Balkanography's Coming Months
Divine Child, No-Signal Area, Anima, and The Case of Cem
Since I think you might want to read them and not just me, here’s word on a few books I plan to highlight soon.
Around November 15 I’ll comment on two recently translated Croatian novels from the 1990s, Tatjana Gromača’s Divine Child and Robert Perišić’s No-Signal Area. I am fascinated by how these acclaimed authors creatively capture responses to the individual and collective traumas brought by that decade’s violence and catastrophic social change.
Then, having launched this Balkanographic word fest last March with a response to Kapka Kassabova’s Border, I’ll return to her brilliant and layered storytelling in mid-December with a look at her fourth nonfiction book about the region, Anima: A Wild Pastoral. As the title suggests, and as the publisher, Graywolf Press, describes, her experiences among the Karakachani (Sarakatsani) introduce us to “shepherds struggling to hold on to an ancient way of life in which humans and animals exist in profound interdependence.”
After breaking for winter holidays and the Zlatne Uste Golden Festival on January 17th and 18th, we’ll resume with The Case of Cem by revered historical novelist Vera Mutafchieva. This experimental work was first published in Bulgarian in 1967 and only recently came out in its first English translation. While a 566-page journey through 15th-century Ottoman court affairs may not have been planned for your holiday nightstand, consider adding it For all its doorstep heft, it’s a fresh read with surprising relevance in light of the ongoing dynamics between East and West as played out in the Balkans, including the Cold War and (as translator Angela Rodel notes in an introduction), the current disparities still dividing first-class and second-class members of the European Union.
Georgi Gospodinov, whose brilliant Time Shelter we have visited (Apocalypse, Wow!), calls The Case of Cem
“A brilliant and polyphonic novel, in which each chapter offers a new point of view, adds a new dimension. A story told through the voices of the living and the dead. A novel that today sounds very topical in the context of contemporary writing and the European East.”
So as the nights grow longer, curl up with The Case of Cem and a pot of tea, or The Case of Cem and a case of wine.
I’ll see you on that one around January 24. In between, I’ll post a bit on publishers opening new streams of writing from the Balkans: Sandorf Passage, Open Letters, and Istros.
Please send a message or leave a comment if you would like to share a perspective on these books or on where we should head when we get back from the 15th century.
Happy reading! Jerry