Juana Adcock Bruno Vieira Amaral Clare Azzopardi Rumena Bužarovska Erika Fatland Albert Forns Anja Golob from Europe Árpád Kollár Ciwanmerd Kulek Zoran Pilić discover emerging literary talent selected by European festivals and venues new voices from Europe 4

n our era of information overload, recommendations Juana Adcock 4 are more important than ever. This is why we have I decided to make an annual selection of emerging European literary talent part of our landmark project Who are the Literary Europe Live. Chosen from a long list of thirty Bruno Vieira Amaral 6 by a group of literary festivals and venues, the selection aims to highlight the richness and diversity of European writing in all genres and languages, including minority ones. Clare Azzopardi 8

The selected authors are being given an opportunity most interesting they might not otherwise have with international awards Rumena Bužarovska 10 that focus on a single genre or are judged by a single-language jury. And what makes the selection particularly interesting is the authors’ varied engagement in the world of literature: they are novelists, short story writers, poets, but also literary Erika Fatland 12 translators, critics, editors, curators and organisers of projects. Their work will be promoted and, we hope, noticed, but they will also be brought together in numerous events - festivals, Albert Forns 14 writers working workshops, residencies - to discuss, translate, write and find inspiration for new work.

In other words, with the New Voices from Europe selection Anja Golob 16 we are doing what Literature Across Frontiers has done for the past fifteen years: making literature travel, sometimes in Europe from the most unexpected places and in unexpected ways. Árpád Kollár 18 Ciwanmerd Kulek 20

Alexandra Büchler today? Director of Literature Across Frontiers Zoran Pilić 22 new voices from Europe 6

This body of a woman I inhabit

This body of a woman I inhabit, desde where I’ve lifted my arm to touch the hair on the head of Moses, suddenly moved Juana Adcock is a poet to inside out tears from an entire childhood of lips stiffened to sustain the world protect and translator writing the softness of our angles our wisdom of curtains, desde where I’ve half-lowered eyelashes to seduce three, four desde where I’ve traced the sinuous “S” of desire in English and Spanish. which Cratylus called “serpent” and Adam called “perception of flux,” desde where I’ve grown tired of nursing Born in Mexico in 1982, like Teresa or Diana like the fear they did not feel when touching lepers she has lived in Scotland with their immaculate hands, the lips with which they kissed since 2009. Her first their blessed sores desde where I’ve washed out workshop grease soaked fibres in a universal river of saliva desde where I’ve bled drops book Manca explores miscarried fertilised wheat ivy desde where I’ve been a plot all bounty where goats graze the anatomy of Mexico’s violence and was I throw my mobile phone named by Reforma’s into the toilet Adcock distinguished critic flush wait a while „ call myself Sergio González leave myself voicemail “Juana represents so much of what is great may it reach a disoriented crocodile about modern Scotland; new voices from Rodríguez as one some nuclear seaweed diverse backgrounds making language their

of the best poetry Benediction an unavoidable concrete wall: own, unafraid to experiment and innovate. may your head be blessed Her practice is firmly balanced between books of 2014. She is by an X flown by four birds translation and creative writing, and her may your feet be blessed poems and workshops often explore the currently apprenticed by the worms that will eat you relationship between the two.” may your hands be blessed – From the nomination to Liz Lochhead as part by the azaleas you didn’t plant by Scottish Poetry Library may your navel be blessed of the Clydebuilt poetry by the cells of your breath may your mouth bless

Juana apprenticeship scheme. it all, bless. „ new voices from Europe 8 Bruno Vieira Amaral Extract from The Former Things

felt numb when I left to boil, clotheslines screech- “You don’t remember me?” I my mum’s house. We’d ing through rusted pulleys, That’s when it hit me. had cottage cheese, cod with the flutter of birds startled It couldn’t be. Fernando. straw potatoes. I had seconds, in their cages, a nervous dog He was standing right there. and we drank wine – rough, pawing a wooden door, He looked the same as ever. cheap wine. I stood on the a yelp, the faded laughter He hadn’t changed a bit since landing, lights out, smoking of the miserable, the steady we were kids. We shared Born in Portugal in 1978, „ a cigarette and looking at the hum of a dozen refrigerators, a smile, it was only fair. windows of the buildings a mother’s scream, and off We walked together through Bruno Vieira Amaral “...some of the most beautiful pages across the street. I enjoy in the distance, in the back the maze of buildings. in recent Portuguese literature, smoking in the dark, of the building, the crash We found that we had very is a writer, translator, proving the rare intensity of this a clandestine pleasure. of bottles exploding into little to say to one another, triumphant debut.” That’s where my mind was crystal shards in the bottom after all. literary critic and editor. – José Mário Silva, there and then. I walked of a bin. But that had been “How long has it been? LER on As Primeiras Coisas down the stairs. I was sure years and years ago. The Ten years?”, I asked him His debut novel As Primeiras the stairwell used to feel bedlam had died down, like “Longer than that. “Bruno Vieira Amaral’s debut novel more alive, more people a storm cleared. The building It happened on December Coisas (The Former Things), [...] introduces a collective character, would go up and down had become a diseased body, 26th, 1999”, he replied. the Amélia neighbourhood, that may with weary sighs, and even fragile in its naked concrete Then he pointed at the published in 2013 by Quetzal well become an enduring feature in outside those stirrings, the skin, silent as a body not at phone booth in front of the Editores, picked up four Portuguese literary imagery.” muted animal breathing rest, but settling down to die. local council headquarters. – Isabel Lucas, from within people’s homes When I walked outside, “That’s where it happened. major literary prizes – Time Público on As Primeiras Coisas would have been heard; I heard a voice: Right there. Remember?” voices from television sets, “Hey!” My memory failed me. Out Lisboa’s 2013 Book “A surprising novel of rare and toys dragged across loose The voice grew sharper. Had it really happened there? poignant beauty, [...] one of those floorboards, doors creak- “Hey, Bruno!” “There. December 26th, of the Year award, the 2013 writers who know that good, true ing open and banging shut, I searched the darkness, 1999. That’s where they prose is also musical, it elevates and knives slicing into onions, the streetlamps were out. killed me.” Fernando Namora Literary redeems us.” the tiny thunk of blades I made out a profile. – J. Rentes de Carvalho, hitting stone kitchen Who could it be? Surely Prize, the 2013 PEN Narrative on As Primeiras Coisas counters, pots filled to the someone who knew me. brim settling on the stove, “How’s tricks?” Prize and the 2015 José matches scratching against He was standing right in Saramago Prize. the coarse edge of a box, front of me, but I didn’t „ water bubbling, brought recognize him. Translated by Luís Coimbra new voices from Europe 10 Born in Malta in 1977, Extract from “Sandra” in the collection Clare Azzopardi is The Names They Left Behind an award-winning he first key I ever left behind was the key to my the books fall to the floor. The diary was one of them. „ writer who writes for T diary. I left it on my desk at school, a green desk I picked up my Maths book and my exercise book. smeared with grease from sandwiches, where I usually I kicked the diary under the bed so that it was just “None of [Azzopardi’s] women children and adults. kept my pencil or biro and which also had the letters visible, hoping that she’d find it when she was alone. are your run-of-the-mill ‘pdm’ scratched onto its surface. I left it in full view, As soon as we were done, I packed up all my things characters. They are strong, Her work includes on purpose, so Paula Dawn Mangion would find it. and left. I’d left my diary with one corner protruding strange, obsessive, stubborn, I was in grade six at the time. This diary was where just a little. yes, but never ordinary.” poetry, plays, short I wrote my most intimate secrets: about my love affairs The next day, during the short break, when I was – Ramona Depares, Malta Today with Mauro, Ezekiel, Jamie, Keith, depending on who sure Paula Dawn wasn’t looking, I left the key in plain stories for adults, I’d quarreled or made up with. It had a padlock sight. And things turned out exactly as I thought they “Clare Azzopardi [is] I suspect, the attached, which could be opened or locked with would. While I was playing, Paula came to leave me most perceptive and stylistically picture books for this small red key. my diary on my desk. She saw the shiny little red key distinguished short story writer young readers and Paula was a pretty girl. I wasn’t half as pretty and curiosity got the better of her. She was with her in this country that I have ever as her, that was certain. To start with, her hair was best friend and my worst enemy, Sara, whose fingers read.” short novels for straight and mine was curly; she didn’t wear glasses too began to itch. So, key and diary in hand, they locked – Paul Xuereb, and I did; her face was unblemished whereas mine was themselves away in the toilets. After break I found The Malta Independent on Sunday older children covered in freckles – pigeon droppings, my nan called my locked diary on the desk as I’d expected. But the them. Jamie fancied her. Sometimes he and Paula would key wasn’t there. She and Jamie never made up again. “Azzopardi gives us pictures and young adults. quarrel in the morning so he’d play with me during As for me, sometimes they spoke to me and sometimes of a young society living often the short break but by the second break he’d have they didn’t, depending on their mood. Meanwhile, on the razor’s edge…” Her first short story quarreled with me and gone back to playing with I tried smiling a little more than usual at Jamie, gave – Paul Xuereb, Times of Malta Paula. him the odd bit of chocolate, a new eraser, but I guess Azzopardi collection Il-Linja l-Hadra I planned the whole thing carefully. I spent curls weren’t really his thing. I left the diary in “Such series as the De Moliizz the whole week writing love letters from Jamie, a drawer in my desk and never opened it again, books, and the ongoing Jake (The Green Line) was addressed to me. I carefully copied his handwriting because no one ever left the key where I could find it. Cassar series for young readers from an English homework handout that I’d stolen I don’t know what it is about keys exactly, but (published by Merlin), have published by Merlin in from him during break and whose disappearance whenever I spot one, my eyes go twitchy, my heart achieved cult status and remain earned him a punishment. Then I told Paula a story skips a beat, my legs go wobbly, my palms begin bestsellers year on year, thanks 2006, and she is currently about some trouble I was having with my Maths – apart to sweat, my head turns from side to side and as soon in large part to Azzopardi’s from being pretty, Paula was also good at sums. I was as I’m sure that nobody’s looking, I snatch it and put wacky, irreverent and fresh working on her first novel. sure she’d ask me over to her place, because the flat she it in my jeans pocket or in a handbag to use when the style of writing.” She lectures in Maltese lived in was just one floor below ours. That’s exactly time is right. – The Books what happened. As soon as I arrived she showed me Literature at the University into her bedroom. I threw my schoolbag onto the bed and took out all my books. The diary was among them. of Malta Junior College. Jamie’s letters were tucked inside. I purposely let half Translated by Albert Gatt Clare „ new voices from Europe 12 Extract from “Nectar” in the collection My Husband

lthough he’s a gynecologist, aims to show that we’re a so-called our apartment, his “studio.” to him as “the gynecologist who A my husband tries to make out functional family. These lavish Consequently, our two boys, who paints cunts,” and that they laugh Rumena he’s an artist. That’s just one of the banquets are normally held in our are always fighting, have to share at him behind his back. What’s things that annoys me about him. living room, on the low table sur- a room. more, he totally deserves it. Actually, I don’t remember exactly rounded by a two-seater sofa, His paintings are extremely I wouldn’t be the least bit upset when most of the things he says a three-seater sofa, and an armchair, amateur. The colours are somewhat if that were the case. Though, to his and does first started getting on which can accommodate four others blurred, leaden, and depressing. face they flatter him. “But you’re my nerves, but I can single out this besides us. I’m the one who does Whenever he makes a mistake, a true artist,” they say to him, one as one of the more irritating all the serving, and I’m mainly he smears the canvas with a new staring at the paintings as if be- Bužarovska things. For instance, when we have stationed in the kitchen. When I go coat of paint. In that way, his fore them stood a canvas painted guests over, he tells them that he into the living room to have a chat paintings resemble huge piles of by Leonardo. “dabbles in art,” but that he’s not with them, I have to sit on a stool. vomit – like a hearty meal that’s And then he pulls out his an “artist” per se, thereby falsely Lying through my teeth, I always been regurgitated. He believes that well-known phrase: “No, I merely representing himself as modest. say that it’s quite comfortable. his paintings are “abstract” and that dabble in art,” adding, once again Rumena Bužarovska is the author of three People come over to our place often. Meanwhile, he talks to the guests, they “render emotional states of with false modesty, “I’m just a plain short story collections – Čkrtki (Scribbles, For my part, I find it wholly unde- mainly about himself. Because it’s anxiety and exultation,” but in real- old doctor,” knowing full well the sirable, because it means having indecent to talk about cunts, which ity they depict what he knows best: kind of status his profession enjoys. Ili-ili, 2007), Osmica (Wisdom Tooth, Blesok, to cook and clean both before and are the sum total of his knowledge, cunts – from inside and out. after they arrive. he talks to them about his “art,” I assume that others can see this too, 2010) and Mojot maž (My Husband, Blesok, My husband insists on there being namely his oil paintings. He works at least those who are more intelli- an abundance of food, by which he on them in one of the rooms in gent. I’m almost certain they refer Translated by Paul Filev 2014; Ili-ili, 2015). She is a literary translator from English into Macedonian and her

“Bužarovska’s short stories perfectly blend the local, Macedonian and transitional, with the universal human translations include works by Lewis Carroll drama and social pressures. Her stories are artistically impeccable and offer astute insight into the human psyche, they also carry a dose of social criticism and awareness and, therefore, possess emancipatory potential.” (Through the Looking-Glass), J.M. Coetzee – From the nomination by the Croatian Writers’ Association (The Life and Times of Michael K), Truman “Rumena Bužarovska is a master of nuanced psychological portrayal whose female characters of different ages tell ordinary stories of post-transitional reality in Macedonia full of corruption, shiny boutiques, poverty Capote (In Cold Blood) and the Welsh author „ and violence. Her focus is on everyday drama that unfolds behind closed doors, stifling her characters and tearing „ Richard Gwyn (The Colour of a Dog Running Away). their worlds apart. Her heroines are not fighters. Drama that often reads as thriller is told in rational and cold language and the gap between the content of the narrative and the manner in which it is reported allows the She is Assistant Professor of American Literature character to be revealed in a particularly intimate way.” – From the nomination by Booksa, Zagreb at the State University of Skopje in the Republic of Macedonia, where she was born in 1981. new voices from Europe 13 new voices from Europe 14

“Since her debut in 2011 Erika Fatland has used her huge knowledge in ambitious and challenging projects. Through her books she has brought little-known parts of the world into Norwegian literature and taken Norwegian experiences and non-fiction into the world. She has placed herself in an exclusive international tradition and she writes for an „ international audience. The Non-fiction Prize is to honour an author in the initial phases of a remarkable authorship. Erika Fatland is a most worthy winner.” „ – The Norwegian Non-fiction Prize jury Erika Fatland (1983) is a Norwegian author and social anthropologist. Fatland made her debut as an Extract from The Village of Angels author in 2009 with the children’s book, Foreldrekrigen (Parenting War, Capellen Damm). Her first non-fiction title Englebyen (The Village of Angels), on the terror attack in t the Beslan exit of the motorway, a little welcome It was over 40 degrees; the air was dry and oppressive. A committee was waiting. Three men and a lady I could see the snow-topped peaks of the Caucasus Beslan, was published 2011 also by Cappelen Damm. stood, as if to attention, beside a battered yellow which, as Knut Hamsun wrote in his travel journal Toyota and a white Lada Zhiguli. Two of the men were In Wonderland, almost became one with the white In 2012 she wrote Året uten sommer (The Year Without identically dressed, in dark suits, both with inserted clouds in the sky. Down here, the landscape was green shoulder pads, as though to strengthen their square and flat. The two black-clad men squeezed them- Summer, Kagge) about the terror attack in Norway frames. They looked like two black fridges. They were selves together in the front seats of the little Zhiguli, both past their best age, even though I had been whilst I sat in the back with the woman who was to be in 2011. In her latest book Sovjetistan, published promised “well-trained men in good health of a maxi- my guide over the next few days. The big men seemed mum of 45 years old” in the contract. The lady was slim, remarkably out of place in the small seats. Vova and by Kagge, Fatland takes the reader on a journey with short hair. She was wearing sunglasses and black Rusik were their names. They had pistols in their belts leather trousers. Under her short jacket, she sported and didn’t speak. Their job was to look after me, day unfamiliar to even the most seasoned globetrotter: a tight t-shirt, also black. and night, for the next three months. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and “Well,” mumbled Eric from the International Red Mairbek, the manager of the security company, Cross committee when he caught sight of the congregated followed us in the yellow Toyota. And so I was escorted Uzbekistan. Fatland has lived and travelled abroad group. One of the French men wolf-whistled from to Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, that the backseat: “Quelle femme.” What a woman. sun-drenched day in late summer 2007. I couldn’t stay extensively and speaks English, French, Russian, German, I gathered my things together and said goodbye in Beslan itself because of the security situation. Beslan to the NGO workers that I had met the evening before. is about half an hour’s drive from Vladikavkaz. It was Italian and Spanish. Fatland was named one of the best Eric and the French man wished me good luck. Then the first day of my social anthropology fieldwork and the white minibus rolled out onto the road again, closely the situation felt simply absurd. Norwegian authors under 35 by the Norwegian newspaper tailed by another bus of the same type, in which sat armed guards in khaki uniforms. All well trained Morgenbladet in June 2015. Sovjetistan was winner of and in their prime. Just a couple of hours and they would be arriving in Grozny. My journey ended here. Translated by Karoline Warr The Norwegian Booksellers’ Non-fiction Prize in 2015. Erika Fatland new voices from Europe 16

n the preface, in just two lines, trencadís1. We are in the middle of Albert Forns I he sums up an entire life devoted the art boom of the eighties, that crazy to literature: “...one day I started decade when painting prices rise writing, not knowing that I had chained exponentially and financial myself for life to a noble and merciless speculators, desperate to acquire master. When God hands you a gift, them, take the skyscrapers’ ultrafast Albert Forns is a Catalan journalist and writer. „ he also hands you a whip; and the whip elevators to catch them, to get even is intended solely for self-flagellation.” higher, always willing to pay even Now only the whip is left, in Capote’s a little more. For the first time in His novels are Jambalaia (Anagrama, 2016), winner On Albert Serra (la novella, no el life. He has no one, alcohol has history the art market has been turned cineasta): destroyed his liver and cancer will on its head, and now it is no longer of the Anagrama Prize and Albert Serra (la novella, take him soon. His assistant, a Haitian the artists chasing after buyers, please, no el cineasta) (Albert Serra, the novel, not the “This is a very unusual book within indulgent mother who cooked for him buy something, I’m starving, now it’s Catalan prose, very stimulating and Albert Serra and cleaned his house every day, was the opposite: the filthy-rich collectors filmmaker, Empúries, 2013), winner of the Documenta frankly entertaining.” probably the last person to see him are lining up at studio doors and the – Pere Gimferrer, on the programme alive. No, Truman Capote is not our painters can’t work fast enough. It is Prize. He has also published a poetry collection El matí on Catalunya Ràdio protagonist, that would be too so insane that the rich buy up paintings depressing. That last part was merely just in case. “Nobody wants to be part Ultracolors (LaBreu Edicions, 2013). Early in his career “One of the most original and a narrative device to fit one fragment of the generation that ignores a new thought-provoking voices of new with the next. No, today we will focus Van Gogh,” say the dealers. And the Forns was the driving force behind several critically Catalan prose.” on Jean-Michel Basquiat. We are a few primitivism and scribbles of Jean- – El Mundo blocks away from 860870 U.N. Plaza, Michel Basquiat, the black man acclaimed cultural online initiatives such as the online the splendid glass skyscraper where who paints like white men “One of the best books I’ve read in Extract from Capote had his apartment; we are who painted like black men, magazine of literary criticism Llibrofags and the now Catalan in recent years.” downtown, on the same streets where are the current talk of the town. – Artur Ramon, El Punt Avui Cécile and Barceló walked. It is 1983 defunct Projecte Embut, a mixture of artistic and filmmaker) the not novel, (the and for weeks now this young black Translated by Mara Faye Lethem “A book to read in feverish man, Jean-Michel Basquiat, has been literary creations and essays. Forns regularly writes and playful fits.” the most sought-after rising star in the – Biel Mesquida, Diari de Mallorca city. He went from being homeless In fact the idea of making paintings using about theatre, literature and visual arts for his blog to being the next big thing in a matter pieces of broken plates came to Julian Schnabel as well as for Time Out magazine and the digital of months. The price of a Basquiat in a hotel room in Barcelona, after visiting the painting quickly tacks on the zeros, Park Güell in 1978. “My interest, unlike Gaudí’s,” magazine Núvol.com. As a journalist he has chronicled and is already almost as high as those he explains in his autobiography C.V.J, “was not in „ of young stars like Julian Schnabel, who the patterning or the design of the glazed tiles, festivals of film, theatre and visual art such as the lately has been lining his pockets with it was in the reflective property of white plates his “ceramic paintings,” made of broken to disturb the picture plane.” Venice Biennale and Documenta in Kassel. plates shamelessly inspired by Gaudí’s new voices from Europe 18 “Anja Golob’s texts open up a philosophical resonance chamber. She does not shy away from the big questions – what is happiness? Love? Released from pathos, she lets her ideas run freely into the realms of the absurd and the comical, which are of course so very close to the tragic, to melancholy. The heart becomes a lump of meat on the windowsill while the human, the fallible being, becomes one who hopes and dares and sweats. High and low are close – in her language world the pendant of love and happiness is an electric drill.Golob’s language rings and pulsates and swirls until you’re giddy, elegantly binding assonances and internal rhymes, elegiac and songlike. Perhaps the Slovenian language possesses special „ poetic qualities – when you hear Anja Golob you are quite convinced that this is so. Anja Golob is an „ Anja Golob (1976, Slovenia) has so far published important young poetic voice which deserves to be heard far beyond the borders of Slovenia. ‘Anyone who writes is sending something out/and yelling for all to hear what she is thinking/that she is thinking.’” four volumes of poetry, three in Slovene and one in – From the nomination by Berlin Poesiefestival German translation (ab und zu neigungen, hochroth, Vienna, 2015), selections of poems and other texts in Veins, Wires numerous magazines, and over seven hundred theatre reviews. Her second book Vesa v zgibi (Bent Hang, From Bent Hang Mladinska knjiga, Ljubljana, 2013) was nominated

I’ve had this dream: an animal has fingers. for both Slovene poetry prizes, and was awarded It rests on its side, I observe it from the back, The Jenko Prize 2014. She works as a poet, writer and Its head is bent forward as though it were Timid, and it rocks back and forth in light rhythm. translator. Since October 2013 she has also been the With blank, mechanical motions It rummages through the rupture, its fingers editor-in-chief of an independent Slovene publishing Carefully sorting the tissue and looking for veins. They pluck them one by one to make them easier to hold – house VigeVageKnjige, which she co-founded. the veins are thin, but sturdy, like the wires inside of an electrical network – and tear them strenuously, one after the other. It specializes in publishing Slovene translations of The animal works soundlessly, it’s almost immobile, slowly graphic novels both for children and adults. After And thoroughly it cuts the intake of pulsation to the heart That’s closing whimperingly, like the veil of an animal’s pupil parts. studying philosophy and comparative literature The space around it is emptied, drenched in a pool Of the slithering blood it cannot and wants no longer to control. at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana, she worked as The coat of its skin is stretched on the skeleton like a tent Flaccid in the springtide breeze, at its front like scattered luggage the stranded organs lie. a theatre critic for fourteen years. Occasionally she The animal gasps for air (the body is a machine), it listens, Contracts, shrivels, extends its inflamed fingers, still works as a dramaturge for contemporary art and And it freezes triumphantly. dance performances. She lives between Ljubljana Translated by Tadeja Spruk Anja Golob and Brussels. More under: www.anjagolob.org new voices from Europe 20

you cannot be a tourist in sarajevo who, spittle drooling, takes inventory of the appurtenances of horror you cannot shove your palm „ into the crevices left by grenades as if in the millennial stones of the wailing wall “Árpád Kollár writes in you would conceal your message a fine, delicate, personal, Árpád Kollár lyrical style. in sarajevo you cannot be a sarajevian His contemplative, often prose-like poems, which in sarajevo you cannot know provide a fresh perspec-

Not in Sarajevo in Not what you could be and what you could have been tive on the peculiar world Poet Árpád Kollár was born in Serbia in 1980. of children are just as in sarajevo every morning you arrive and enjoyable for adults. In fact, He has published three volumes of poetry – Például adherence falls due once darkness descends they can be considered as --- belonging to both genres: a madzag (For Example the String, FISZ, 2005) which in sarajevo the trees are the most naïve children’s and adults’ into the bare firewalls they plunge poetry. We believe him won several debut writing awards; Nem Szarajevóban their tentative roots to be a unique voice who and they absorb the bricks more greedily not only writes great poetry (Not in Sarajevo, FISZ, 2010) and a children’s poetry than young girls the force of life but has shown that even

Extract from children’s poetry can be the book Milyen madár (Which Bird, Csimota, 2014) which in sarajevo the trees do not bother most fine, witty, clever and with politics lyrical genre.” was selected as Hungary’s 2015 Children’s Book of the the hundred-year oaks sit with – From the nomination tranquility in their tenant sports by Petőfi Literary Museum, Year. He currently lives in Szeged, Hungary, where he they are not troubled Budapest works as a literary historian at the University of Szeged. the city just now being built up or destroyed to slowly exchange my shelter for leafy bowers He is also the president of the Hungarian Young in sarajevo wise little trees only breathe suck in the bricks „ Writers’ Association (FISZ). diligently they grow for they are aware around here you can never know

Translated by Ottilie Mulzet new voices from Europe 22 „ Extract from The Butterfly Notebooks “His novels, in which the author came from Istanbul to and reminiscences. He was her out but he had changed her Ciwanmerd Kulek plays with the subtleties of language, I Cizre on Friday, March 21. none other than Ferzende. name and her fate as though it and creates powerful characters and I had read Mr Somebody’s Who else would always draw also had no pity on her and Ciwanmerd Kulek is a novelist, poet and translator. He was ambiance, hold an important place notebooks twice. As the saying butterflies on the margins took her through many in the Kurdish literary scene of Turkey. goes, people don’t always wear of every available piece of hardships during those years born in 1984 in the Kurdish eastern region of Turkey, and The imaginary worlds he builds for their heart on their sleeve, much paper? Neither the newspaper I had been deceiving myself his characters to inhabit turn into less so when they write. But we would read at breakfast, nor when thinking of her. Yet, lived in Bismil, a small town on the river Tigris in the province a feast of reality in readers’ minds. His here, at every reading, I kept the banned political magazines Gülten was still herself in avant-garde, agitating voice is sadly discovering so many familiar friends brought to our home my mind. The fact was that of Diyarbakir, until he moved to Istanbul several years ago. still unknown even among Turkish things, personally speaking, back in those days, were safe whatever had changed her literature lovers.” that even if all those pieces from these butterflies drawn circumstances had not been He graduated in English and history of philosophy from the – From the nomination put together had not revealed with a pen. Both volumes of able to change her. Even by Diyarbakir Arts Centre his identity, I would have still The Anthology of Turkish Poetry, a tiny detail reawakened that Middle East Technical University in Ankara in 2006, and works guessed who he was. Having which he had borrowed from semblance which I recalled as a high school teacher of languages. He is the author of four “Nameyek Ji Xwedê Re (A Letter to God) disguised himself with a new me and kept for some months, from the bottom of my heart. was more provocative than what identity, he had run into some- had taken a bizarre shape by While reading the never-ending novels in Kurdish: Nameyek ji Xwedê re (A Letter To God, 2007) we were used to. For one thing, against one from the old days, as much the time he gave them back pages in which Mr Somebody the current transcendental Kurdish as he had not wanted to to me. Some poems had been was talking about her, I felt as Otobês (The Bus, 2010) Zarokên Ber Çêm (Children By The River, characters that would save the Kurds be recognized. So, this was invaded by butterflies to the if I myself had written those from all their troubles, the author all a misunderstanding. extent that you could no longer lines. We had felt similar 2012) and Defterên Perrîdankan (The Butterfly Notebooks, 2014). offered us something new: a dispas- Tens of pages of our student read them. Therefore, it didn’t things. In some places where sionate male narrator, sceptical and adventures, captured and seem strange that when I read he could not mention her name His novella Çar Yek (One Fourth) was published in 2015, and his peculiarly resentful, political enough recounted in meticulous detail his notebooks teeming with directly, he had left a blue not to talk about politics, preoccupied he had piled up throughout the butterflies, on a page he filled butterfly bearing three black poetry collection Strana Şev û Rojekê (Song of One Night and enough with the world he created not narrative in which he deliriously with them for the sake of his spots on its little wings, and to go chasing after mythical love and chaotically confessed to his love for Luz, I saw that, when I instantly recognized her and One Day) in 2016. Ciwanmerd Kulek has translated a number stories; and in doing so he performed literary ambitions, brought him the time would come and they rejoiced. I was floating on air, a sort of language engineering trick back to me and shed light on the had a daughter, he would wish not only because I could see that of literary works from English, Spanish and Turkish into Kurdish, by approximating a Faulknerian style years we had spent apart. As to name her Mariposa. Butterfly. that semblance was still there, which is not easily digestible for read- I made the connection between But what surprised me but also because my feelings by writers such as J. M. Coetzee (Disgrace), William Faulkner ers of a “politicized society”. the past and present, he appeared more than anything was that were still alive. I was unable – Şener Özmen (writer, translator, in front of my eyes as if he had I recognized Gülten on those to contain myself discovering (As I Lay Dying), James Joyce (Dubliners), Mario Vargas Llosa artist and art critic) in an article never left, as if we had suddenly pages, when I no longer believed these secret allusions, and it was (Death in the Andes), Gabriel García Márquez (Crónica de una published in the Books section of met by chance in the street after I would ever see her again, obvious that Ferzende had also Radikal magazine’s website. all those years with no news though sometimes a far and found it difficult to write them. muerte anunciada), Juan Rulfo (El Llano en llamas) and Orhan of one another, and were deep sudden voice or emotion would in conversation in some remind me of her and stir up Pamuk (White Castle). „ teahouse, exchanging news memories. Ferzende had not left Translated by Kawa Nemir new voices from Europe 24

ature is my natural enemy. Ever since others would not hurt. No more than In truth, it wasn’t a whole swarm and they N I’ve known of myself, that’s the way a few meetings later they took us camping. were not killers, there were perhaps only ten it’s been and that’s the way it’s going to be. And even though I was very young, I felt that or fifteen of the most belligerent and angriest I don’t know how to say it differently or more something might go wrong. We set up our bees, of which three managed to sting me: in eloquently without getting away from the tents, raised our Boy Scout flag on the pole, my neck, forearm and forehead. Zoran Pilić truth so I won’t even try. Nature or wilderness, made our campfire in the evening, and the This last sting, right in the middle of my which is a more precise term by far for the next day – a competition. This last, key forehead, made my whole head swell. That inaccessible and truly wild spaces, makes discipline brought the most points and it very day they took me back to my parents a man ridiculous and helpless. Not every consisted in passing several control spots with my face completely deformed. For three Born in Zagreb in 1966, Zoran Pilić is a novelist man, of course, but people like myself have on a terrain that for the most part, naturally, days no one could even look at me without no business going there without the company extended over some thick woods. At one horror – I looked like a tiny, skinny freak with and short-story writer. His first collection of of experienced guides armed to the teeth. moment, I have to admit, I too was overcome a head three sizes too big. And so my Boy Scout short stories Doggiestyle (Fraktura, 2007) was The chances of a pallid-complexioned, with a touch of enthusiasm and competitive career ended – too quickly and ingloriously. thin-skinned creature prone to every disease spirit. That Boy Scout zeal could be felt at For thirty years I kept to civilization as turned into a play for theatre: Sex, laži i jedan known to man, as I have always been, every step and I was not left immune to that my natural habitat. The beauties of wild surviving on his own in the wilderness for admittedly completely irrational excitement. spaces can be seen on television or in the anđeo (Sex, Lies and One Angel) which was longer than half a day are minimal from I didn’t know exactly what we were doing, photographs of friends who visit such places the very start. In ninety-five per cent of cases but I followed others who fanatically hopped in an attempt to cure themselves of the performed at the Zagreb Academy of Dramatic something would kill me: a black widow, around completing all of the tasks that bustle, stress and other predicaments of the an alligator, a lesser spotted eagle, a bear, needed to be completed. One of the tasks was city. For thirty solid years I never took one Arts in 2009. His debut novel Đavli od papira insects of this kind or that, leeches, snakes, to use a rope, which was supposed to act as step out of the city transportation zone, and thunder and lightning or, if nothing else, a jungle vine, and jump from one side to the then, just like that, I accepted the invitation (Paper Devils) was shortlisted for the prestigious I would trip over, cut my forehead open other of a smallish river, a creek or a swampy of Tanja Mravak and the CAWH (Croatian on a sharp rock and die on the spot. puddle. I let go of the rope too early, fell Association of Writers-Hikers) to join her Croatian literary award Jutarnji list and listed In the lower grades of elementary school, down and rolled down the bankside into and a couple of foreign authors and visit our There areThere no Elephants Mexico in and this is the last thing I’ll add, they the water. It wasn’t a steep fall, nor was the colleague Blaž Petrović who, for the past few as one of the best novels in 2012 by the Croatian enrolled me in the Boy Scouts. As I was of water deep, and I wasn’t the only one who got years, had been living in a log-cabin on Mt. puny physique and eternally pale in the face, stuck there, but I was the only one who, while Velebit. … Ministry of Culture. The Ministry listed Pilić’s my parents probably thought that spending splish-splashing up the hill, was attacked some time in nature and in the company of by a swarm of forest killer bees. Translated by Tomislav Kuzmanović collection of short stories Nema slonova u Extract “Wolfgoat” collection the from in Meksiku (There Are No Elephants in Mexico) as one of the country’s best books again in 2014. His “Zoran Pilić’s prose brims with dynamic and natural dialogues of contemporary life, underlined with black humour and dark undertones. The mix of realism with grotesque tragicomedy and weird flirtation with the paranormal and surreal is what makes short story Kad su Divovi hodali zemljom (When his writing so close to what we experience as real life. Pilic’s poetry surprises and makes one wonder. It can be safely said that Zoran Pilić is one of the funniest Croatian contemporary writers, a painter of everyday vistas viewed from the skewed position Giants Walked the Earth) won the European Short of a benevolent outsider. His stories will make you laugh, and even as you laugh they will stealthily transpose you to the other, „ „ darker side we don’t want to see.” Story Festival prize in 2015. He also writes book – From the nomination by Booksa reviews and publishes fictional editorial on Booksa.hr. new voices from Europe 25

The inaugural New Vices from Europe selection was made by partners in the Literary Europe Live project:

Anadolu Kültür / Diyarbakir Art Centre, TR Bangor University / North Wales International Poetry Festival, GB Barcelona Centre for Contemporary Culture, ES Biuro Literackie / Literary Bureau, PL Booktailors – Boowoffice, PT Croatian Writers’ Society / Festival of the European Short Story, HR Inizjamed / Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, MT Kulturtreger / Booksa, HR Latvian Literature Centre, LV Literaturwerkstatt / Berlin Poetry Festival, DE Hay Festival of Literature & Arts, GB Oslo International Poetry Festival, NO Passa Porta / International House of Literature in Brussels, BE Petöfi Literary Museum, HU Slovenian Writers’ Association / Vilenica International Literary Festival, SI Scottish Poetry Library, GB

Copyright © individual authors and translators

The publication was produced by Biuro Literackie and Literature Across Frontiers www.biuroliterackie.pl www.lit-across-frontiers.org www.lit-across-frontiers.org