Hungarian | Hungary | Short Fiction
April, 2019My major concern, when I sat down to translate this story, was whether the weight of the post-Soviet bloc and Hungarian history would carry over to an American audience--whether readers would get lost in the many significant dates that are mentioned. At the start of the story, we are told “it was November 16th, 1989, and God could once again step behind the Iron Curtain.” What’s helpful for an American reader to know is that by November 1989, Hungary was well into reforming from a communist state into a democratic republic, with opposition parties already established and with free elections not far on the horizon. Later, we learn that 1947 was the last year God had stepped foot inside a Hungarian pub, which was also the year the Soviets had officially gained governmental power by manipulating the political landscape and holding the last “free elections” the country would see for the next forty-three years. Finally, when the bartender asks God, who clearly looks out of place in the small-town pub, whether he’s a 56-er, he’s referring to the 200,000 Hungarians who fled Hungary after the 1956 Revolution against the Soviet Union, which lasted twelve days, saw the death of nearly three thousand Hungarians during the revolt and the execution of 299 after the Soviets regained power.
What I learned in the process of translating this story is that while knowing the historical significance behind these dates brings with it a richer reading of the work, it is actually the emotional truths that Ferenc Czinki conveys through his characters that make this story so resonant. Czinki makes it easy for readers to empathize with a people who have been forgotten, even by their own God, and readers likewise understand why God feels forgotten, too. Everyone is a stranger to one another here until God meets Somebody, and it is this shared sense of being forgotten that allows them a moment of connection.
The summer I discovered this story, Ferenc Czinki drove me around Inota. The old factory is still running; he pointed out the massive, cylindrical chimneys in the distance. We retraced God’s footsteps into the pub and drank a local Hungarian light beer with the few men who were there that lazy summer afternoon. I can attest to the fact that that countryside still feels rather forgotten, but in this story, as in much of his work, Czinki gives voice to this place and its people.
- Timea Balogh
Hungarian | Play (excerpt) | Romania
July, 2015“People come from wherever they can,” says one of the characters in Mine Water, Csaba Székely’s tragi-comic tale about horrible desires and broken dreams, with a witty linguistic humor. The characters come from their own past, a territory populated by actions. The question for the village priest, his adopted son, the schoolmaster, his daughter and all the other characters is how to go on in life. This play horrifies and amazes me. It is the third and darkest play in a trilogy (Mine Flower, Mine Blindness, Mine Water) about an imaginary Transylvanian mining region where people struggle to survive after the mines close down. Loss of resources and traditions, loss of love for nature and one's fellow men--these are not questions of exotic and remote provinces, but of our own daily reality. Desires shape human relations with the force of the mighty sea or the hidden dark streams of mine water. Most people go where they can, but some of the characters of this play wish to decide where to go. And some just want to stay and forget.
- Maria Albert
Egypt | Hungarian | Short Fiction
September, 2013Like most of Sándor Jászberényi's fiction, "How Ahmed Salem Abandoned God" is a story steeped in a violent reality. Drawing on his experiences as a journalist in Middle East conflict zones, Jászberényi's stories read like dispatches from the human side of war. It is the kind of writing that keeps good company with great journalist-observers of wars past, such as John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and Graham Greene. His settings range from Libya to Syria, Egypt to Sudan, but his writing is always rooted in universal questions of faith, fidelity, and personal responsibility.
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).
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