles began. I’ve always found fiction to be the best way in to understand a society, especially if the writer is from the country/community. Fiction takes you into people’s homes and minds in a way that non-fiction does not.

So I got myself this book, written by Wajdi Al-Ahdal, one of Yemen’s best-known writers. In 2003, he had to leave Yemen because his book Qawarib Jabaliya (Mountain Boats) upset radical conservatives. He was eventually able to return but I somehow don’t think this book is going to endear him to the conservatives—he writes not only about the way women are treated in this very patriarchal society but also about women’s sexuality. They are seen as both the keepers of the family’s honour and objects of desire.

The centre of this book is Jasmine, a young woman living in Sana’a. She is bright and beautiful, focused on her studies. Until one day she doesn’t come home from university. No one can find her—she seems to have vanished into thin air. And for many of the people around her, a land without Jasmine is a diminished place.

Each chapter is narrated by a different person, starting with Jasmine herself. She complains about the male gaze that follows her everywhere: whether it’s the shopkeeper across the street or the construction workers on her way to the university; men ogle her and seem to follow her every move, in spite of the veil and long black coat she wears when she leaves the house. She feels that she is suffocating under this constant watchfulness, “a noxious type of male violence”.

It is not only older men who are obsessed with Jasmine. Ali, the adolescent boy in the flat opposite hers, is in love with her. They used to be friends until Jasmine’s father thought she was too old to be hanging out with boys. So now, unable to speak to her or approach her, he waits every morning for Jasmine to leave for university and follows her like a shadow.

When one day she doesn’t come home, her father and brothers go looking for her, convinced that she has in some way sullied the family’s honour. It seems like that men in the family and the clan are more worried about their honour than about what happened to Jasmine. The only people who seem to really care are her mother, Ali, the man running the café at the university and the policemen investigating her disappearance.

All of them take turns at telling their side of the story. And each narration adds yet another piece to Jasmine’s story. And because she is the first character you meet, you can separate the truth from people’s perceptions of her. The last chapter goes back to Jasmine herself, through her mother who finds Jasmine’s diary, which hints at events much stranger than anyone had imagined.

This is a slim book at just 82 pages. The end is intriguing, but I am not sure whether I completely believe it. It isn’t the element of magic realism that bothers me but the woman writing the diary feels very different from the woman in the first chapter. Even allowing for the secret lives we all lead inside our heads, I found it a little hard to believe. At some level it feels like a male fantasy, the kind that has been dogging Jasmine all her adult life, even though it is supposed to be her diary.

In spite of that, I found it a fascinating glimpse into a country and a culture that I really didn’t know much about.

The Man Who Loved Dogs: Leonardo Padura, translated by Anna Kushner

01 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by in Books in translation, Fiction, Historical fiction

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“If the social dream and economic utopia supporting it had become corrupt to the core, what remained of the greatest experiment man had ever dreamed of?”

It is easy to forget today how seductive the idea of communism was for generations of intellectuals the world over. They were drawn to the idea of a utopia where everyone was equal although, unfortunately, in practice it often resulted in authoritarian regimes.

In The Man Who Loved Dogs, Cuban writer Leonardo Padura looks at these “corrupted utopias”, and at one of the most influential men behind communism. The book is about Leon Trotsky and his assassin, Ramón Mercader. We don’t know very much about Ramón Mercader, but Padura’s reconstruction of his story is very convincing.

There are three strands in this book, each following the three main characters: Trotsky, Ramón and Ivan, a failed Cuban writer who meets Ramón twenty years after the assassination of Trotsky. The book is ostensibly written by Ivan.

The book’s structure allows Padura to look at the ways in which people in power corrupt the idea of communism. In the Soviet Union, Stalin had put in place a regime of fear and repression; in the Spanish civil war, during which Ramón was recruited, Soviet agents were busy manipulating the Left for their own ends; and in Cuba, communism had resulted in deprivation and the stifling of talent.

Padura’s book follows Trotsky in his exile from the Soviet Union. Trotsky is being hounded by Stalin and knows that when Stalin no longer needs him for his propaganda purposes, he will have Trotsky killed. It is fascinating to see how the idealism of early communism morphed into a brutal dictatorship. Trotsky is haunted by the fact that his actions at the start of the Bolshevik regime had opened the door for someone like Stalin. “The proletarian dictatorship was meant to eliminate the exploiting classes, but should it also repress the workers?… [I]t was not possible to allow the expression of the people’s will since this would have reversed the process itself [ie, the dictatorship]. But the abolition of that will would deprive the Bolshevik government of its basic legitimacy: once the moment arrived when the masses ceased to believe, the need arose to make them believe by force.”

Meanwhile in Spain, Ramón, who is fighting against Franco, is being manipulated by his mother, Caridad (who has an agenda of her own) and Kirov, a Soviet spy who becomes his handler. Kirov puts Ramón through increasingly intensive training, breaking him down to reshape him (at one point, Kirov thinks of Ramón as “his creature”). Both men change their names constantly, and the author, by referring to them by their current names emphasizes their shape-shifting natures.

Ivan grows up in Cuba during the 1960s and 70s, at a time when Cubans were kept from knowing anything that would destroy their faith in the Revolution, such as the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Similarly, any creativity that challenged the Revolution was discouraged. The short story Ivan submits to his university magazine is branded “almost counter-revolutionary” by the magazine’s director. And this is the insidious way in which fear can shape people: Ivan leaves the director’s office feeling fearful and confused but, most of all, grateful that no measures would be taken against him and determined to prove that he is worthy of the regime’s trust. But Ivan stops writing, and it is not until he meets “the man who loved dogs” that he thinks of picking up his pen again.

The man whom Ivan meets is, of course, Ramón. Ivan sees him walking on the beach in Havana and is fascinated by his two Borzois (as the title indicates, dogs—especially Borzois or Russian wolfhounds—form a common thread through the book: Trotsky is also fond of dogs). The two men get talking, and Ramón starts to confide in Ivan.

This is a complex book, not an easy read but well worth the effort. I loved the way Padura structures the book, with the action moving back and forth between the three stories. He plays with time: as Ramón gets closer to Trotsky, the timing of the chapters is a bit off. For example, you see Trotsky watering his plants for the last time, but the following chapter on Ramón takes place the day before. It is a little disconcerting but when the two timelines come together with Ramón assassinating Trotsky, it feels like a collision.

Every single one of the book’s characters comes alive. But Trotsky, most of all, jumps off the page as a larger-than-life character (as I suspect he was in reality). Like all people with a big idea, he is unable to see how his single-mindedness affects those around him, even though he knows that he and his family are in danger. This book is a dissection of the corrupting influence of politics. All the characters are affected, directly or indirectly, by Stalin’s campaign against Trotsky.

There are a few things that jar in the translation, like “gave an ear” instead of “lent an ear”, “two times” instead of “twice” and “could care less” instead of “couldn’t care less”. All of these detract from an otherwise excellent translation and could have been picked up by an editor.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this intricately plotted book and would recommend it without hesitation.

Aya of Yop City: written by Marguerite Abouet, drawn by Clément Oubrerie

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by in Books in translation, Fiction, Graphic novels, The reading challenge

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The three young women in Aya of Yop City, the first in a series of graphic novels, have boys, parties, marriage and future careers on their mind. They rebel against their parents, pick unsuitable boyfriends and try to figure out their place in the world. The three friends—Aya, Adjoua and Bintou—live in Youpougon (known as Yop City in slang), a neighbourhood of Abidjan in the Côte d’Ivoire.

The central character, Aya, is a hard-working and ambitious young woman who wants to become a doctor. Adjoua and Bintou, on the other hand, are interested in the “three c’s”: “coiffure, couture et chasse au mari” (hairstyles, clothes and the hunt for a husband, preferably a rich one). It’s a conventional role for a woman, and something that Aya’s parents want for her too. But she has other plans and is determined to see them through.

Aya’s parents set up a meeting with Moussa, the spoiled and none-too-bright son of Aya’s father’s boss. Aya is not at all interested, but her friends are. Moussa has money to spend, and takes Bintou partying. Meanwhile, he is also seeing Adjoua. The relationship has gone beyond partying, with the inevitable outcome—she becomes pregnant.

The family is central, and the girls’ families are very much part of the story. In the first few panels, the reader is introduced to all of them. When Adjoua becomes pregnant, she goes to see Aya’s mother, Fanta, who is a healer. The mother and daughter are the core of this community—both, in their own ways, provide succour and level-headedness.

Aya of Yop City is, in many ways, a universal story, and young women (or those of us who were once young!) will identify with it. But it is also a glimpse into life in Yopougon. Young people go to the maquis, open-air restaurants that are informal and cheaper than proper restaurants. And once the maquis close, it is where lovers meet at night. At the end of the book, there is a recipe for sauce arachide, the peanut sauce that is typical of the region. And that is what is so great about this series—this mix of the familiar and the new. (An aside about the familiar: as a young woman living in my hometown, I had to put up with visits from so-called eligible bachelors living abroad who were scouting around for a nice Indian wife! So Aya’s visit to Moussa’s family resonated with me.)

The book combines humour and social critique with believable characters. I felt like I’ve met some of these people, and I want to know what happens to them.

The book is beautifully drawn by Clément Oubrerie and captures the vibrancy of both the place and characters. Although it is not autobiographical, it is based on Marguerite Abouet’s experiences growing up in the Côte d’Ivoire. Like many Africans, she was fed up of the media’s focus on the wars, famines and poverty, and wanted to present the day-to-day life of ordinary Africans. She has succeeded with this very enjoyable series.

(The series has been translated from the French into English by Drawn and Quarterly.)

Of Human Freedom: Epictetus (translated by Robert Dobbin)

12 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by in Books in translation, Non-Fiction, Philosophy

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Review by Thomas Peak

This magical little book comes from a time and place far, far away. It is adapted from the Discourses written by Epictetus, an emancipated Greek slave living in the Roman Empire (55- 135 AD). His world is gone. But this hopeful guide to living a worthwhile life, on how to be a happy person and a good person (which are one and the same) feels as present and necessary as ever.

Amongst the greatest of classical Stoic philosophers, Epictetus’ goal is to teach others how to achieve peace and satisfaction, by focusing on what is truly valuable, and not on things which only appear to be. Cultivation of freedom is the ultimate pursuit of human life, and ‘What else is freedom but the power to live our life the way we want?’ (p. 25.) This freedom, we are told, and the calm, happy life is within everybody’s reach. It is the release from excessive desire for anything ‘external’; the acceptance of things as they are; and a rejection of worries. ‘Freedom is not achieved by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it.’ (p. 81.) To invest our well-being and in things essentially beyond our control is a foolish delusion. It is slavery. Money, lust, fame, things of these kind are diversions away from the source of true happiness, they are things which cannot deliver the satisfaction that we hope to achieve through them.

In vivid language, which avoids the dry and obscure prose of much more recent philosophy, it is difficult to see how a person could read this book and not come away with any benefit. To follow Epictetus’ advice is to treat others kindly, not to judge them, to recognise that you are as weak and as fallible as anybody else. ‘If you must laugh at someone [who is superficial and not perfect] then laugh at yourself as well.’ (p. 87.) From this two-thousand year old pen we read that we are all slaves together, to the extent that we submit ourselves to passing and unstable things. Thus, the bad person – the selfish, greedy, or the unjust – is simply somebody who lives and acts the way he does involuntarily; because nobody would choose to be a slave and to live an unhappy life.

Who wants to live with delusion and prejudice, being unjust, undisciplined, mean and ungrateful? ‘No one.’ No bad person, then, lives the way he wants, and no bad man is free. Who wants to live life experiencing sadness? So, can we find any bad person who is without sadness, fear, frustration or misfortune? ‘No.’ No more, then, can we find one who is free. (p. 53.)

So, the question is why should we be angry with people who mistreat us?

At times the standard can seem impossibly high. Epictetus is demanding. We are expected to monitor our thoughts, always being conscious of weaknesses and excessive desires, thinking about how we should or will approach various scenarios that we might encounter day-to-day. This is the training needed to live in equanimity and harmony with the world around us, enjoying it and appreciating its beauty for the very short time we have. But imagining freedom in the way Epictetus describes, can at first be as disheartening as to step in the gym thinking about deadlifting 500kg or running a two-hour marathon; of course, this is possible, just not for me. The point though, is not necessarily to be perfect but to try to live freer, happier lives. It is the effort that counts:

‘If you’ve succeeded in removing or reducing the tendency to be mean and critical, or thoughtless, or foul-mouthed, or careless, or nonchalant; if old interests no longer engage you, at least not to the same extent; then every day can be a feast day – today because you acquitted yourself well in one set of circumstances, tomorrow because of another.’ (p. 91.)

To choose fewer things which make us unhappy, and to look at other people more kindly, this seems like a good goal.

This short and accessible book can be read on a single long flight or train journey. It is easy to pick up and difficult to put down, and what’s more, Epictetus’ philosophy is not just warm, intensely thought provoking and witty, it is good medicine for the difficult moments in life. It deals directly with concerns like bad relationships, not having enough money, and not feeling important enough. Epictetus’ advice is the best prompt for reading this book:

Instead of a rich old man, cultivate the company of a philosopher, be seen hanging around his door for a change. There’s no shame in the association, and you won’t go away unedified or empty-handed, provided you go with the right attitude. Try at least; there is no shame in making an honest effort (p. 81)

The Sad Part Was: Prabda Yoon, translated by Mui Poopoksakul

04 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in Books in translation, Fiction, The reading challenge

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A man is intrigued by the spaces between the words a schoolgirl is writing in her diary, a couple discover a corpse on the roof crushed under the fallen letters from a neon sign, a group of men meet to mark the death of the woman they loved with alcohol and chillies, and a she-vampire and her son go missing.

These are some of the odd situations and people you meet in this collection of short stories by Prabda Yoon, a Thai writer. His protagonists are young people, and the stories have a strangeness to them that is intriguing. They tend to end inconclusively. And this refusal to have tidy endings works—I found myself thinking of the characters, wondering how they ended up.

Yoon plays with concepts and punctuation. The story about the schoolgirl is clarified in the note from the translator at the end—in Thai, there are no spaces between words, so the words have meanings of their own but also form compound words that mean something different. The protagonist sees the girl writing on a bus and tries to understand why she leaves so much space between her words, providing “breathing room, so each letter can inhale and exhale comfortably”. Here Yoon’s humour comes through: the man asks the girl why she writes like that and before she can answer, tells her what he thinks (yet another example of mansplaining!) until she misses her bus stop. And every time he meets her on the bus, he does the same thing, so he never actually finds out why she does it, but she knows all about his theories. In a post-modern story, Marut, a character created by Yoon, is scathing about the writer who is gave the character life.

I wasn’t sure I would enjoy this collection, but I did. It’s different—the world Yoon creates is just a little off-centre, making it interesting and unusual. The book is published by Tilted Axis Press, which publishes books that might not otherwise be translated into English, so if you’re looking to widen your reading, geographically speaking, have a look at the website. It’s not a huge selection, but has some interesting titles.

Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey—Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein

20 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by in About reading, writing and books, Autobiography / Biography / Memoir, Books in translation, Non-Fiction

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How much do you need to know about the writer to be able to enjoy their books? Nothing at all, according to Elena Ferrante, author of the Nepolitan Quartet and other books. She writes under a pseudonym and refuses to reveal her identity, insisting that her books can speak for themselves. The media hates a mystery and has turned this into a circus, with an Italian journalist claiming to have tracked down the real Elena Ferrante. Rumour even had it that she was really a man—how could a mere woman write these brilliant books? But while journalists fretted over her identity, people kept reading her books: the sales figures speak for themselves.

In this book, she reveals something of the woman behind the books. This frantumaglia (a jumble of fragments) is a collection of her interviews over the years—always by email—and her correspondence with film directors.

The interviews form the bulk of the book. Journalists keep asking her why she conceals her identity, wouldn’t it be better if she didn’t, what does she hope to achieve by it and so on, ad nauseam. I found the repetitiveness annoying and could only imagine how frustrating it must be for her. But Ferrante is very clear: once the book has been sent off to the publisher, it’s done. “I would like to think that, once my book enters the marketplace, nothing can oblige me to make the same journey. … I don’t want to accept an idea of life where the success of the self is measured by a success of the written page.”

But there are rewards for those—both journalists and directors—who engage directly with her writing. This is where she shines, describing how a story comes into being and takes shape. Ferrante is a perfectionist—until she is entirely satisfied, her writing stays private. This means that she has written more than she has published. Good writing, she believes, should say “the unsayable”, tackling issues that are often swept under the carpet. She has no time for “correct” stories, especially by women: “Better to make a mistake with the incandescent lava we have inside…than to assure ourselves success by resorting to murky, cold finds”.

The interviews are wide-ranging, and I cannot really do justice to them in this short piece. Ferrante speaks perceptively about Berlusconi (this was when he was Prime Minister), and how and why people engage with politicians like him—an issue that is still relevant today with the rise of populists. She discusses psychoanalysis and women writers, and her difficult relationship with her mother. The often fraught relationship between mothers and daughters is a theme she keeps coming back to in her books.

Because her responses to questions are in writing, the portrait that comes through is not filtered through the eyes of another person, and you get the full force of her writing. Here is Ferrante describing her mother, a seamstress, work: “The mobile skill of that hand put together the pieces of material, made the seams invisible, the pieces of fabric regained a soft continuity, a new compactness, became a dress, the shape of a female body”. Not very different from what a writer does.

Elena Ferrante comes across as fiercely individualistic, thoughtful and eloquent—all the characteristics that make her novels such a pleasure to read. I read this book cover to cover, and I’m not sure that’s the best way to read it. As I said earlier, some of it can be a bit repetitive because journalists tend to ask similar questions. And some of it can feel a bit long when you haven’t read the book she is referring to. But she is a pleasure to read, and I would recommend this book especially to writers.

To end with the big question: how much does a reader need to know about the writer to enjoy a book? I think Ferrante is right: good writing does not need the author to promote it. After all, we can’t really “know” an author—all we get are a few fragments of their lives upon which we build our image of them. So why do we need to know anything at all? I remember reading Wilfrid Owen’s poem Dulce et Decorum Est for the first time when I was 15. The power Owen’s words stunned me, although I had never heard of him. Nothing I’ve learned about him since has changed the way I feel about that poem.

Any thoughts?