The Official IFFP 2013 Winner - And Some Reflections...

Yesterday, in London, at a ceremony sparkling brighter than a pixie's bling collection, the five brave IFFP judges announced their choice for the best work of translated fiction in the UK in 2012.   After starting off with sixteen works, and then whittling that down to a slightly-controversial six, we were finally left with the pick of the pile...  Their decision?  The official winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for 2013 is:

The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker

(translated from the Dutch by David Colmer, published by Harvill Secker)

Congratulations to the writer and translator - commiserations (and respect) to the rest of the people on the longlist :)

*****
And that's it for another year... almost!  Before I wrap up my IFFP commitments for 2013 though, I thought I'd just share a few thoughts on the winner and the whole IFFP process.  Before last night's ceremony, I must admit that I was a little nervous.  I wasn't overly impressed with some of the decision made in 2012, and I was fully prepared to be disappointed again...

However, while I certainly wasn't expecting Bakker's name to be the one inside the envelope, I was very glad to hear that The Detour had won.  It's a great novel, well-written and thought-provoking, and it's the kind of book I personally believe should be rewarded in this type of competetion.  Like many, many people, I was also glad that Andrés Neuman's Traveller of the Century was singled out for special praise; it's a book I (and a couple of other Shadow Panellists) have been championing for a good while now :)

So why was I so worried?  Well, after a couple of years of shadowing the IFFP, I'm still not completely sure what the prize is about.  Is it purely a search for the best work of literary fiction in translation, or is it more of a campaign to promote works originally written in languages other than English?  The answer, of course, is probably a bit of both.  I'm not sure whether the judges are subject to any kind of guiding 'advice' from Booktrust, but they must surely feel a responsibility beyond the simple act of filtering the gems from the dross.

I also wonder whether there is a focus on the kind of book the organisers would like to promote.  Was the omission of László Krasznahorkai's Satantango from the shortlist (and the inclusion of Chris Barnard's Bundu) a sign that more accessible, readable fiction was preferred to difficult literary texts?  It did seem odd that the American IFFP equivalent, the Best Translated Book Award, chose Satantango as best in class when it couldn't make the top six here...

Perhaps, however, the longlist reflects the state of translated fiction in general (including the prevalence of works set during the Second World War...).  Does the lack of women on the list indicate that there weren't enough quality works by female writers translated last year?  Or were they simply not up to scratch?  Was it really a poor year for Asia, Africa and the Middle East, or were there simply not enough submissions from these regions?

All of which leads inevitably to another question - what exactly was submitted for the prize in the first place?  There's a lack of transparency in the process which makes it hard to determine exactly how representative the longlist really was (I, for one, would love to see what the publishers thought might be of interest to the panel).  This is not a criticism of the way Booktrust run things - just a gentle nudge to help them make things even better next year ;) 

As for next year, while it might be a little early still, it's worth thinking about what could be on the longlist in 2014.  While Japanese literature was absent this year, Ryu Murakami's From the Fatherland With Love (Pushkin Press) is a chance for next year, and Portobello Books is repackaging Hiromi Kawakami's The Briefcase as Strange Weather in Tokyo for a UK release later in 2013.  While we wait for Mikhail Shishkin's BTBA-shortlisted novel Maidenhair to appear in the UK, his British debut from MacLehose Press, The Light and The Dark (which I'll be reviewing in a few days time!), may be one to watch.  A couple of Arabic-language works I've read this year (Hassan Blasim's collection from Comma Press, The Iraqi Christ, and Elias Khoury's excellent White Masks, again from MacLehose) could also be in the mix, and I suppose you can't discount the next instalment in Karl Ove Knausgaard's cathartic six-pack ;)  My one to watch though is Birgit Vanderbeke's The Mussel Feast - Peirene have been longlisted three years in a row, and this is the one which will finally make it to the shortlist.  Remember where you heard it first (unless I'm wrong, in which case please forget all about it...).

If you want to relive the magic of this year's IFFP, you can find links to all my reviews of the longlisted books on my 2013 Challenge Page, and Lisa and Stu have dedicated pages with links to reviews from the whole Shadow Panel.  And speaking of the Shadow Panel...

...thanks are due to Lisa, Gary, Mark and chairman Stu for their company and support on the campaign.  It's been a long, arduous journey, one that has taken us all over the world (without leaving our armchairs), but it's been one I've thoroughly enjoyed.  I hope all my readers have enjoyed the trip too, and perhaps you'll think about joining us next time around.  I'll certainly be back to do it all again in 2014 :)

And the (Shadow) IFFP 2013 Winner Is...

We started off in March with sixteen titles, the cream of the fiction in translation published in the UK last year.  After a hard month of reading, thinking, discussion and cursing, the list was cut down to six by the offical panel - which is where we parted ways.

Having chosen four of the same titles as the official panel, the Shadow Panel (Stu, Lisa, Mark, Gary and myself) opted for two others to complete the full half-dozen, and then set about deciding which was to take out the prize...

Our road took us on a long journey through many times and lands.  We spent a bizarre time in an ever-shifting, nineteenth-century German town, working on translations and kissing the local girls.  We moved onto a dark exploration of Communist-era Hungary (and an even darker examination of human souls...).  We went for walks around the rainy city of Barcelona, and then flew off to Dublin for a Bloomsday jaunt.  We witnessed an extraordinary dinner party in Albania - and its consequences ten years on.  We followed a boy from the Siberian wilds on his trip to Helsinki and watched as he encountered civilisation in all its forms.  We fled to Wales (seeking some solitude) and shared a woman's house - but not her secrets...

Then we came back to earth with a bump.  There were discussions, disagreements, grudging acceptance, and then a decision...

Our choice for the winner of the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is:

Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas

(translated by Rosalind Harvey and Anne McLean)

Congratulations to the writer and translators - Dublinesque is a great book, and it would be a worthy winner of the real prize.  So, can it do the double?  We'll find out very soon...

'Satantango' by László Krasznahorkai (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 16)

When the longlist for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was released, I frantically scanned the list, working out what I needed to do to get through it in time.  I had already finished four of the titles (all review copies) at some point in 2012, and I was able to obtain a further review copy fairly quickly.  The next stop was The Book Depository, where I bought the French-language version of Alain Mabanckou's Black Bazaar, leaving the bulk of the heavy lifting to my wonderful local library system.

While the majority of the books came in fairly quickly, one remained stubbornly in the hands of a library patron in the north of the state - and as that was the only copy in our consortium of libraries...  After weeks of constantly checking online, I began to lose hope, until one day I got the text message I'd been waiting for - Satantango had finally arrived :)

But was it worth the wait?

*****
Satantango by László Krasznahorkai (translated by George Szirtes - from Tuskar Rock Press)
What's it all about?
Krasznahorkai's classic novel dates from 1985, but only appeared in English for the first time last year.  It's a dark, demanding tale, a novel set in the Hungarian backwaters of an abandoned estate, where a small group of villagers have been hanging around for years, waiting for someone or something to rouse them from their torpor and lead them to happiness.  Deserted by the rest of their group, the remaining families pass their time drinking and sleeping with the neighbours, while all around them nature swiftly takes back what civilisation had carved out of the wilderness.

Just as it appears that some of the characters have summoned up enough energy (and cash) to make a run for it, a rumour reaches the village, news of the return (or resurrection...) of a man long thought dead.  The charismatic Irimiás is on his way back to the village, and thoughts of flight are immediately shelved.  The poor, deluded villagers are prepared to put all of their trust and belief, not to mention their hard-won cash, into the hands of the prodigal son.  While the hope they invest in Irimiás is understandable, given the circumstances, you sense that it's a decision they'll come to regret.  You see, Irimiás is no angel - unless it's one of the fallen variety...

Satantango is highly allegorical, of course, a story of people rotting amongst the ruins of a failed forced agriculture project in Hungary.  It consists of twelve chapters divided into two parts, labelled I-VI and then VI -I, making up a story which, while moving forwards, also turns in a circle, bringing us back to where we started.  It also plays with narrative viewpoints, with the first half of the book consisting mostly of the same day and events told by several different voices - in fact, the occurrence promised in the first few pages of the book doesn't eventuate until we are well past the half-way mark...

Most reviews of Satantango address the style, and Krasznahorkai's way of writing is certainly noteworthy.  Satantango is made up primarily of lengthy, one-paragraph chapters, with long, long sentences spiralling off into the distance:

"His imagination was bewitched, almost to the point of paralysis by the notion that this estate with its rich, generous soil was, only a few million years ago, covered by the sea...that it had alternated between sea and dry land, and suddenly - even as he conscientiously noted down the stocky, swaying figure of Schmidt in his soggy quilted jacket and boots heavy with mud appearing on the path from Szikes, hurrying as if he feared being spotted, sliding in through the back door of his house - he was lost in successive waves of time, coolly aware of the minimal speck of his own being, seeing himself as the defenseless, helpless victim of the earth's crust, the brittle arc of his life between birth and death caught up in the dumb struggle between surging seas and rising hills..."
p.58 (Tuskar Rock Press, 2012)

Apologies - my aching fingers just couldn't quite make it to the end of that sentence ;)

The novel is deliberately obscure, confusing and unsettling.  There's an epigram from Kafka's The Castle at the start, and this is rather apt for what follows, as the reader spends much of the book in a Kafkaesque muddle, unsure as to what is actually happening (and why...).  The second chapter, where we meet Irimiás, has particular shades of Kafka, set as it is in a bureaucratic nightmare, with stairs leading off into the distance, offices leading into further offices and hours spent waiting for appointments.  There's another similarity with Kafka here - if you think you understand what the writer is trying to do, you're only kidding yourself...

Of course, there's so much more to Satantango than a stylistic homage to The Castle or The Trial.  The slow pace allows for some great characterisation, and Krasznahorkai spends time sketching out a cast of wonderful creations.  As the story progresses, each of the characters becomes more fleshed out, and the links between them become more established, allowing us to almost predict how a person is likely to react, and what they might say when events take a turn for the worse.

More than the descriptions of the villagers though, it is Krasznahorkai's portrayal of the environment which is most striking.  Satantango takes place amid a winter of mild discontent, and the reader can feel the cold, the wet, the mud, the rot and the decay:

"The Schmidts hadn't used the room since spring.  Green mildew covered the cracked and peeling walls, but the clothes in the cupboard, a cupboard that was regularly cleaned, were also mildewed, as were the towels and all the bedding, and a couple of weeks was all it took for the cutlery saved in the drawer for special occasions to develop a coating of rust, and what with the legs of the big lace-covered table having worked loose, the curtains having yellowed and the lightbulb having gone out, they decided one day to move into the kitchen and stay there, and since there was nothing they could do to stop it happening anyway, they left the room to be colonized by spiders and mice." (p.7)

In describing how nature has invaded the village, taking back what was once torn from its grasp, Krasznahorkai shows the extent to which the villagers have given up, retreating into themselves and waiting for an unlikely change.

Enter Irimiás...  The star of the show is an enigmatic figure, and it takes a while to find out just who he is (and we never find out exactly what he is doing).  There is a lot of talk in the book about networks, establishing connections to insulate the villagers from the realities of the outside world - and this is something echoed by the vast networks of webs spun by the mysterious spiders at the bar.  However, what he's really up to is swindling money from the villagers.

What's surprising though is just how easy it is for him to do it, especially in such a short time.  He even tells them that there is a good chance that they can lose all the money they eagerly place on the table in front of him.  Devoid of hope and desperate for a way out, the jealousy and infighting leaves the villagers easy prey.  Mrs. Schmidt's lust, Mrs. Halics' faith, the men's greed...  They want to believe, sheep needing to be led.

In fact, Irimiás hypnotises them, to the extent that they are prepared to burn all their bridges, smashing furniture before their supposed impending departure from the village.  However, the greater the drunken (mass) delusion, the more painful the wake-up call:

"It was as if they were just now emerging from some evil spell.  They were sober at a stroke but they simply couldn't understand what had happened to them in the last few hours: What demonic power had taken possession of them, stifling every sane and rational impulse?  What was it that had driven them to lose their heads and attack each other "like filthy pigs when the swill is late"?  What made it possible for people like them - people who had finally managed to emerge from years of apparently terminal hopelessness to breathe the dizzying air of freedom - to rush around in senseless despair, like prisoners in a cage so that even their vision had clouded over?" (p.237)

It's a case of fools fooling themselves...

It seems churlish to look for negatives in a book like this, but there were a few things I didn't like.  The dialogue was noticeably Americanised in places, especially in the early chapters, peppered with expressions like 'buddy', 'pal', 'asshole', 'sonofabitch', and 'dumb ass', and this jarred (perhaps deliberately so) with the style of the descriptive sections.  There was also a rather odd convention where seemingly normal expressions were enclosed in quotation marks, drawing attention to themselves for no real reason.  In addition, I wasn't overly convinced by the ending; it all seemed a little too convenient and perhaps unworthy of the book as a whole...

The title?  Well, it has to do with both a pivotal scene mid-way through the book, one where the drunken villagers decide to dance while waiting for the 'devil', and the structure of the novel.  You see, the way Krasznahorkai has constructed his work apparently reflects the steps in a tango - six steps forwards, six steps back...

*****

Do you think it deserved to make the shortlist?
Of course, I do.  While I may have discussed a few minor issues with the book, the reality is that I'm not judging this to see if it's good or not, but on the level of whether it deserves to be crowned best in (Shadow) show.  It's a wonderful book, and one which I'd love to try again some time.

Why didn't it make the shortlist?
I have two theories...

One - The panel had just written down the six names on the shortlist (of which Satantango was one) and sealed it in an envelope, when the five of them suddenly froze in mid movement.  An alien appeared from nowhere, opened the envelope, erased Satantango from the list with some kind of sonic device, replacing it with Bundu.  After resealing the envelope, the alien then disappeared, and the panellists went on their way (none the wiser), only realising what had happened when the envelope was opened and the news was made public - alas, too late to rectify the error.

Two - The five panellists, having read the sixteen books on the longlist, decided that Bundu was a better novel than Satantango, one which would stand the test of time much better than Krasznahorkai's work.  Then they all went off for tea.

Yeah, I know - theory two does seem a little far-fetched...

*****
Well, that's it - sixteen books read and reviewed.  Very soon, my colleagues and I will begin deliberations to see which of the six works on our shortlist will take out The Shadow Panel prize.  Keep an eye out for our verdict...

...oh, and we'll see if the real panel can come up with a worthy winner too ;)

'The Last of the Vostyachs' by Diego Marani (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 15)

I have a thing for languages and linguistics, so I'm always happy to read books where language plays a leading role.  My final read for last year's IFFP Longlist, New Finnish Grammar, definitely fell into that category, meaning that I was especially happy when Diego Marani made it onto the longlist again this year.  The good news didn't end there. The Australian edition of his new book is about be released by Text Publishing, and I was lucky enough to get a review copy :)

*****
The Last of the Vostyachs by Diego Marani (translated by Judith Landry - from Dedalus Books, my review copy from Text Publishing)
What's it all about?
We begin in Siberia, where Ivan (a local youth) has just been released from a prison camp.  After the death of his father in captivity, he hasn't spoken for years - for he is the last of the Vostyachs, a tribe speaking a language long thought extinct.  One day, he ventures into a village to trade furs - and happens to meet Olga, a Russian linguist who instantly realises what she has in front of her...

She is shortly to head off to an important conference in Helsinki, so she immediately contacts the convenor Professor Aurtova, an old colleague and an expert on Finno-Ugric languages.  Olga has new evidence (Ivan) linking Finnish to native-American languages, and she is burning to present the evidence - and the man - at the conference.  The thing is, this could destroy Aurtova's life's work; and when it comes to matters linguistic, he's not a man to be crossed...

The Last of the Vostyachs is  a book which really shouldn't work.  It's part Tarzan, part linguistics lecture, part pulp fiction, and it's less than two-hundred pages long.  It's a story of language death, academic selfishness, and linguistic and personal relationships - and (naturally) it's a great read :)  Marani is an expert at taking an esoteric subject and making the reader accept it as an important part of the plot, even for those who couldn't imagine anything more painful than pages of arguments about language families.

In parts, it's also a story about nature and civilisation coming into conflict.  Ivan, the wild boy, is plucked from his natural environment and sent off to a big city to be paraded in front of intellectuals at a conference.  Surprisingly though, he does learn to adapt after his initial disasters; it probably helps that Helsinki in winter is pretty much home territory for a man from Siberia...

Olga, the Russian linguist, is an interesting woman, a social scientist who is focused on her life's work, but not so blinded by success that she fails to take Ivan's feelings into account.  In a letter to Professor Aurtova, she looks at the ethics of pursuing remnants of tribes to preserve languages, wondering who really benefits:

" For a moment, I thought that it would be better to leave Ivan Vostyach there where he was, in his own land; that introducing him to people so different from himself would cause him suffering, make him feel even more alone." p.30 (Text Publishing, 2013)

"All in all, it probably doesn't matter if he carries on living among the Nganasan and forgets his Vostyach.  One peaceful human life is surely more important than the survival of the lateral affricative with labiovelar overlay." (p.32)

Does the survival of the lateral affricative with labiovelar overlay really matter that much?

The main character, however, is Professor Aurtova, a sociopathic user who will go to any lengths, sexual or violent, to get his way.  He  sees languages as invading forces and wishes to defend the purity of the Finno-Ugric family group, to the death, if necessary.  Towards the end of the book, he gives an extraordinary speech at the conference, a bizarre, racist rant about linguistic purity:

"In the world of mass culture, where the weaker languages are threatened by a new linguistic colonialism which stifles minority cultures, only ignorance can protect us from extinction.  My call to the new generations, here as in the former Soviet republics of Finnish stock, is therefore this: cherish ignorance, do not study the language of the foreigner, but force him to learn your own!" (p.164)

Erm... let's move on, shall we?

The Last of the Vostyachs is a very different book to New Finnish Grammar.  It's a lot more of a page-turner (with some farcical humour), and it lacks a little of the subtlety of Marani's previous novel in English.  Nevertheless, it's a great read, and it manages to come up with a surprising ending which turns the idea of language death on its head.  What else can I say?  More Marani translations, please :)

Did it deserve to make the shortlist?
Although I enjoyed it, I'd have to say no - it's one which will finish just outside my top six.  A lighter book than New Finnish Grammar, it's still well worth reading, but I don't think it was up there with the top few books this year.

Why didn't it make the shortlist?
The panel obviously agreed with me.  A great read, but perhaps with not enough depth in a very strong year.  Having said that, there's at least one book on the shortlist that this one should have dislodged...

*****
One more stop to make on our IFFP travels, and (luckily enough) my virtual Hungarian visa has just arrived.  It's time to head off to the woods...

'The Fall of the Stone City' by Ismail Kadare (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 14)

Today's book introduces the blog to a new country and a very famous writer I really should already have tried.  While the writer and country are new though, the topic is very familiar: once again, we're heading back to the Second World War.  Let's see if this book can find a new angle...

*****
The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare (translated by John Hodgson - from Canongate)
What's it all about?
We begin in Albania, in 1943, where the colonising Italians have abandoned the country and the Germans are about to fill the Imperial void.  A bilingual leaflet drop promises that the Wehrmacht will merely be passing through, and that Germany respects Albanian independence.  Of course, that all changes when shots are fired outside the stone city of Gjirokastër...

After the unprovoked attack on his troops, Colonel Fritz von Schwabe plans to raze the town to the ground in revenge - until, that is, he realises that an old university friend, Dr. Gurameto lives here.  In a bizarre twist, the good doctor holds a dinner party for his old friend, all to uphold the tradition of Albanian hospitality, and not only is the town saved from destruction, but all the hostages taken (including a Jew) are released.  It's an amazing story, and one which comes back to haunt the doctor ten years later.  You see, the Communist authorities are very keen to find out exactly what happened on that night...

The Fall of the Stone City is a superb book, short but packed with intrigue and interest.  It's divided into three sections: the first looks at the events of the fateful dinner in 1943; the second takes us quickly through the happenings, political and otherwise, of the following decade; the third part takes place in 1953, when the past catches up with Big Doctor Gurameto (so-called to distinguish him from his colleague, the shadowy Little Doctor Gurameto).  Despite its brevity, the novel provides the reader with an excellent overview of the situation in Albania at the time.

The story takes a look at how people had trouble walking the political tightrope in areas with successive rulers, and the discussions before the arrival of the Germans show the decisions the locals had to make:

"Nonsense," said others.  "This visiting card business is precisely the worst possible insult to any country, especially a brave country like ours. 'Albania, I'm coming tomorrow morning.  Come out to welcome me at ten o'clock.  Never mind what people say about me.  Take no notice of my artillery and tanks, because Germany is good, and brings culture and bouquets of flowers.'  Are you witless enough to believe this twaddle?"
     "At least visiting cards are preferable to bombs," said the others in self-defence."
p.7 (Text Publishing, 2012)

The problem with appeasing an invading force is that if they eventually leave (as the Germans will), the people who take over next may not look kindly upon your behaviour.  When the communists take over, it is inevitable that those who were pro-German will have a few questions to answer.

As the quotation above shows, while the subject matter may be a little heavy, the language used to discuss it can be as light as a feather.  I loved Kadare's witty, sarcastic, flowing style (it's not often you have demonstrators in the streets crying 'Down with soil erosion'!), and parts of The Fall of the Stone City reminded of something Kundera or García Márquez might have written.  There is a superb cast of fascinating characters in addition to the two doctors: a blind poet, several foreign investigators and a mad, drunk gambler, Remzi Kadare (a cheeky cameo, perhaps...) - and that's not including all the characters who show up for just one scene:

"Meanwhile, taking advantage of the turbulent times, the Romany guard at the Hygiene Institute known as 'Dan the TB Man' produced a song in memory of his girlfriend, who had been run over that April by the night-soil cart.
     I'm the gypsy of the institute
     In an awful plight
     Since the girl I loved
     Fell under a load of shite." (pp.83/4)

Ah, poetry...

While there's a broad streak of humour running through the book though, when we get to the third section (where the doctor has to account for the events of the dinner party), matters turn a little darker.  It is here that Kadare's mastery of the plot becomes evident, as details which may have been overlooked at first glance are unearthed and re-examined, forcing characters and readers alike to rethink their version of what actually happened.  There's even a hint of a ghost story, an old wives' tale which becomes eerily relevant.

Yep, there's a lot more to this book than meets the eye ;)

Did it deserve to make the shortlist?
Absolutely.  I loved this, even if I got the feeling that this might not be his best work.  Kadare is definitely a writer I need to read more by.

Why did it make the shortlist?
Well-known, successful writer - tick.
Excellent translation - tick.
Fascinating story - tick.
Familiar, popular topic - tick.

That is all :)

*****
For the next leg of our journey, we'll be heading north, to Finland via Russia.  I've learnt a fair few languages in my time, but I'm not sure any of them are going to help me this time around...

'In Praise of Hatred' by Khaled Khalifa (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 12a)

Recently, we took a trip to Lebanon in the early 80s to see how life was during the civil war, and today's story takes us back to a similar time, this time just across the border.  Syria is today's port of call, and it's time to see how life is lived behind the veil...

*****
In Praise of Hatred by Khaled Khalifa (translated by Leri Price - from Doubleday)
What's it all about?
The story takes place in the historical Syrian city of Aleppo in the early 80s, where we meet a young girl who goes to live with her aunts in her dead grandfather's house.  Her presence is required as the aunts feel lonely in the big old house - and because their strict beliefs prevent them from doing much about it.

Maryam, the eldest of the girl's aunts, is a devout follower of the minority Sunni Muslim sect, and her life is spent in prayer and rejecting outside influences.  In a house of death and gloom, it is little wonder that the young newcomer follows in her aunts' footsteps, and as she grows up, she dreams of helping her religious group win back their rightful place in control of the city.  In doing so, she gives herself up to hatred...

In Praise of Hatred is one long narrative, a monologue in three parts with occasional digressions.  It details a descent into hatred (and a slow path out...), a life spent denying the pleasures of the flesh and the importance of human interaction.  The nameless narrator allows herself to be taken over by her hatred of the governing minority, hoping to help the insurgents attempting to bring down the government.  Unsurprisingly, it's a book which is banned in Syria.

The main character, an intelligent young woman with ambitions of becoming a doctor, is corrupted by twisted logic and false words.  She is driven by fear, emptiness and sexual frustration towards a life of martyrdom (and she is quite willing to become a martyr too).  From a young age, she has been conditioned to fear the approach of men, and in a city where modern values have begun to take hold, she feels disgusted by what she sees:

"When I saw uninhibited girls undoing their bras and showing off their cleavage to the breeze and the sun in the small square, or for the titillation of the young men crowding around the entrances of the girls' schools, I felt rage at their filth."
p.17 (Doubleday, 2012)

However, it is the narrator and her friends, hidden beneath their unflattering, all-covering clothes, who are the real objects of attention - they are the ones who stand out.

Khalifa does a great job of describing life in the city of Aleppo during an era of unrest.  Outside, it is a time of death and destruction, whole communities slaughtered by one side or the other.  The Sunni Mujahideen, the holy warriors, carry on guerilla warfare against the military police, the Mukhabarat, hiding out in safe houses and fleeing the country when things get a little too hot.  Neutral observers (if there are any) must be careful to avoid the war zones - and the atrocities carried out by both sides...

So much for the men - for the women, it's a different story.  The narrator wants nothing more than to help the cause, and she does join a cell which passes out information and propaganda.  However, the reality is that she's a caged bird, forced to do the bidding of any male relative who bothers to show up at her grandfather's house.  Her inability to get out of the house (or her restrictive clothes) makes the reading experience somewhat claustrophobic, deliberately so.  Having struggled with it for 300 pages, I'm not sure how she managed it for so long...

This sense of claustrophobia is partially due to the picture the writer creates of her house.  More a mausoleum than a place of residence, it has remained unaltered since the days of its former owner, the only addition a collection of butterflies in glass cases - a fitting allegory for the narrator's life.  She is well aware of this, at times lamenting the restricted life she leads:

"I felt my predicament when she looked at me as if she were saying, 'How miserable you are,' and relief because I had let her into my stagnant world, like a lake forsaken by breezes, ducks and fishing hooks." (p.77)

A sad portrait of times gone by?  Yes and no.  The book does take a twist in the third section, a kind of redemption through suffering for the poor young woman.  However, the country has not been quite as fortunate.  A quick look at the news will tell you that history has a funny way of repeating itself - plus ça change...

Did it deserve to make the shortlist?
I'd have to say no.  After the first 75 pages, I thought this might be right up there, but the more I read, the slower it got.  The claustrophobic style, and the lack of chapters, made this a hard book to get into.  Eventually, it just appeared to be more of the same, inner turmoil and outer suffering repeated over and over again.  It's an interesting book, and a fascinating glimpse into Syrian history, but I was pretty happy to make it to the end.

Why didn't it make the shortlist?
I actually thought this might squeak in, but the panel obviously had similar thoughts to mine.  While the topic was interesting, the writing didn't really sparkle or stand out, and the story lacked focus a little.  Good, but not quite there...

*****
It's time to leave the Middle East, as we have a dinner appointment in Albania.  Our host?  Well, all I know is that he's a doctor - and a big one at that...

IFFP 2013 - Two Shortlists

The Independent foreign Fiction Prize shortlist is now out, and there are a few surprises in store (nothing new there then).  Of the sixteen longlisted titles who entered the race, only six remain - ten have been sent back to the sheds to contemplate their shortcomings.  In around a month's time, one of these six will be standing on top of the pile, but for now, it's time for all six to enjoy their moment in the sun - drum roll, please...

Official Shortlist for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Bundu by Chris Barnard

The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker

Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas

The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare

Traveller of the Century by Andres Neuman

Trieste by Daša Drndić

Of course, another small group of people has been reading the same collection of books, and recently we on the Shadow Panel announced our own shortlist!  The Shadow Panel consists of our esteemed chair, Stu, along with Mark, Gary, Lisa and me :)  I know you're just itching to compare the two lists, so..

Shadow Panel Shortlist for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Satantango by László Krasznahorkai

The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker

Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas

The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare

Traveller of the Century by Andres Neuman

The Last of the Vostyachs by Diego Marani

So, the lists...  Well, we've chosen four of the six the real panel have chosen, and I have to say that, on the whole, it's a better shortlist than was the case in 2012.  A couple of caveats though...  While I haven't yet read Satantango, I'm very surprised that it hasn't made the cut.  It did make the shortlist of the BTBA (the American version of the IFFP), and it was touted as a potential winner of both prizes - obviously not ;)

The big shock though is the inclusion of Bundu.  While I'm all for difference, this is the one book I hadn't even considered putting on my shortlist.  Of course, for those with long memories, IFFP panels obviously love Alma Books a lot!

Oh well, onward and upward.  For a list of all the Shadow Panel's reviews so far, please check out this page on Lisa's blog which pulls them all together - happy reading :)

Bundu by Chris Barnard (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 12)

It's always nice to try something a little different, and today's book is certainly not the usual translated literature fare.  We're heading off to South Africa, for my first book in Afrikaans, and we'll be going out into the African wilderness.  A word of warning - watch out for hippos...

*****
Bundu by Chris Barnard (translated by Michiel Heyns - from Alma Books)
What's it all about?
Brand de la Rey is an ecologist living in the bundu (the South African equivalent of the outback).  Working hard on his projects, he prefers to keep himself to himself, but a visit to the local mission station brings an unwelcome interruption to his routine.

After years of drought, the land is bare, and refugees come flooding across the border from Mozambique, hoping for some food and help in South Africa.  The doctor and nurses at the station try to help the newcomers, but the more they do, the more people congregate outside the buildings.  The South African army, regarding the far-flung province as part of Mozambique, refuses to help, forcing Brand and the mission staff to think of an alternative plan - which is where a crazy man and an old plane come in...

Bundu is an interesting adventure story, with an exotic backdrop and a love interest thrown in too.  The text is peppered with Afrikaans and Swahili, and when you read Barnard's stories about a hunt for an injured hippo and donkeys trekking to the nearest settlement, you can almost feel the stifling heat and the dust.  Oh, and let's not forget Malume, the enigmatic leader of the baboons...

While the main focus of the story is the plan to save the dying refugees, one of its strong points is its depiction of the strains and stresses on the mission staff.  The overworked nurses collapse from exhaustion, only to get right back up again - they have no choice.  Death is all around, yet there is no villain here, just the harsh reality of a land without rain.  As the ordeal draws on, the characters become painfully aware of the fragility of human existence:

"Julia and I were standing washing our hands and faces in a basin in front of her back door.  I stood watching our hands and our arms while we were washing; I saw her bare shoulders and her neck, the tongue brushing the lips, and realized that under Julia's tanned skin, under all the youthful softness and unblemishedness, there was a pale white skeleton washing along, participating invisibly, a skeleton preparing itself slowly but surely for the day when it could cast off the winding sheet to show its true face."
p.178 (Alma Books, 2012)

Of course, times of trouble often have the effect of breaking down barriers, and it isn't long before Brand and Julia, one of the nurses, seek comfort in each other's arms...

Bundu is also a novel which explores the concept of communication and silence.  People go to the bundu to avoid human contact, and many of the characters (Brand, Julia, madman Jock Mills) are running away from something.  Even when they do talk, they often prefer to be sparing with their words, and in a country of many languages, conversation can become even more complicated.  Several of the characters conveniently fail to understand when talk becomes too involved, while others switch languages to better express themselves (or, in one case, to swear more strongly!).  Of course, mere words are the least of the walls preventing mutual understanding:

"Vusi's Afrikaans was even more limited than my stunted and stilted Zulu and that in itself was enough reason to put a damper on a natural exchange of thoughts.  But in addition we were both still victims of the society in which we'd grown up and in which black people and white people had to coexist on either side of an invisible wall, like fish in the same pond but separated by glass.  It went much deeper than a language problem or a superficial prejudice - it was a blind assumption that the other one thought, felt, experienced things in a different way, was different." (pp.109/110)

Bundu is an entertaining read, an interesting glimpse into another world, but if I'm honest, it isn't really my kind of book.  On the whole, it read more like genre fiction than a novel from a literary fiction longlist, and it definitely favoured plotting (and romance) above the writing, especially in the first half of the novel.  I also thought that the first-person point of view led to a lot of info dumping, especially regarding Julia's back story.  While the old chestnut about showing, not telling, isn't always appropriate, I definitely felt that Barnard could have introduced the information more subtly.

Which is not to say that it's a bad book - far from it.  I enjoyed it, and I think most people would get something from it.  I honestly can't say though that it's one which will stay in my memory for long...

Do you think it deserves to make the shortlist?
Not really.  It's a nice story,and there's more to it than the first half would suggest, but the writing is nothing special.  Many people will like it, but that doesn't make it a book to shortlist.

Will it make the shortlist?
I wouldn't think so - I think the longlisting was probably a surprise.  A word of caution though: I was very negative about an Alma Books entry last year, and we all know what happened there...

*****
By the time you read this, the shortlist will finally have been announced, and my predictions will (I'm sure) have been shown to be the ramblings of a deluded, bitter old man.  Join me next time for a commentary on the choices - and we'll continue with our journey next week :)

IFFP 2013 - Shortlist Predictions

We started out with sixteen titles longlisted for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and tomorrow will see ten of the works fall by the wayside, leaving us with six heavyweights to battle it out for the prize.  In a longlist which I believe to be stronger than was the case in 2012, there are bound to be a few surprises - and I'm sure some of my early favourites will be hitting the canvas before the final bell...

Anyway, so far I've managed to get through fifteen of the sixteen longlisted titles (sadly, I'm still waiting to get a copy of Satantango), so I have a good idea of who I think deserves to progress to the next stage.  Now, as for other people (including the real jury), I'm not quite so sure ;)

Today, I'll be announcing two shortlists: one made up of the books I think deserve to make the cut; the other composed of the titles I suspect the real judges will opt for.  Not having read Satantango (which I'm expecting to make both lists), I'm adding a reserve title, just in case Krasznahorkai's novel doesn't live up to expectations.  And the nominees are (links to my reviews, where available):

Tony's Preferred Shortlist

Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas

Traveller of the Century by Andres Neuman

The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker

The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare

Silent House by Orhan Pamuk

Satantango by László Krasznahorkai

Reserve - A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgård

Tony's Predicted Shortlist

Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas

Traveller of the Century by Andres Neuman

HHhH by Laurent Binet

Trieste by Daša Drndić

A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgård

Satantango by László Krasznahorkai

As you can see, three of the books appear on both lists, so expect those to be the ones that miss the cut ;)  Was I right?  Well, we'll soon find out...  Later this week, I'll be having a look at the real shortlist, and (as if that wasn't exciting enough) I'll also be comparing it to the six chosen by our collective Shadow Panel!  As was the case last year, we will be choosing our winner from our own shortlist, not the official one (and last year, the two lists were very different...).  The finish post is in sight...

'Black Bazaar' by Alain Mabanckou (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 11)

Important as it is to look back at history, sometimes it's good to just relax and chill out with some friends.  Time to head off to Jip's Bar then to meet a man who likes to watch the world (and women) pass by - in style, bien sûr ;)

*****
Black Baza(a)r by Alain Mabanckou (translated by Sarah Ardizzone - from Serpent's Tail)
What's it all about?
Our entry into Mabanckou's world is an aspiring writer from the Congo ('the little one') living illegally in Paris.  He's a happy soul, enjoying life in the French capital - until, that is, he is deserted by his partner, who runs off with their daughter (and a Tom-Tom player...) back to his home country.  What's a man to do...

Fessologue, as our friend is known (because of his elevation of considering women's derrières to a science), copes with it all by sitting in Jip's café, talking rubbish with other African immigrants and visiting a writer friend who gives him advice.  Eventually, he decides that the best way to cope with his issues is to buy a clunky old typewriter and start writing a book about his experiences - a book called Black Bazar...

Mabanckou's novel appears at first glance to be just a series of events and anecdotes, fun stories about the African diaspora in Paris.  However, they soon become more personal, exploring the relationship between Fessologue and his partner, Couleur d'origine ('Colour of Origin'), perhaps in an attempt to understand why it went wrong.

Don't get me wrong though - this is not a book of regrets and tears.  Fessologue is a dedicated follower of fashion, a man who is just as at home choosing Italian hand-made suits as discussing the relative merits of female posteriors.  He heads out into the Parisian night, on the prowl for fresh arrivals from his home continent to (as he says) "chasser sans merci les gazelles sauvages" ('mercilessly hunt down the wild gazelles').  It's easy to conclude that he deserved everything he got...

Black Bazaar though is also a novel about writers and writing.  The book begins with a great prologue in which a friend interrogates Fessologue at the bar, referencing famous novels in an attempt to pin down what exactly it is the writer is planning to write.  Frustrated by the rejection of ideas about white sheep, old men and fishing, and love in a time of cholera, Roger the Franco-Ivorian dismisses his friend's ability to ever get a story down on paper:

"Écoute, mon gars, sois réaliste!  Laisse tomber tes histoires de t'asseoir et d'écrire tous les jours, y a des gens plus calés pour ça, et ces gens-là on les voit à la télé, ils parlent bien, et quand ils parlent y a un sujet, y a un verbe et y a un complément.  Ils sont nés pour ça, ils ont été élevés dans ça, alors que nous autres les nègres, c'est pas notre dada, l'écriture."
pp.13/14 (Éditions du Seuil, 2009)

"Listen up, my boy, be realistic!  Drop your sitting around and writing every day, there's people much better at it, and those people, you see them on telly, they talk well, and when they talk there's a subject, there's a verb and there's an object.  They're born for that, they're raised in that, while us blacks, it's not our thing, writing."***

I wonder how autobiographical this conversation is...

Black Bazaar reminds me of a Russian book I read last year, Happiness is Possible.  Both deal with a writer in a big city, telling stories about life there for someone who was born elsewhere.  Both have been left by their partners and use their writing to deal with the hurt, gradually moving from humorous sketches of daily life to more personal stories.  Were it not for the snappy clothes and the Pelforth beers, Fessologue would fit in well in Moscow ;)

As it is, he's another writer in (self-imposed) exile, able to look at matters from a distance, from a different perspective, and it's a point which isn't lost on our Congolese friend.  He muses:

"Est-ce qu'un écrivain doit toujours vivre dans un autre pays, et de préférence être contraint d'y vivre pour avoir des choses à écrire et permettre aux autres d'analyser l'influence de l'exil dans son écriture?" (p.182)

"Must a writer always live in another country, and preferably be forced to live there, in order to have things to write and to allow others to analyse the influence of exile in their writing?"***

Hmm.  Perhaps I should read some of Mabanckou's other books, set in his home country, to find out ;)

In the end though, this is a book about our friend Fessologue.  It's an enjoyable romp, a welcome change from the tone of the rest of this year's longlist, and I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that it has a relatively happy end.  But even this ending is a little ambiguous - what constitutes a happy ending for our African immigrant?  Is it keeping a firm hold on his roots, or adapting to life in a new country?  Or is there a middle ground?  One to consider for all the ex-pats among us...

***All translations into English are my sorry efforts...

***** Do you think it deserves to make the shortlist?
Possibly.  It'll be there or thereabouts, a book which is entertaining and thought-provoking at the same time.  On finishing this one, I ordered two more of Mabanckou's novels - which shows how much I liked it :)

A couple of points...  I'd love to see a woman's take on this work, as I occasionally got the feeling that old Fess was a touch on the chauvinist side.  Would a female reader relate with him enough to enjoy the book?

Also, I read this in French, so I have no idea how good the translation is.  The only thing I know is that the protagonist's name was translated as 'buttologist'/'buttocks man' - which I dislike for many reasons (my preference would have been to leave the name in French!).

Will it make the shortlist?
Possibly not.  I'd love it to make the final six, but I'm not sure the judges will be able to squeeze this past some of the doom and gloom stories - and the shortlist will be a dourer place for it ;)

*****
Another one done and dusted :)  From an African story, next time we'll be looking at a story in Africa.  Buckle up - we're going off road...

'Trieste' by Daša Drndić (Review - IFFP 2013, Number 10)

We're back to WW2 fare today, this time along Italy's Adriatic Coast.  However, the book we'll be examining looks at things from a slightly different angle from usual.  So, where are we exactly?  Well...

*****
Trieste by Daša Drndić (translated by Ellen Elias Bursać - review copy from MacLehose Press)
What's it all about?
In 2006, Haya Tedeschi, an elderly lady, sits at home in Gorizia, near Trieste, surrounded by piles of papers and newspaper clippings.  The mounds of paper scattered on the floor all have to do with the events of the war, stories of atrocities and biographies of some of the heroes and villains of the era.  It may seem to be history to many people, but for Haya the war is still very real.

We then move back in time to the start of the twentieth century and are introduced to the Tedeschi family and the region around Trieste.  It is a European crossroads, a city on the borders of Empires, a multilingual cultural melting pot - great for music and literature, very bad when the great European powers decide to go to war...

The writer takes us carefully through the first part of the 20th century until we reach the main focus of the novel, the Second World War.  It is here that Haya meets SS officer Kurt Frank and has a secret affair.  The result of the relationship is a son, Antonio Tedeschi - a boy who one day goes missing, leaving his mother with a sixty-two year wait for his return.

Trieste is a heavy book on a weighty subject.  Drndić uses the novel to discuss what happened during the war in and around the title city, an area many people would know little about.  We learn about the death camps in the region and the men who ran them (and what happened to them after the war...).  We read about the post-war trials and how some of them were conducted in the absence of the accused, empty procedures which had no consequences.  In short, we are reminded of the past, a past which the writer wants to make sure is not forgotten.

Eventually, the focus shifts to the Lebensborn project, a Nazi plan to ensure the dominance of their Aryan super race.  Homes were opened all over the German Reich, where suitable women gave birth to children who were then to be brought up in a manner deemed fit for the heirs of the master race.  When Himmler realised that the numbers weren't impressive enough, he decided to order the removal of suitable children born to inferior races in the region (including little Antonio Tedeschi...).

The final section of the book is devoted to Hans Traube, a man who knows that his name and upbringing is a lie, and his quest to uncover the truth.  Like his birth mother, Hans has been searching through documents in the vain hope of finding his true identity, in the process finding out much more about his possible biological father than he would like to know.  The Lebensborn children are doomed to live with uncertainty, hoping they might some day uncover their true origins, but also scared of what they might find:

"Then, when I least expected it, the Past jumped out at me in a flash, Hop! like a carcass, like some rotten corpse it draped itself around my neck, plunged its claws into my artery and it still isn't letting go. I'd like to shake it off, this Past, but it won't let me, it swings on me as I walk, it lies on me while I sleep, it looks me in the eye and leers, See, I'm still with you."
p.339 (MacLehose Press, 2013)

Of course, it's not just the Lebensborn children who have to worry about the burden of the past.  Drndić contrasts their fate with that of the children of the SS officers, the men and women responsible for crimes against humanity.  They also struggle to live with the legacy of the past...

Trieste is minutely researched, comprising a dizzying collage of fact and fiction, stories and interviews.  In its inclusion of photographs and original documentation (and even forty pages of the names of Italian holocaust victims), with a narrative frequently shoved aside in favour of a tangent, there is something almost Sebaldian in its structure.  We are taken on a tour of WW2, from Aushwitz and Treblinka to Reinhard Heydrich at the Salon Kitty brothel in Berlin (for the second time in a week...), with anecdotes about concentration camp guards shooting prisoners for fun, and convoys of the doomed through Switzerland, where locals think they are helping by providing blankets and warm soup...

What comes through very clearly though is the mass slaughter, the senseless, deliberate waste of human life on a grand scale.  One of the more interesting features of the novel is the occasional Q & A with both holocaust victims and their captors, giving insights into what happened - and how.  As one guard says:

"When I was on a trip once, years later in Brazil, my train stopped next to a slaughterhouse.  The cattle grazing in the pens trotted up to the fence and stared at our train.  They were very close to my window, one jostling the other, looking at me through that fence.  I thought then, This reminds me of Poland.  That's how the people looked at me there: trustingly, just before they went into the... I couldn't eat tinned meat for a long time after that.  Those big cows' eyes staring at me, those animals who had no idea that in no time they'd all be slaughtered...

So you didn't feel the camp inmates were people?

Cargo.  They were cargo." (p.206)

Trieste is certainly an ambitious, expansive work, but if I had a criticism to make, it would be that it is a little over-ambitious at times.  The main story, what little of it there is, is frequently pushed into the background, seemingly only there to serve as an excuse to write about the history.  As with HHhH, the reader is left wondering what the actual focus of the work is, and whether it might have been better left as non-fiction...

Do you think it deserves to make the shortlist?
Possibly not.  It's a worthy book on an important subject, but it wanders a little (OK, a lot), and I was never quite sure what the focus was meant to be.  The last section, centred on Hans Traube and his search for the truth, is excellent, and I would personally have preferred a much narrower focus on the Lebensborn project.

Will it make the shortlist?
Despite what I said above, I think it has a good chance.  I don't think I'm the best judge of literature dealing with the Holocaust, and other readers seem to appreciate books like HHhH and Trieste a lot more than I do.  I suspect that one of those two will make the cut, and this one is much weightier and better written. 

*****
Moving on, and we're (finally) lightening the mood a little; it's time to head off to Paris for some drinking, dancing and writing in the park.  Whatever you do, make sure you dress for the occasion - suit up, everyone ;)