Shadows on the Tundra
by Dalia Grinkevičiutė
Translated from the Lithuanian by Delija Valiukenas
by Dalia Grinkevičiutė
Translated from the Lithuanian by Delija Valiukenas
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Coming Soon...
Devil on the Cross
by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Translated from the Gĩkũyũ by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Translated from the Gĩkũyũ by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Coming Soon...
Crystal Wedding
by Xu Xiaobin
Translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman and Natascha Bruce
by Xu Xiaobin
Translated from the Chinese by Nicky Harman and Natascha Bruce
Fallen Angel
Sheikh
Jalaleddin after preaching1 the war amongst his Kurdish troops
advances to destroy lives and pillage properties of various settlements of
Armenians and other giaours. On the other hand, a young man named Sarhat is
advancing from Van to Aghbak, with a special motive and is surprised to see the
desolated mountains on the way. He shortly learns the atrocities befalling on
the people who're being killed by jihadists and confronts the ruins of burned
houses and strewn corpses.
1. “The giaours are vile before God. God
will take the possessions, lives, families and everything else belonging to the
disbelievers, and put them in your hands. Steal, seize, burn and massacre to
the satisfaction of your hearts. God has made the loot and the enemy’s blood
Halal for the soldiers of the Holy war."
Unable
to revolt the lowly fate and morale—which he believes is self-inflicted2—of
Armenians Sarhat had once forsaken his village and family, and now has returned
after ten years with a different identity and motivation. He is principally angry
with his own people and is self-conscious of what turned him into an outlaw and
coldhearted that he is even unable to show love to his dying father. After meeting with his old friend Město they
team up with Sarhat's gang and execute secretive missions, disguised as always,
freeing the captives. Soon Sarhat finds himself fighting a bloody war against
the Kurdish, and little does it matter to him now about his previous motive, and
his rage filled ignorance towards his own homeland and people cannot hold his
love for all.
1. “Fathers and forefathers, I drink of
this cup, but I do not dedicate it to your bones. If instead of these
monasteries, of which our country is full, you had built forts… if instead of
using your wealth to make Holy crosses and chalices, you had bought guns… if
instead of the incense that perfumes our temples, you had lit gunpowder… we
would now be more fortunate. The Kurds would not be destroying our country,
killing our children and stealing our women…”
Raffi
talks to the readers and is conscious things must progress with little
surprises. His way of introducing the characters, in between plots and
timeline, is motivated to make the novella interesting—balancing the craft and
weight of the story. The horrendous scenes of blood, burning and corpses depicted
with visual accuracy are heartrending, and at times he takes a bird's-eye-view
to the Anatolian landscape or even characters, immediately lifting the narrative
to historical context. The rich annotations further make the story stand on
strong foundations.
Set
during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, Jalaleddin is a timeless classic
novella depicting the backdrop of Armenian genocide, with all the
qualities of adventure, historical and war chronicles. Personal identities
shaped due to political and inhuman sect dominance, atrocities inflicted due to
blind faith, religious & cultural differences, and brutal and brave limits
man can cross—the novella is set in these identifiable messages. The story is also
a key text supporting the evidence to a largely ignored crime against humanity.
Author: Raffi (Hakob
Melik Hakobian)
Translator: Beyon
Miloyan and Kimberley McFarlane
Publisher: SopheneArmeniaca
Page Count: 91
Price: $7.99
(Paperback)
Monday, March 11, 2019
The Seed of a Nation
Our
narrators do not give away their names. Separated almost by a century in time, each
of them drafts their story encompassing historical and political, as well as
national awakening. Personal philosophical musings and broodings form part of
their identity, and these reflections are the morals of the time they have
lived.
Our
first narrator along with other family members spends holidays in a country
house, which they have to tidy up during each visit. While getting rid of useless items
they happen upon a digital camera in their grandfather's coat. After they
return to the city they go through the memory card of the camera, only to find
out photographs of places taken at unusual angles with blurry humanoid figures
appearing, and also a video from which nothing particular could be deciphered.
But what is also mysterious is that grandfather couldn't have taken them. This
sets the novel into an enigma.
The
other part is the journal written between 1917-18 by a Latvian soldier. After
the German invasion of capital Riga the narrator soldier1 (unnamed)
and his friends are seemingly hopeless. The army has been called upon to
retreat. The soldier decides to desert his command. While the civilians,
Bolsheviks and the Latvian army are moving away from the capital he endeavors
to trace his own path and destiny. What follows is his adventurous journey on
foot to Valka. The soldier has closely observed and understood the power and
politics looming in the region, where the dream of being an independent state
has been hindered by Bolsheviks and German interests, falling prey to one after
another occupation. In his lengthy travel he encounters with Miss K, Soloist M2
and with other locals that incite varied self-contemplations. Hiding through
detours and forests from the revolutionary units, the soldier manages to reach
Kokkenhof but soon is captured by army horsemen, suspected of being a deserter
or a German spy. He's rescued by his friend Tidrikis.
1.
I
could be simply Someone or, even better, Something, for there were way too many
like me in these chaotic times and – I am sure of it – there will be in
generations to come.
2.
"I
am citizen of the world… I have no interest in politics. I have to sing where
they pay me. It doesn't matter whether it's the Russians or the Germans, for we
Latvians do not own anything, not even the ground on we presently stand. All we
can do is allow ourselves to be tossed about by others. Our history is not our
own, but dictated by others. What can we desire, what can we hope for?..."
His
next station (at Valmiere) is at his mother's aunt Madame B who is inclined to
spirituality and theosophy, and has esoteric, exotic and extravagant features. But
his relief for a shelter and food comes at a price—having to listen to her
theories on War and its outcome. When Madame B offers him a smoke he soon falls
to a trance. Following Madame B's letter his next visit is to a sanatorium
where he engages with Dr. Mezulis3 in a thoughtful conversation on free
will and freedom of trees and inanimate objects. After his stay and escape from
Valka in the backdrop of Bolsheviks taking reign over territory and official
positions determining fate of the Latvian sentiments and killing those not in
their favor undermining the surge for Latvian Independence, he flees to Dorpat
(Now known as Tartu, Estonia).
3. "Don't get me wrong… I have no
intention of denying the existence of free will. In my opinion, it has simply
been accorded too much significance – either by getting too attached to it or,
as it often happens, denying that it exists at all…"
After
meeting Alberts and other friends in Moscow, his moral is boosted, and hope for
Independence is kindled again. Taking advantage of Treaty of Brest-Litovsk,
together they are able to manoeuver the Latvian Riflemen loyal to Bolsheviks, channeling
them out of Latvia. But soon they are found out by Cheka, and thus go into
hiding to an estate of Prince G. This provides the soldier4 to
continue his philosophical inquiries with a likeminded friend Fyodor. And,
after he embarks on a secret mission to his roots again many clouds are lifted
before he witnesses a long awaited dream come true. Meanwhile his reflections
on hatred, death, dreams, memory, war and time5 fill the story with
novelty and greater latitude to understanding.
4.
…
I have always believed that our inner world, like the one surrounding us, is
full of things that are currently inexplicable and incomprehensible to the
human mind. And who knows – perhaps there really exists an all-embracing
element, soul or spirit, which man can, for the time being, sense as a barely
perceptible draft or glance.
5.
What
if time turned out to be not a linear segment or a vector but a vertical
pierced through space, which is stacked layer upon layer – like pancakes or
more precisely, rings of an onion or a tree?
Something
as a footnote put in-between the journal leaps and glides through time and memorizes
things of contrasting outcome—often death and destruction of those whom and
what the soldier knows. Several references are made to the connection between trees,
existence and inheritance in the further adventures, encounters and escape of
the soldier, and the search of another narrator wanting to solve the mystery of
the photographs. This makes us understand the need for change, that beliefs are
prone to change all forming the background in the creation of an Independent
Nation, what it means to have a state & sovereignty and reflections on
people and characters of a nation on the cusp of change—there is no question
one cannot raise, no answers one cannot question.
The
Story embodied with political consciousness and national history depicts what
it takes to form a state, forces required to hold people together, nostalgia of
places that form memories, rediscovered truths and revisited hope, pathos
emanating from war and exile, strange feeling of having one's own nation, excitement
or even embarrassment in seeing the impossible happen and renewed concept of
identity6 today.
6. The ethnic identity and a sense of
belonging to a state, which in our case seems to simultaneously be and not
be at the basis of our national identity,
I have always considered similarly unavoidable. You are like a tree. Wherever
you are planted or wherever you ended up as a seed, you have to grow.
The
Journal captures the traces of occupied Latvia. Hopelessness and nationalist
feeling for independence waning and growing throughout the period, some favored
Bolsheviks in their resistance against German forces, while wanting to get rid
of both. We sense the tragedy of having to fall victim to outsider's dominance
and ensuing cultural and moral dissolution during the war. The novel is full of
ideas meandering philosophical scope. History as well as personal gushes
shaping an identity; War entering a slit of common experience producing fringes
of crisis; Man bereft of identity, unable to hold onto a peaceful way of
believing people and nationhood; Feeling that we're losing depths and meaning
to existence as a whole; Human progress with sufficient questionable answers—these
are some of the ideas we come across.
Written
as a part of the historical novel series We. Latvia. The 20th Century, 18
explores the theme of war, independence and experiment with ideas. The
afterword by the author provides rich significance to the story and the form,
on how we see the contemporary world built on so many crisis and resistance.
Author: Pauls
Bankovskis
Translator: Ieva Lešinska
Publisher: Vagabond Voices
Page Count: 179
Price: $ 22.28
Where is the Home?
Largely drawn from Andrei
Ivanov's personal experience and observation while at Danish refugee camp Hanuman's Travels is a picaresque novel of illegal immigrants, friendship and a witty
view of the immigrant crisis. Set in Denmark in 1990s, mostly in Jutland region—episodes
moving in and out of refugee camps—we come across a world full of chaos,
insecurity, escapade, fear of deportation and odd ways of living brewed in
these circumstances. The protagonist Hanuman (of Indian Origin) with a gift of the
gab is richly animated character and the narrator Yevgeny (of Estonian origin) has
fair view of the world such that private and interpersonal obsession, tragedies,
frenzy and musings are all obvious.
Hanuman and his partner Yevgeny
are thoroughly disgusted, unable to understand the ways of the Danish cities
and people, and they hate the risk of encountering authorities. But both of
them don't want to return to their homeland in any case. The refugee camp—remotely
located and socially estranged—they settle in is full of people in flux
with different national identities and language, held by a hope to get asylum
but very few earn the "Yes". The world inside the camp live by its own rules
and soon Hanuman and Yevgeny adapt the ways. While legal proceeding for the
asylum-seeker's case is slow and an allowance to live by is meager, Hanuman and
Yevgeny do not submit to the authorities1 and soon find ways to earn living, and of
course for their hash, booze and brothel obsessions meanwhile harboring the
dream to escape to Lolland.
1. But,
dear God, if the Danish could take one look into the asylum seeker's dreams. If
only they could hear the roar of the asylum seeker's stream of consciousness.
If only they knew how turbulent, how terrifying, that torrent was. Those waters
were full of rocks and debris, they carried the asylum seeker' fears in
suspension, and the silt pressed on their spleens. If only the Danish knew how
badly their heads ached, then they would have forgiven them anything, anything
at all, even petty theft.
The bickering and bantering of
these two friends, whose dream to settle somewhere is ever fluctuating, animate
the episodes of frenzy, fun and frustrations. We come across range of
characters and their daily mundane rituals flowing over the pages, and these reflect
the exact experience2
and impressions of living in a refugee camp cut-off from family elsewhere and
haunted by the ghost of xenophobia and deportation. Even the narrator falls
into dreamy torpor of hopelessness and loneliness.
2. Every
morning was the same, exactly the same. Like a rehearsal for the most
excruciating play. Like the return of the same nightmare. Morning manifested
itself in every bend of the corridor,… in every flush of the toilet. And it was
always the same, down to the most tedious of details. It was so uniform that
any sensation of progression through time evaporated
Repairing electronics from the
junks, selling mediocre paintings or rotten meat, running telephone scams to
car adventures buying hash or selling goods or even fooling an old man are few
of the odd enterprise the characters pursue trying to make easy money. Their misadventures
only give rise to crazy ideas so as to relish in smoke and booze. Killing time
elsewhere for a while if they make enough the two friends return time and again
for the favor of the camp dwellers, taking advantage of everything they can. The
narrator often broods over these tireless quests and rejoice in slumbers, and often
wants to submit but soon joins another venture with Hanuman. All the character's
lives have rough edges, filled with personal dreams and tragedies. They have little
time for nostalgic feeling or even for memories of their origin.
Amid the crisis, camp dwellers
try out several options of stay and escape, even to neighboring countries. With
lies, racial hatred, fake identities and extravagant tales, camp dwellers have
developed new traits, mostly for the survival and security. With slangs and tightly
packed twists and plots with mimetic style, humor and subtle political satire
Hanuman's Travels develops anguish and crisis into a road misadventure or drama
even. Nepalino, Potapov, Ivan, Svenaage and others characters represent the
social or rather national outcasts. Bull chase, snake bite, drug-delirium,
smell of fertilizers, bars and brothels, stealthy scams, little happiness to
gather over survival... many stories coming together reaches the core of
immigrant crisis and hardships of refugees. The story is not targeted on any nation
in particular despite the Danish setting and rather speaks about the statelessness
in a global sense.
Author: Andrei Ivanov
Translator: Matthew Hyde
Publisher: Vagabond Voices
Page Count: 426
Price: $ 15.58
Eyes of the Sky
Narrated by a young Tuvan shepherd boy, living in the Altai Mountains close to the Russian border, The Blue Sky is the first part of the trilogy of autobiographical novels by Galsan Tschinag (Irgit Schynykbajoglu Dschurukuwaa) which is followed by The Gray Earth and The White Mountain.
Who would have thought that a passerby old woman with shaven head would mark a little boy with her personality and stories while the boy comes of age. Grandma (no one knew her actual name)—after as a passerby, caught by dogs—comes as an unexpected guest, and receives a warm hospitality from the Schynykbaj and Balsyng (Father and Mother of Dshurukuwaa ) and their ail. But what captures her heart is the young Dshurukuwaa—still a toddler, and tethered to the bed. On her following visits, the bond between her and the family grows stronger, but after an impassable river hinders her return and on receiving unwelcoming and estranged remark from her sister she finally settles with the family in their yurt. The family takes her in as a mother, and Dshurukuwaa is finally comforted that the Grandma is going to live with them. Grandma wishes that the flock belonging to her will be inherited by the boy. Now having his own small hendse to look after, young Dshurukuwaa dreams of having his own flock, his own yurt and Grandma by his side, whose love and stories enchant him so much, but her elusive premonitions on one's frail and aging body he can't understand.1,2
1. I asked her a thousand questions a day, and she never tired of explaining to me all the things I came across and didn't understand, just as she never tired of telling her stories.
2. "I won't get any older. Rather, I will grow younger, ever younger and smaller, until I am a baby again. Once that has happened, I'll hasten back, back to you."
The text embraces both the landscape and rituals of the Tuvan people. It is as if the aroma of the Steppe is flowing in the story—some descriptions resonating the earth. The playfulness of the child and his way to understand the world around arouses love for him and the sentiments and perceptions of the tribe could be well understood.
In one of their seasonal settlements, families having close ties build their yurts together to form an ail. Set in 1940s, Soviet influence has become a popular cultural thing and has even reached their ail where other relatives think themselves of the new era—smoking made some—want to join the communist party, and think that one doesn't need to tend animals to survive—the only source of living among the nomadic tribe then. Dshurukuwaa's family has the most flourished herds than other families, but that doesn't earn them any reverence as in the past, when having large flock of animals made someone a great community figure. Cummunity titles have been overthrown by the soviet regime, or rather been denounced as bourgeois. It seems that, except for their family, traditional moral and values holds little for others—a cold seeping between the families—while Schynykbaj is trying to maintain an ideal nomadic life Tuvans have lived before and he has had known. All this is told through the eyes of a child, who has little known the outside world, and still trying to understand the myths and inheritance of his tribe, surprised by what his Grandma has to say.
One afternoon first thought to be a Darga, a teacher arrives to their ail but even after persuading Schynykbaj's sister and brother's family he could only manage to get few names ready to enroll the school (probably, a soviet style boarding school) in the sum. To this, Schynykbaj proposes his son's name too, who is still a year less than what is demanded for the enrollment. This comes as a surprise and also as a nuisance to other families, some unwilling to give away their children to education, thinking that Schynykbaj is greedy for the prospects the education brings—especially salary, and money. But, the idea that his brother and sister is going to part away from him strikes the young Dshurukuwaa the most—he never understands why father let the siblings go who can now be of much help—who'll be now left with his dog Arsylang to herd the flock and make excursions3, but soon the prospect of sweets and new clothes sent by his siblings would make him happy and their tale of the novelty would make him surprised, though their departure saddens and their arrival excites him each time they come home, which he shares with his dog. A little later, the relatives move to the sum centre, leaving behind the Schynykbaj's family who's still busy all day long tending sheeps, cows, horses, collecting dung, gathering hay, preparing for the change of season and is continuing through the arduous way of living, still relished.
3. On windless Sundays we hiked up to the top of Doora Hara. From there everything was visible as if in the palm of my hand. The big rivers that were now covered with ice and snow and were glinting in places; the ails along the bank on this side of the Ak-Hem; Tewe-Mojun, the Camel's Neck, and Saryg-Höl, the Yellow Lake, both brought into being by Sardakpan, the giant hero and creator of the Altai Mountains…
Now, alone, Dshurukuwaa would take his flock to pastures accompanied by his dog Arsylang, whom he would talk to and play with, and share his dreams and fantasies. He would talk to the sky and the mountains making wishes for his siblings, his Grandma and for himself—he wants to be a brave and rich herder with a thousand sheeps. But, shortly a tragedy
befalls the family: Grandma passes away, leaving a spiritual hollow inside
Dshurukuwaa, who thought Grandma would be with him to share his dreams coming
true.4 The changes influenced by the soviet's political and cultural dominance has not been shown as an overtly disaster, rather still disintegration of the tribe likely to come because of the new ways and values is something accounted as a cultural and tribal loss, while the dreamy and tender world of Dshurukuwaa slowly shows signs of harshness.
4. Would I one day become a teacher or even a darga and live off a salary rather than livestock? In that case, would I live in a shack made from larch logs and smeared with clay, just like the elegant people in the sum centre? Which meant, didn't it, that I would never have a yurt of my own, would never put it up and take it down and move with it through the four seasons and across the four rivers, from the mountains into the steppe, over to the other mountains, to the lake, and back?
Following winter, for three of them, it is hard to save the flock from diminishing and dying because of the cold, but it passes though with a substantial loss. Towards the end of the story, Arsylang becomes a victim to a poison-trap set by Schynykbaj for foxes and wolves. And now, having lost his only faithful and loving companion, Dshurukuwaa rejects the Blue Sky, their revered god, for not saving the losses and not blessing him, marking a tragic ending to the story.
The Blue Sky, is a young boy's firsthand experience of growing in the rural tuvan region, his endeavor to understand love and loss, taking them to his heart and seeking to figure out and adapt the world and people around him, when unexpected changes are shadowing and many things are losing its grip. The voice we hear of a child is enchanting and truthful, and as pure as long held tuvan oral tradition of passing stories to generations—the animism is celebrated, and storytelling tradition is held high.
The afterword by the author further nourishes the story, and widens the scope of the trilogy. Is it inspiring to hear him say: "I have been a gatherer, hunter, and herder; a school boy, a university student, and a professor; a trade union journalist, a shadow politician, and quite more things. Today I am a chieftain of a tribe, a healer, an author, a father and a grandfather…" It is awe-inspiring to know his roots and story.
Author: Galsan Tschinag
Translator: Katharina Rout
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Page Count: 224
Price: $ 15