Focus on the indies – Peirene Press

Since I started reading book blogs more regularly I have been introduced to a number of interesting independent publishers. I now thought I should do my part and spread the word further, starting with my new favourite, Peirene Press.

Peirene Press focuses on short-format, maximum 200 pages, translated novels and memoirs by mostly European authors. As I prefer shorter novels and aim to read from as many countries as possible, they have been a perfect match. It doesn’t hurt that they are producing reasonably well-made and attractive soft-covers either.

Books I recommend from Peirene Press

I have enjoyed and would recommend all four books I have read from Peirene. However, I will focus on two of them, both dealing with life in the Soviet Union. The fact that I have a more relevant photo to illustrate these books than I do for the other two may or may not have influenced my choice…

Soviet Milk by Nora Ikstena (translation by Margita Gailitis)

Soviet Milk is a Latvian novel following a mother and daughter whose relationship has been stunted by the mother’s depression. The novel is a beautiful portrait of their fragile relationship but also a broader commentary about the influence of oppressive regimes on ordinary lives.

Shadows on the Tundra by Dalia Grinkevičiūtė (translation by Delija Valiukenas)

If the previous novel didn’t sound bleak enough I can instead recommend the Lithuanian novel Shadows on the Tundra. It is a well-written memoir which follows then 14-year old Dalia Grinkevičiūtė and her mother and brother during their deportation to the Lena delta in north Siberia. It is a truly horrifying account of the complete disregard for human lives that these deportations involved, but it also a survival story and as such not entirely without hope.

Other books from Peirene Press

From Peirene I have also read and very much enjoyed Under the Tripoli Sky by Kamal Ben Hameda and Chasing the King of Hearts by Hanna Krall. Under the Tripoli Sky, describes a childhood in Tripoli during the 1960s and would be my recommendation if you want to try Peirene Press but want to avoid the heavier themes in some of their other novels.

Have you read any of these books, did you like them? Do you have any recommendations of other books I should read from Peirene Press or suggestions on other indie publishers I should try?

As usual this post has not been sponsored in any way.

 

Other Russias

I am quite interested in Russian literature and have reviewed a few Russian novels on this blog before. However, all of them have been classics, modern Russian literature has largely remained a blank spot in my reading. I was therefore intrigued when I stumbled upon Other Russias, Victoria Lomasko‘s graphic reportage from modern Russia.

In the book we follow Lomasko as she draws juvenile prisoners, modern slaves, prostitutes and village children. She also draws during the Pussy Riot trial, a LGBT film festival and various protest rallies. The book consists of her pen drawings of the people she meets combined with quotes from the people she’s drawn and her own commentary. Generally drawn on-site the drawings range vary from quick sketches to somewhat more elaborate designs.

Lomasko is an artist, not a journalist, and her book is thus not a pure journalistic reportage trying to find the truth on specific topics. Instead she lends us her eyes as she explores and portraits various parts of Russia. It is thus not trying to be anything but a story of modern Russia as seen by Lomasko herself. Such an approach may be more subjective and biased but it is so openly which I appreciate. The fact that she is interested in portraying “invisible” people and social activists ensures a broader relevance of her work.

I found the book most relevant when it covered less newsworthy topics. I can find plenty of descriptions of the Pussy Riot trial elsewhere but many of the people she portraits I could have met nowhere else. All in all I found it very interesting.

An interview with Victoria Lomasko can be found here.

 

 

Reading books by authors from 30 countries

Read books since I started the reading challenge in January 2017.

I did it! I have read books by authors from 30 nations (if I include Sápmi which I do). Not in a year which was the original challenge but in a bit under 1.5 years. I struggled a bit in the beginning but gradually I got better at finding great books from countries I normally don’t read from and I became braver in my reading choices.

What have I learnt?

In the beginning I was a bit too ambitious in my reading choices which slowed down my progress. If my goal had been to read one book per country and never return it would have made sense to make that one book really count. However, that’s not what I was trying to do. Instead I was gradually expanding my reading comfort zone and for that it helped to keep it simple. Often the cultural context of a novel was unfamiliar and it made more sense to select books that was not too demanding in other ways. I therefore dropped any ambition that the books I selected had to be particularly literary and I preferentially opted for shorter novels. Along the way I also got better at finding great literature in translation, identified a few interesting indie publishers and found many excellent international bloggers .

Good sources of literature in translation

And other stories publishes an eclectic collection of mostly translated fiction. Among them The Lime Tree by César Aira (which I liked) and The Seamstress and the Wind by the same author (which I found too weird).

Ayebia specialises in literature by African and Carribean authors. I’m currently enjoying their anthology African Love Stories (edited by Ama Ata Aidoo). Thank you Darkowaa for the review that introduced me to it!

My favourite discovery in translated fiction has been Peirene Press which publishes translated fiction by mostly European authors. I would have preferred a wider reach but Peirene Press has some other advantages that makes up for it. Most importantly all the books I have read from them (3) have been excellent. They also only publish shorter works (maximum about 200 pages) which makes me much more willing to risk trying a new author. And I like the look of their books…

A few relevant blog posts I found along the way

Beginner’s guide to Baltic Literature by Agnese

Ann Morgan’s list of books from her blog “A year of reading the world”

Darkowaa’s list of Ghanaian authors and their books (3 part series, links to the two first parts can be found at the end of her post).

Stuart at Winstondad’s Blog have also reviewed a wide range of translated fiction (sorted by country).

I would like to add more links here, please let me know if you have recommendations of similar resources from other regions (excluding literature from the UK and the US which is easy to find anyway).

What’s next?

I won’t start another reading challenge rightaway but I will keep tracking author’s country or origin for my reading. Hopefully it will show that I keep exploring new reading grounds. Next year I consider once more trying to limit my book buying but to give myself a free pass for books from countries I normally don’t read from to encourage more diverse reading choices.

 

 

The Boarding-School Girl by Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya

 

I have been lucky with my reading lately. March was a slow reading month for me but since Easter I have had much more reading time and my last few reads have also all been really good. During April I have moved from WW2 France with Flight to Arras (by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry) to Latvia during Soviet time with Soviet Milk (Nora Ikstena) and now, latest, to 19th century Russia with The Boarding-School Girl by Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya (translation Karen Rosneck).

I discovered The Boarding-School Girl when I, unsuccessfully, looked for other translated works by one of her sister, Sofia Khvoshchinskaya, the writer of City Folk and Country Folk. The Boarding-School Girl is largely focused on the disillusioned and exiled Veretitsyn and his largely accidental influence on his young neighbour Lolenka. Exposed to Veretitsyn’s bitter musings Lolenka starts to question the shallow education she is getting and the confined life she is living. Partly a comedy of manner, partly a coming-of-age story the novel gives an interesting glimpse into the life and education of 19th century women from the lower gentry.

It is a very short novel, the actual story took only 137 pages in the edition I was reading, and the plot was relatively simple. The character’s on the other hand were well-developed and realistic. A sharp but subtle wit runs through the novel, it may even have a bit more edge than her sister’s novel. If you enjoy Jane Austen writing style you would probably like this one too although the stories told are very different.

Overall it had a surprisingly modern feel, also compared to City Folk and Country Folk. The edition I was reading also included an extensive introduction and a generous number of footnotes which helped me appreciate the novel even more.

I count The Boarding-School Girl as my Classic in translation for the Back to the classics reading challenge.

Watching the world from above

As I loved Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry it is perhaps not surprising that I’ve recently been exploring other parts of his literary output. Specifically Night flight and Flight to Arras, translated by David Carter and William Rees respectively.

Night flight is focused on a South American air base and its leader during the time postal air traffic was in its pioneering and highly dangerous days. It is a fictional story but clearly inspired by Saint-Exupéry’s own experiences as a pilot in such a company. I greatly enjoyed it but not as much as I did Wind, Sand and Stars. Often I prefer fiction to non-fiction as fiction usually allows the author to write a tighter or more interesting story. However, as Saint-Exupéry do these things brilliantly in his non-fiction the fictional element in this case only made me less involved in the plot. I would also have preferred to spend more time in the air with the pilots rather than at the air base. However, I did find it interesting to follow the thoughts of the leader who sent them into danger and desperately tried to bring them safely back. Overall a very good book but far from his best.

Flight to Arras on the other hand is a non-fiction text and much closer related to Wind, Sand and Stars. However, compared to that one it is a much sadder text. Whereas Wind, Sand and Stars was focused on the dangerous but also optimistic days of early air traffic, Flight to Arras takes place in the final weeks before the French surrender to the German invasion during WW2. The mission is to all appearances both pointless and suicidal and surrender is already inevitable. Much like in Wind, Sand and Stars we get the thrilling story of the mission parallel to the author’s philosophical musings. We follow his thoughts from surly resignation of the near certain death on this likely futile reconnaissance mission to an ultimately optimistic humanitarian message as he realises which kind of future he’d be willing to die for. I prefer Wind, Sand and Stars but this one is also a great book, in its best parts equally brilliant.

I count Flight to Arras as my Travel or Journey Classic for the Back to the classics reading challenge.

 

2 x Pablo Neruda

I recently saw the film “Neruda” which follows poet and politician Pablo Neruda on his escape from Chile in 1948. Interestingly the film choose to use a clearly unreliable and biased narrator in the form of the policeman hunting Neruda. The result was a bit weird but provided some contrast to Neruda’s role as the hero of the story. It allowed me to choose between the heroic tale Neruda might have told himself, the negative story told by his persecutor, or something in-between. It was weird but I mostly liked it.

The film also provided several examples of Neruda’s poetry and I left it with a desire to read some of it for myself. Poetry in translation is of course always a challenge but I did study Spanish many years ago and although I have forgotten almost all of it I selected a bilingual edition of his early collection “Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair“. That way I could at least get a glimpse of the original poetry besides the translation. It also forced me to read slowly, alternating between the Spanish and the English translation. Interestingly, I felt that the tone of the poems changed with the language.

I found it easy to like Neruda’s poetry and can see why it is so popular. These are poems that speaks directly on the first read. I particularly enjoyed the striking imagery in many of the poems. “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees” may be one of the most sensual lines I’ve read in a poem.

However, as I kept reading the shadowy nature of the woman/women he described started to bother me. The poems seemed directed more to an idea of a woman than to an actual, living person, and she thus remained a body or an ideal, never an individual. I don’t really mind that in an occasional poem but 21 in a row is too many. I should search for some of his non-love related poetry, I suspect I may enjoy those more. Or perhaps any of his poems written after the age of 19.

I read it in a bilingual translation where the English translation was written by W. S. Merwin.

 

 

Spending time on the Russian countryside

The best thing about reading book blogs are all the great books you get exposed to. I could still have been completely oblivious to the existence of the excellent novel City folk and country folk if it weren’t for Kaggsy’s blog post about it and now when I’ve read it I just want to spread the word further.

City folk and country folk by Sofia Khvoshchinskaya (translation by Nora Seligman Favorov) is a comedy of manner with sharp observations and wit not dissimilar to a Jane Austen novel. Of course comparing it to a Jane Austen novel sets the bar impossibly high, it is very good but it doesn’t have the tight writing of an Austen novel. What it offers instead is insight into the lives of Russian rural gentry, observations on the social changes that occurred in Russia during the 1860s and a plot which I wasn’t sure where it would take me. It was a perfect novel to ease myself back into my classics reading again. Unfortunately this novel seems to be the only text from the author that has been translated into English but one of her sisters, Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya, has a translated novel, The Boarding-School Girl, which I now long to read.

You should read this novel if you

• want to read a 19th century Russian classics but want to avoid the thicker or more tragic novels,
• love Jane Austen’s novels (just don’t expect it to actually be a Jane Austen novel), or
• if you just like the thought of reading a little known but excellent Russian 19th century author.

(Personally I’m guilty of all three)

I found some interesting and more in-depth reviews of this book here, here and here, although they, especially the two later, do give out a bit of the plot so if you want to avoid that they may be best read after the novel.

I’m counting this one as my 19th century classic for the Back to the classics reading challenge. There’s still time, until March 1st, to sign up to this challenge if you are interested.

 

La Vita Nuova

The latest classic from my classic club reading list was La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri.

I really got myself into deep water with this book. It felt a bit like watching a game where you know none of the rules. One reason for my struggles was the disadvantage of reading it in translation which is always difficult with poetry. However, I believe the greatest barrier was the cultural one. I’m so used to texts were the plot and/or character development are central that I’m apparently lost without them. I eventually found some rhythm in the narration and enjoyed the ending much more than the beginning but it was a challenging read.

La Vita Nuova was first published in 1295, which probably explains my cultural chock. It is centred around the narrator’s impossible love for Beatrice and consists of a series of poems prizing her and describing her influence on the narrator and others. These poems are divided by texts describing the context of the poems and explanations of their structure. Little happens and Beatrice never really takes shape, she remains an idea, a living angel. Instead I felt that Love, both as a concept and its influence on those it touches, was the real focus.

In many ways it reminded me of The Sorrows of Young Werther which I read last year.  In it the story is also centred around an impossible love and I got the impression that the main goal of the text was that it should be beautiful. As in La Vita Nuova the love described in The Sorrows of Young Werther was an idealized romantic love which appeared more like an idea than an actual human emotion.

So did I enjoy it? Not really but I’m glad I have read it. It was different from almost anything else I have read and I could see glimpses of the beauty in it. It was also a rather short read, although it still took me surprisingly long to finish, and it may help me to better understand references to Dante in later works. However, to really appreciate it I would have needed a much better understanding of the context and preferably to be able to read it in its original Italian.

I read it in a translation by Mark Musa but an earlier translation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti is available for free from Project Gutenberg.

La Vita Nuova is on my reading list for the Classics club and I also count it as my “Classic by an author that’s new to you” for the Back to the classics reading challenge. It also means that I can add another country, Italy, to my 30-20-20-10 reading challenge, only eight more to go.

 

 

 

Wind, sand and stars

I may have been somewhat unconvinced of the greatness of The Little Prince but Wind, sand and stars, also by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, more than made up for it.

The author was a pilot in the early days of air traffic and the memoir contains thrilling descriptions of these pioneering aviators and the dangers facing them. I would have loved this book for the flight scenes alone but it contains much more. Written as a collection of loosely connected essays it is partly a memoir of the early days of flying, partly a celebration of life and humanity.  In the end there is also a chapter about a visit in Spain during the civil war. It should feel disjointed but somehow the language and the love of life ties it together.

In the memoir he carefully describes the pilots, their air-crafts and the lofty world they inhabit. I especially enjoyed his description of the world below, written at a time when few people had been in a plane I imagine it must have sounded a bit like the astronauts’ descriptions of the world from space does to us.

It was written during the 1930s and his descriptions of the people he met during his time in Sahara are sometimes uncomfortable. However, unlike many of his contemporaries he had the advantage of writing about people he had interacted with and to some degree clearly respected. The result may not be a fair description of the people of Sahara but it’s probably a true portrait of how they would have appeared to a Frenchman at the time. As such I found it very interesting. I also appreciated his obvious love for Sahara, where he lived a few years, and which I felt resembled my own love for the Arctic.

All in all I greatly enjoyed this memoir and found it both thought-provoking and beautiful. I may not agree with all of his views but I found it a very worth-while read and am glad that the Classics club challenge made me discover it.

The full list of classics I have read or plan to read in the Classics Club challenge can be found here. In addition I count it as my 20th century classic for the Back to the classics reading challenge. Two other reviews of this book can be found here and here.

 

 

The Little Prince

My ambition not to buy any new books until I had read as many of my unread books as I had bought this year broke down. First I realized that I had counted some of my read books twice and thus that I was much further from my goal than I had thought and then I went to Paris and obviously had to buy some books because that’s what I do when I’m a tourist. So I have officially given up that ambition but at least I made a dent in my To Be Read piles while it lasted.

For the full tourist experience I went to Shakespeare and Company (thankfully not too crowded when I was there and thus lovely) in Paris and bought The Little Prince. It’s part of my Classics Club challenge so at least I had a good excuse (something that’s not true for all the other books I happened to buy).

The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is a beloved children book, possibly even more loved by adults than by children (my suspicion). I knew it mostly from the illustrations which I really like. The text however took longer to convince me. It is in many ways a philosophical allegory, but to me it was of the kind that sounds good but doesn’t actually force you to think. On the other hand it is a children’s book so a somewhat simplistic approach is justified. It also gradually won me over and I found myself quite moved by the ending. So in the end I liked it but did not love it. It is however a quick and easy read, beautifully illustrated so it is worth giving it a chance.