Proust reloaded
Finland Unknown in this country: Volter Kilpi. Stefan Moster has now translated it elegantly
At the end of the 19th century, the epochal change towards an inevitable modernization of all areas of life could be felt everywhere. Epic narrative works proved to be the yardstick of this caesura and all too often described the end of an era of traditional bourgeoisie and nobility. Of course, this includes Marcel Prousts In Search of Lost TimeJames Joyce’ Ulysses and later Robert Musils The man without qualities. Although today the English and German-language works of this period are more in the foreground of reception, there are still many other unjustly forgotten portraits of this upheaval.
Like Volter Kilpis In the hall of Alastalo. A story from the archipelago. In order to convince the most important men in the archipelago communities to build a three-masted barge, the eponymous landowner invites an illustrious group of influential men to his place. Once again, the conversations, spread over a single afternoon, reflect the thoughts and attitudes of a changing society, creating a coherent panorama of time. Thanks to the nominated translation from Finnish by Stefan Moster, we can once again read it in elegant German. Born in 1964, he is considered a luminary in his field and in 2001 he was even awarded the Finnish State Translation Prize.
In the hall of Alastalo. A story from the archipelago Volter Shield Stefan Moster (Translation), mare Verlag 2021, 1,136 pages, €68
scandalous love
Netherlands Helga von Beuningen succeeds in making the oppressive attraction of “My Little Prachttier” tangible
It is a forbidden encounter, an amour scandaleux, which Marieke Lucas Rijneveld describes in her prose work My little gem documented: the relationship between a fifty-year-old veterinarian and the daughter of one of his clients. While he is trying to escape a trauma and his loneliness, the girl dreams of escaping the provinces and at the same time of an inner homeland. However, since the liaison is not officially allowed to be, both create an artificial paradise, located in a fantasy realm closed to all others, where their own laws and rituals determine existence.
From a bit of Alice in wonderlanda little Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita a flaming text about love, passion, longing and morality was created. It was translated by Helga von Beuningen, who was born in Obergünzburg in 1945 and not only studied Dutch in Heidelberg, but even taught it for 15 years. According to the jury, she was primarily nominated for her “perfect pitch” and the art of “making the linguistic registers intertwine musically” that provide the “oppressive attraction of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s novel ‘My Little Prachttier'”.
My little gem Marieke Lucas Rijneveld Helga von Beuningen (Translation), Suhrkamp 2021, 364 p., 24 €
The Tamagotchi speaks German
Japan About an overwhelmed but strong woman – Hiromi Itō’s new novel in the great translation by Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit
Well rested and alive and well, the Tamagotchi looked at me in a good mood and demanded: I want to pee. As I watched in bewilderment, it was already done. Too late. Now I wanted to put him to sleep again and tried pressing different keys, but it didn’t work. Me of all people, who doesn’t know what to do with all the work, who has no money, no time and not even a self because of father, mother, Aiko and husband, has to play around with the Tamagotchi in my hand!” – the narrator is visibly suffering chronically overwhelmed: the husband ailing, the daughters plagued by eating disorders, and in general: the constant travels between California and Japan, where Itō achieved fame as a famous writer. The lady cannot find peace. How she fights between the role of mother and demanding authorship is explained more in Hiromi Itō’s novel Pulling the Thorn. The fabulous Jizō experienced by Sugamo, for whose masterful translation Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit is nominated. Born in 1948, she studied Japanese Studies and, in addition to numerous contributions on Japanese literature and culture, also published the 34 volumes Japanese library out in Insel-Verlag. Some of the voices she has translated into German include Enchi Fumiko, Nosaka Akiyuki, Ōba Minako and Ōe Kenzaburō.
Thorn Extractor. The Fabulous Jizō by Sugamo Hiromi Itō Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit (transl.), Matthes & Seitz 2021, 336 p., 22 €
Great rudeness
Kazakhstan About Andreas Tretner’s great feeling for semantic and rhythmic details
Hamid Ismailovs Roman Prodigy Erjan reads like the Eastern counterpart to Günter Grass’ opus magnum The Tin Drum. As in the latter, the readers encounter a seemingly always young protagonist. In reality, he is already 27 years old, but he comes across as juvenile and inexperienced. He also has an almost unearthly musical talent. The narrator experiences this with some astonishment when he meets the eponymous hero on the train through the Kazakh steppe. Where do the seemingly endless youth and special abilities come from? Perhaps because of an early crossing of borders, Erjan dived into a nuclear-contaminated lake as a child, against all prohibitions. This story comes alive in the smooth translation by Andreas Tretner, who was born in Gera in 1959. For his numerous and stylistically differentiated translations into German – sometimes from Russian, Bulgarian and Czech – he has received the Paul Celan Prize and the International Literature Prize of the House of World Cultures. The Leipzig jury, meanwhile, was impressed by Ismailov’s “feeling for semantic and rhythmic details, for the ups and downs of human coarseness and landscape descriptions” when it came to working on Ismailov’s text.
Wunderkind Erjan Hamid Ismailov Andreas Tretner (Translation), Friedenauer Presse 2022, 152 p., 20 €
double sound
France/USA Anne Weber presents two remarkable female voices
One can hardly do justice to Anne Weber’s literary work with enough prizes and praise. Not only as a famous writer, who in 2020 for Annette, a heroine epic already deservedly received the German Book Prize, she made a name for herself over time. The all-rounder, born in Offenbach am Main in 1964, also excels as a translator. One can now see this in her transfer of Cécile Wajsbrots Nevermore get an impression from the French. The translation itself is of particular importance in this, as the text is about a woman who is dedicated to translating a work by Virginia Woolf into German. In the process, increasingly intoxicated by the modern writer’s musical and linguistic composition, she not only encounters a deceased friend. It also runs through former sites of destruction – from war-torn Dresden to New York’s industrial ruins – which are now blooming again in the mind’s eye. What prompted the jury to nominate her was her confident handling of several styles and authors. Weber had to find a tone for both Wajsbrot and Woolf and at the same time develop a sound that would appeal to German readers. This is an excellent achievement! Chapeau!
Nevermore Cecile Wajsbrot Anne Weber (Transl.), Wallstein 2021, 229 p., 22 €