N.N. (the truly "gray," anonymous John Doe of the Communist Polish People's Republic), awakes one day in a dingy hotel room with a nagging question: Who am I? Having existed ("lived" would be an exaggeration) through thirty-three years, N.N. faces an ontological crisis of such dimensions, that he finds himself unable even to go outside, to enter the quotidian reality of the drab rounds of totalitarian oppression, which kills not by showy, dramatic thrusts, but by grinding down the souls of its citizens under the slow, inexorable mill wheels of conformity. N.N. spends his day not only reflecting on his own life, but also on the reality of his nation, and how that reality is packaged for consumption via the state-controlled media. In the bitterly punning verses that make up Artificial Respiration, Stanisław Barańczak creates a critique of propaganda that lays bare the totalitarian deconstruction of meaning. Words cease to have any referent to objective significance, and mean only what the people in power want them to mean, for their own advantage.
As evening falls, N.N. makes a dramatic decision: life is not worth living in this humid, unhealthy bell-jar. He climbs out on the ledge, and spreads wide his arms in an image that suggests the Crucifixion. To Polish readers, his decision also alludes to another "great soul": Konrad, from Adam Mickiewicz's Romantic drama Forefathers' Eve. That great Messianic character wishes to embody his entire nation, and lead it to a happiness greater than what God provided it with. But here N.N. embodies his Communist society all too well: deprived of a voice, deprived of an individual existence, the suicide of such a man would have no salvific sense for anyone who witnessed it; indeed, no one would even hear about it; it would be quietly swept under the rug, like all other attempts at protesting the totalitarian Moloch. In the end, N.N. cannot even "save" himself. He breaks down in tears, returns to his room, falls crosswise on his bed and sobs. Initially circulated in Poland in samizdat, Artificial Respiration was first published in book form in 1978, in London. One of the most stirring texts of modern Polish literature, it is the (anti-)epic of Solidarity.
Marcelo Morales works along boundaries between poetry and prose, with a particular interest in the fragment. These selections from El círculo mágico (The Visionary Circle, 2007) evoke the haunting realities of reorientation and transition that the island confronted at the beginning of the current century: the need to envision the end of an era; to reexamine relations between nation and world, self and society in order to arrive at a new understanding of the present; and to find a language for acknowledging the impact of emigration on everyday life.
German | Germany | Novel (excerpt)
June, 2013Forschungsbericht, at less than 40,000 words, is perhaps the most immediately accessible of Fichte's ethnographic novels: set in the coastal Belizean city of Dangriga over the course of a two-week visit in February 1980, it depicts the attempts of Fichte's alter ego, the writer Jäcki, and his companion Irma, the alter ego of Fichte's long-time companion, the photographer Leonore Mau, to investigate the religious practices of the Black Carib (or Garifuna) community in Belize. The centerpiece of the novel is Fichte's unsuccessful attempt to observe the dugu, the Garifuna feast for dead ancestors, which is presided over by the local buyei, or shaman, to placate the departed.
Forschungsbericht serves as an excellent point of entry into Fichte's ethnographic writing, as meditation on both the consciousness of the writer and the creative process, and as illustration of the epistemological problem of knowing anything outside oneself, especially the foreign. Fichte, who originally meant his life's work to be regarded as a history of tourism in the latter half of the twentieth century (and who might best be thought of as a French writer who wrote in German, a cross between Proust and Lévi-Strauss), is a crucial figure in that century's literature, and deserves to be more widely known outside the German-speaking world.
Mohamed Metwalli was born in Cairo in 1970. He was awarded a B.A. in English Literature from Cairo University, Faculty of Arts in 1992. The same year, he won the Yussef el-Khal prize by Riyad el-Rayes Publishers in Lebanon for his poetry collection, Once Upon a Time. He co-founded an independent literary magazine, el-Garad, in which appeared his second volume of poems, The Story the People Tell in the Harbor (1998). He was selected to represent Egypt in the International Writing' Program at The University of Iowa in 1997. Later he was Poet-in-Residence at the University of Chicago in 1998. He compiled and co-edited an anthology of offbeat Egyptian poetry, Angry Voices (University of Arkansas Press, 2002). He published his third collection, The Lost Promenades, in 2010 with the independent publisher al-Ketaba al-Okhra. The same collection is forthcoming from the General Egyptian Book Organization (GEBO).
France | French | Novel (excerpt)
June, 2013"The story starts where all stories should end: in bed." With this opening line, Zeller tips the first domino in Nicolas and Pauline's crumbling love story. They have been together for two years but they do not agree on their future. Pauline has high expectations for the relationship; Nicolas is not sure if monogamy is really for him. He finds it hard not to follow his friend Sofia's hedonistic philosophy, her belief in pleasing herself first and living freely without being committed to anyone. But Pauline's pregnancy, and the birth of their daughter Louise, changes everything.
La Jouissance (in English translation: Climax) is the leitmotif of a generation whose lack of any sense of sacrifice works to the detriment of relationships. Why this strong sense of selfish individualism? Zeller underscores one reason: they have never been confronted by history and with their minds fixed on the present, the collective ideal of their parents has been replaced by instant gratification. To hear the heartbeat of this influential generation, Zeller incorporates the views of an eclectic mix of thinkers, politicians and artists, from Beethoven, Milan Kundera, and Godard, to Lenine and Jean-Paul Sartre.
An existential romance that unfolds during the recent European economic crisis, Climax explores the psychological frivolity of fleeting happiness against an ominous backdrop of changing times.
Faleeha Hassan, who is currently in the United States, was born in Najaf, Iraq, in 1967. She earned an M.A. in Arabic literature and has published several collections of poetry in Arabic: Being a Girl, A Visit to the Museum of Shade, Five Titles for My Friend-The Sea, Though Later On, Poems to Mother, Gardenia Perfume, and her collection of children's poetry, The Guardian of Dreams. Her works of prose include Hazinia or Shortage of Joy Cells and Water Freckles (a novella). The first six poems featured here come from Qasa'id Ummi (Poems to Mother), which was published in 2010 by Dar al-Yanabia in Damascus, Syria. Her poems have been translated into English, Italian, German, French, and Kurdish. She has received awards from the Arab Linguists and Translators Association (WATA) and the Najafi Creative Festival for 2012, as well as the Prize of Naziq al-Malaika, the Prize of al-Mu'tamar for poetry, and the short story prize of the Shaheed al-Mihrab Foundation. She serves on the boards of Baniqya, a quarterly in Najaf, Sada al Nahrain (Echo of Mesopotamia), and the Iraqi Writers in Najaf association. She is a member of the Iraq Literary Women's Association, The Sinonu (i.e. Swift) Association in Denmark, the Society of Poets Beyond Limits, and Poets of the World Community.
Gérard de Nerval was born in Paris in 1808. His published works include translations of Goethe and Heinrich Heine, numerous plays and operettas (some of which were co-authored with Alexandre Dumas), the travelogue Voyage en Orient (Voyage to the Orient, 1851), the poetry collection Les chimères (Chimeras, 1854), and the prose work Aurélie (1855). He committed suicide in Paris in 1855.
The Brooklyn Rail welcomes you to our web-exclusive section InTranslation, where we feature unpublished translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Published since April 2007, InTranslation is a venue for outstanding work in translation and a resource for translators, authors, editors, and publishers seeking to collaborate.
We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry: Manuscripts of no longer than 20 pages (double-spaced).
Plays: Manuscripts of no longer than 30 pages (in left-justified format).