Posts featuring Pavel Vilikovský

Translation Tuesday: “A Sentimental Education in March” by Pavel Vilikovský

We’ve all dreamed about it before. At least it seems like it. Falling from a tower. Down the stairs. From the bottom.

This week’s Translation Tuesday honours one of Slovakia’s greatest writers on the eve of what would have been his seventy-ninth birthday (June 27). Translator Charles Sabatos writes:

The title story of Pavel Vilikovský‘s debut collection, A Sentimental Education in March (Citová výchova v marci, 1965), translated here for the first time, features the introspective meditation on everyday events that can be found in his later work, but in a more fragmentary style.  A group of young people take a trip to Popradské pleso, a lake resort in the Tatra mountains, where two of them have a brief sexual encounter that leaves the young man disillusioned with intimacy and alienated from reality.

Pavel Vilikovský (1941-2020) had a distinctively ironic style that was rooted in Central European culture yet parodied the national myths of the region. He spent most of his life in Bratislava, although he briefly studied film in Prague before returning to Slovakia, where he became an editor and translator from English. During the “normalization” period of the 1970s and 1980s, Vilikovský preferred self-imposed silence to self-censorship, although he was never officially banned.  He made up for this period of near invisibility with the appearance of three volumes during the last months of the Communist regime in 1989, including Ever Green is . . . (Večne je zelený) and A Horse Upstairs, a Blind Man in Vráble (Kôň na poschodí, slepec vo Vrábľoch), his first works translated into English (by Charles Sabatos for Northwestern University Press in 2002). His collection An Escalation of Feeling (Eskalácia citu), also published that year, was a mix of new and previously published stories, including a slightly revised version of “A Sentimental Education in March.” This reappearance was followed by three decades of prolific output, during which he won the prestigious Anasoft Litera award twice. Perhaps the most acclaimed of his later works was Fleeting Snow (Letmý sneh, 2014, translated by Julia and Peter Sherwood for Istros Books in 2018) which depicts a narrator dealing with his wife’s gradual loss of memory.  After writing five novels between 2013 and 2018, the last of which was The Thrill is Gone (RAJc je preč, 2018), Vilikovský (who always resisted technology and never used the internet) lost a completed text due to a computer error, leaving him so demoralized that he stopped writing entirely. Upon his death a few months later, friends and colleagues remembered his lifelong modesty and generosity along with his artistic brilliance. According to the critic Peter Darovec, Vilikovský “never stopped viewing sentiment as the most important part of how a person functions, whether in communicating with others or with the world. He was able to rationalize it, to think about it analytically . . . Before him no one else had managed that in Slovak literature, no one had even come close.”

At the station, they were waiting. Waiting and waiting.

“One, two, three,” cried the black locomotives. “Ohh. Ohh.”

“Then I cried,” he said. “I cried up there in that cottage, at the lake in the mountains, and it flowed down the Váh River. She told me no, I can’t, no. Then: those three years. That was in the hallway. She went up the steps. Yes? I asked. Yes. Then I cried. Those three years. Those three years. It all froze down my cheeks.”

They stopped to get some water. “Whoo-hoo,” cried the locomotive.

“When I cried,” he said, “everyone saw it. All night. Yes? Yes. And up the steps. And down my cheeks.” READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest literary news from Poland, Sweden, Mexico, and Argentina!

This week our writers report on literary prizes and new releases in Poland, a collaboration between two renowned Swedish authors, the 41st International Book Fair in Mexico City, and commemorative events for María Elena Walsh in Argentina. Read on to find out more! 

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Poland

It’s never too late to #bemoreOlga—to quote Helen Vassallo (translatingwomen)—and report that Olga Tokarczuk is using some of her Nobel prize money to start a foundation to support writers and translators. To acknowledge the role translators played in her worldwide success, the Polish Association of Literary Translators has pulled together some stats: as of October 2019, 193 translations had appeared of Tokarczuk’s books into thirty-seven languages, with twelve more in the pipeline, by a total of ninety translators (names all listed here).

On January 20 the weekly Polityka awarded Olga Tokarczuk the Creator of Culture prize “for books that are ahead of their time, her style and for looking into the future of literature and our entire planet.” The prize was one of Polityka’s annual arts awards, with this year’s “Passport” for literature going to Dominika Słowik for her novel Zimowla (roughly, Huddling Together) a “thriller with horror elements, set in the small village of Cukrówka, a fascinating depiction of recent history.” In her acceptance speech, Słowik cheered the fact that, for the first time, all three shortlisted authors were women. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

Our editors report on the most exciting developments in literature from Slovakia, Argentina, and Uzbekistan!

This week, our writers around the globe are celebrating the ever-growing interest in literature from countries that have been underrepresented in translation. In Slovakia, our Editor-at-Large looks back over the best works of the last thirty years, as well as the biggest literary prize-winners of 2019. In Argentina, acclaimed singer Adrián (Dárgelos) Rodríguez releases his debut poetry collection, and a new program in narrative journalism is launched in Buenos Aires. In Uzbekistan, we review two new English translations of major Uzbek classics. Read on to find out more!  

Julia Sherwood, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Slovakia

As 2019 drew to a close, the customary best-of lists in Slovakia were topped by Čepiec (The Bonnet), a difficult-to-classify blend of ethnographic and historical exploration, social criticism, and autobiographical psychological probe—the first foray into prose by the acclaimed poet Katarína Kucbelová. 

The anniversary of the Velvet Revolution of November 1989 prompted a number of searches for the best literary works produced over the past thirty years. The most comprehensive survey, on PLAV.sk (Platform for Literature and Research), invited one hundred and thirty scholars, critics, writers, translators, and publishers to pick the best book of poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction, and criticism. Štefan Strážay’s collection Interiér (1992, The Interior) garnered the highest number of votes in the poetry category, with past Asymptote contributor Peter Macsovszky’s 1994 collection Strach z utópie (Fear of Utopia) coming a close second. The fiction list was dominated by Peter Pišťanek’s prescient dystopian satire Rivers of Babylon (1991, trans. Peter Petro, 2007), followed by his Mladý Dônč (Dônč Junior, yet to be translated into English) and cult author Rudolf Sloboda’s novel Krv (1991, Blood). As for “best writer,” the top four—Pavel Vilikovský, Balla, Ivana Dobrakovová, and Peter Pišťanek—all luckily have books available in English. More information on Slovak literature is available on the portal SlovakLiterature.com (full disclosure: I launched this website with Magdalena Mullek in September 2019 to promote Slovak literature in English). READ MORE…

‘Une Belle Inconnue’: Slovak Literature in Paris

I spent four days at the stand, listening to the discussions and watching books being snatched from the counter.

As we reported in Asymptote’s weekly dispatch a few weeks ago, Slovak literature made waves at this year’s Salon du Livre in Paris, where thirty-seven books by Slovak authors, including twenty-five brand new translations, were presented. Also in attendance was writer and past Asymptote contributor Marek Vadas, on this occasion wearing his hat as staff member of LIC (Centre for Information on Literature), the agency responsible for promoting Slovak literature abroad. He has agreed to share his insider’s view of the book fair with us.

There are two kind of stands at international book fairs. The first attract attention because of their long-term reputation, literary stars and talent, thoughtful cultural policy and diplomacy or, simply, thanks to the money lavished on them. The second kind­—old-fashioned, lacking in invention or sophistication—rarely attract anyone apart from a narrow circle of specialists or the odd passerby. This year, all of a sudden, the Slovak stand found itself in the first category. What happened? READ MORE…

The Multilingual Carpathians: Weronika Gogola in Conversation

“Only by picking up a magnifying glass and taking a close look at things can you see the truth about yourself and others.”

Weronika Gogola is a Polish writer and translator from Slovak and Ukrainian. Her first autobiographical book Po trochu (Little by Little, 2017), which depicts her childhood in the small village of Olszyny in the Carpathian mountains, is composed of “stories from real life that are usually told bit by bit, in snippets and fragments.” The book was nominated for several literary prizes and in October 2018 won the Conrad Award for a prose debut. For the past three years, Gogola has been based in Bratislava, where Julia Sherwood, Asymptote’s Editor-at-Large for Slovakia, caught up with her last November.

Julia Sherwood: First of all, congratulations on winning the Conrad Award! I loved your book and think that the prize was more than deserved. What does it mean for you?

Weronika Gogola: This award is incredibly important to me, especially since, in the case of the Conrad Award, it’s not just the judges who decide but, first and foremost, the readers. I’m incredibly grateful to them. Besides, a prize is a kind of validation, as well as a bargaining chip for the future. I know that sounds unfair but that’s how the world works—the more prizes and nominations you have the more seriously you are taken. Unfortunately. But, of course, it’s nice to be appreciated. In addition, the Conrad Award includes a grant, which has allowed me to concentrate on my writing without financial worries.

JS: Your book is very firmly located in the world of your childhood. You grew up in a small village in rural Poland, yet ended up living abroad, and are currently based in Slovakia. Were you already living abroad while working on your book, and did the geographical distance give you a new perspective on the place, or did this make the writing more challenging?

READ MORE…

What’s New with the Crew? A Monthly Update

Touch base with our industrious team's literary achievements as we approach the halfway mark of 2018!

We have such an amazing group of creative people over here at Asymptote. Check out some of our recent news and stay tuned for more of the international literature you love!

Poetry Editor Aditi Machado’s book of poetry, Some Beheadings, has been awarded The Believer Poetry Award.

Communications Manager Alexander Dickow has published an article in French on the creative imagination in Apollinaire’s Méditations esthétiques in Littérature’s 190th edition.

Editor-at-Large for Romania & Moldova Chris Tanasescu aka MARGENTO delivered a computational poetry paper at a major Artificial Intelligence conference, presented a Digital Humanities paper at Congress2018, and has flown to Europe to launch a computationally assembled poetry anthology.

READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Our weekly roundup of the world's literary news brings us to Romania, Moldova, Slovakia, and Iran.

This week, we bring you news of literary festivities in Romania and Moldova, a resurgence of female writing in Slovakia, and the tragic loss of a promising young translator in Iran. As always, watch this space for the latest in literary news the world over!

MARGENTO, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Romania and Moldova:

A book of interviews with Romanian-German writer and past Asymptote contributor Herta Müller came out in French translation from Gallimard just a few days ago (on Feb 15). The book has already been praised for the lucidity showed by the Nobel-prize winner in combining the personal and the historical or the political.

READ MORE…