FREE Swiss dto ie eebr2018 December Five, Edition

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Swiss the , we EDITOR Switzer- on Swiss Reviews – The Riveter FabioPusterla. INTRODUCTION WEST CAMEL, BY – and the quintessential British- And, as always in We have poetry too, from Yetmorewritersprovideinteresting We’re honoured to have extracts Zurich. offer you someviews from Riveting talented critics Aude Seigne and Jens Nielsen. great Nora Gomringer, Leta Semadeni, Pierre Voélin and views on aspectsMelinda Nadj of Abonji writes Swiss about theimmigrant culture: experienceland; Xiaolu Guo shares in heron thoughts the Swiss book everyoneHeidi knows – Swiss writer Alain de Botton discusses from work publishedeminent in English Swissbackgrounds: by writers MoniqueMichelle from Steinbeck, Schwitter, NicolasPedro all Verdan, LenzMore and treats are in store Arno in theextracts form Camenisch. of from writing yetEnglish publisher, to among find themby an work Michael Fehr, Elisa Shua Dusapin, , giving space to literature It is this richness that we want to The Riveter wiss literature is rich — in variety, in Rico Franc Valär, offersof an overview writing inthat language. the various forms of view on thewriting, and state Professor of in Swiss-Italian Romansh, and thatGermany. written In terms inlanguages, poet Vanni of Biaconi offers France a the and smaller Professor Alan Robinsonthe examining relationshipsFrench and between Swiss-German literature Swiss- German, while crimeVerdan writer discusses the Nicolas current state ofSwiss-French writing. We also have Swiss writing.Bulloch ponders literature Translator writtenthe in country’s biggest Jamie language, Swiss written in all oflanguages. Switzerland’s In official pursuit ofhave this enlisted aim, the views we of experts in represent and celebrate in this edition of S quality and, of course, in theof the diversity languages it is written in. 2 n and translators authors, the – contributors piece. special very this you give allowing to us for publisher his and author, translator the to thanks Our Peter by Stamm. – 2019 autumn in until published English not – novel new the from world exclusive: a extract by headed an up in find can now. you bookstores that English in books hnside oalor our all to indeed Thanks is literature Swiss of feast This ulses h eiwr n and reviewers the publishers, h dtro h iee aaie i eu debut His magazine. Riveter novel, The of is He Editor reviewer. and the editor writer, a is Camel West and possible. magazine this Swiss made has support the whose Councils, both Arts English to Amélie and designer, Keller, cover the writers, Attend spbihdi eebr21. 2018. December in published is 3 Swiss EDITORIAL PROJECT LEADER ETER LITERALLY SWISS V land formountain many climber years, and wroteof was several his a greatking works keen in here. Swiss Content writing. is Its writers are and multilingual. Theseprecious attributes, are but indeedSwiss equally can the beprivate, dependent seen on the asincomers. vitality It’s insular clear of that anddestiny geography when is you live in ahybrid landlocked, nation, an island inof the centre Europe, breathtakingly and beautiful one countries inEurope. Surely of natural beauty inspires thegreat writing? Friedrich most Nietzsche, the German philosopher, lived in Switzer- clocks, fondue and chocolate? Is Swiss literature simply embodied bywho write those it, such as Jacques Chessex, Giorgio Orelli, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Robert Walser, Johanna Spyri or MaxFrisch? Max Frisch himself said thatSwiss a writer wasworld’, a cosmopolitan, ‘citizen of multicultural the RIVETER-IN-CHIEF, DIRECTOR EUROPEAN and then on project, I’ve Swiss Riveter

LITERATURE NETWORK &

ROSIE GOLDSMITH, BY Literally Swiss

12 Swiss Books THE RI So, how would you describe Swiss Since I started working with the Swiss identity, mentality,and geography language. Is it writing aboutmountains lakes, and skiing? About cuckoo literature? When youimmediately drawn ask, into you aabout discussion Switzerland are itself and issues of well as excerpts in all genres andall from languages. magazine will surelythoughtful help: essays there on are thisand an very impressive topic range of writing as writers and book trade professionals.Ask tendifferent people answers. and Our you get ten been asked this question many times – and I still don’t knowquestion the answer. The is tough even for Swiss 2012, first on their annual bookmagazine trade our new HowwouldyoudescribeSwissliterature? Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia in 4 ’era ti emnadi’ nte another it’s and German in it read I’ve prizewinning World his from novel, are excerpt we lish Eng- exclusive as an publish to yourselves, honoured for Decide writer? Swiss-German best the or simply writer Swiss best does the So, him make German. that in writers Swiss to awarded only however, is, which Prize, Book This Swiss the Germany. won Peter November, in publisher who leading a outside Stamm, by up snapped was favourite German, Peter in writes published my writers, of Swiss are One Switzerland. they if only succeeded have they feel may and neighbours, Italian or their French with German, common in more have they be they often home. back will but drawn and Botton) country their de know Alain (cf. Switzer- in land live always not Swiss may writer A referendums. and neutrality ment; about corruption; their and banking know about They villages, alps. and their lakes mountains, know They informed. ahrgo a t w ieaue literature linguistic own own its festivals, its and prizes has region Switzerland. of Each cities, cultures different and regions the enjoying linguist- of ically, about hopping majority enjoy the I like Swiss, and, Italian, and French German, languages, Swiss the the about life. of psychodrama mystery love and novel, story crime a Stamm-stunner: ws rtr fe ananta that maintain often writers Swiss ’ uk nuht pa he f of three speak to enough lucky I’m rhtcue einadenviron- and design architecture, rnltdb ihe ofa. Hoffman. Michael by translated , hi nqepltclsse, system, political unique their h eteIdfeec fte the of Indifference Gentle The vnsto lc naspa! a in place took events where Leukerbad of resort the in mountain festival book June Swiss a In attended literature. I of sound the writers. with alive are dialect – mountains and cities Villages, culture among spoken-word especially and Swiss ance perform- lively days, a There’s varied exciting. original, these and most the reading is literature literatures am European the I all of out: sadder, Switzerland. outside UK. known well another, not is the it literature: is Swiss in of aspect them that meet Because to you wait can’t for I away. Fehr me blown Michael also have and Gomringer Nora storytellers and poets Swiss perform- by Live ances their magazine. read this can in You work dialect. Swiss joys of the in education an been has this year Lenz Pedro Meeting and Camenisch genres. Arno literary and quirks ieal Swiss Literally and translators English. into translated enough being enough not definitely not There Yugoslavia. are from Melinda Abonji Greek; Nadj originally is Verdan Nicolas immigration. of in languages also the but languages in official only boosted four writing the not Today are been writers magazine, immigration. Swiss has our by enormously in diversity read its you’ll inventive. more As it makes different with languages ease at Being classics. celebrated and innovation youthful of ws ieauei nectn i mix exciting an is literature Swiss neck my stick to going I’m Now er eet ep htswa what That’s help. to here We’re does. 5 The colleagues, would describe you is a labour of great love Literally Swiss organisations, media, festival Rosie Goldsmith (aka Rosie the Riveter) isof Director the European Literature Networkin-Chief. She and was a Riveter- BBC journalist for twenty years. for Switzerland. When you’ve readdo it, tell meSwiss how literature! Monique Schwitter, NicolasPedro Verdan, Lenz and Peterwith Stamm. Along my Amber Anna Massie-Blomfield, Blasiak, Nikki Mander and West Camel,here we’re toagents, translators, help cultural institutes, arts writers, publishers, directors andinterested event programmers projects in for 2018 developingSwiss and Riveter beyond. Swiss Swiss authors: Alain de Botton, was born is to smash the ste- events. Heidi and Literally Swiss Literally Swiss WhenIwasachild,IadoredHeidi, visibility. at TheLondon Tabernacle with arts a centre host of in outstanding asked by Pro Helvetia in Zurich to help them promote Swisstranslation in literature the UK and and increase its with reotypes and introduceBest you of Swissness. to A the year ago, I was country could beyou’re appalled proud by of, myclichés so liberal but far, use fear if not, of as my mission therewouldalwaysbechocolateatmy Literally Swiss chocolate are, of course, things any loud bells, is also unforgettable, as was my first taste of Swiss chocolate.year This I made a very rash promise, that for the firstspent time, on although afamily car, Swiss a night surrounded mountain by cows in with our the fictional girl who lived in theAlps. Swiss I became aware of Switzerland 6 nPas fWeakness of Praise In Mouron Cocaine Quentin of by Cloud a and Blood of Drops Three Leaf Unfolding Each To Father a of Autopsy Reviews Swiss-French From Verdan Nicolas by Writing Swiss-French to Introduction An Margins the from Writing Gomringer Nora by From From From From Molinari Gianna by From From Extracts Swiss-German Days Hundred One Good is Life Damnation Dead The Water in Whale Steinbeck a Michelle and by Land on Man a was Father My Reviews Swiss-German Steinbeck Michelle by Water in From Schwitter Monique by From Bulloch Jamie Perspective by Personal a - Literature Swiss-German yNclsVerdan Nicolas by Robinson Alan by Guo Xiaolu Heidi by of Yang and Yin The Stamm Peter by From Goldsmith Rosie by Editorial b Introduction CONTENTS y Wes rlg fSrae n Invisibilities and Surfaces of Trilogy Stories Two Plural Meine und Ich Widerworte möglich alles noch ist Hier Schildkrötensoldat h re Wall Greek The h eteIdfeec fteWorld the of Indifference Gentle The yFte a a nLn n hl Whale a and Land on Man a was Father My Another One t Camel yCrsinKracht Christian by yPtrBeck Peter by yAe Capus Alex by ...... 9 ...... 7 ...... 13 yMcalFehr Michael by yMrel Mehr Mariella by ...... 50 ...... 54 ...... 52 yLksBärfuss Lukas by yPsaeKramer Pascale by ...... 33 ...... 47 ...... 3 ...... 62 yAeadeJollien Alexandre by yPer Voélin Pierre by ...... 17 ...... 20 ...... 15 yMlnaNd Abonji Nadj Melinda by yJn Nielsen Jens by ...... 24 ...... 26 ...... 22 ...... 40 ...... 35 ...... 28 ...... 56 ...... 58 ...... 64 ...... 37 ...30 1 oas ilcsReviews Dialects & Romansh Literature Romansh of Overview Brief A Poets Italian Four From Terzaghi Matteo by From From From Virgin Sworn Tigers & Caves of Full Days Name the Whatever Integrations at Attempt - Abroad Home At Lovey Catherine by From Seigne Aude by From From Poems Three Extracts Swiss-French elcin nZurich on Reflections Semadeni Leta by Poems Talker a of Much Naw From From Extracts Dialects & Romansh Station the Behind Cow yRc rn Valär Franc Rico by Congedo Jaeggy Fleur by XX of Brother the am I Reviews Swiss-Italian Bianconi Vanni by itn fTasae ws Literature Watts Swiss Stephen Translated by of Listing A Huwiler Elke by Books Swiss 12 Botton de Alain by yMlnaNd Abonji Nadj Melinda by ws-tla Extracts Swiss-Italian it er fSisIainLiterature Swiss-Italian of Years Fifty yBa Sterchi Beat by uutSaints August Luminose Proiezioni Uffizio Uno per Uno Liquida Rivaz Madame and Monsieur Monde le Comme Large Toile Une Sokcho in Winter e ezeSchnee Letzte Der yFboPusterla Fabio by yEvr Dones Elvira by yPer Voélin Pierre by yAn Felder Anna by ...... 69 ...... 79 ...... 111 yAn Camenisch Arno by ...... 93 ...... 76 yTmaoSoldini Tommaso by ...... 113 yAn Ruchat Anna by yPer Lepori Pierre by ...... 90 ...... 71 ...... 109 ...... 99 ...... 97 and yEiaSu Dusapin Shua Elisa by yAn Camenisch Arno by ...... 74 ...... 107 he osbeLvs Essays Lives: Possible Three yFboPusterla Fabio by yPdoLenz Pedro by ...... 84 ...... 85 ...... 87 ...... 60 ...... 91 ...... 81 ...... 101 ...... 89 ...... 105 ...... 103 ...... 83 ...... 66 7

Peter Stamm © Gaby Gerster (OTHER PRESS, 2019) MICHAEL HOFFMAN TRANSLATED BY

Swiss PETER STAMM BY

THE GENTLE INDIFFERENCE OF THE WORLD ETING LITERATURE FROM V RI he professor’s seminar seemed give me away. He didn’t ask a question, justnotebook made occasional that notes he in a tucked small away in his pocket each time. After the bell rang, questions afterwards. The young man from my villagepaying seemed to close have attention, been each time Iand looked I up quickly at looked away, him as our though eyes he might would otherwise meet, recognise me and floor. got I grip a writing on to the myself search and for started a pathdifference on in my an between unfamiliar talk, landscape, in the and posited which private the and compared I the autobiographical. There were that I no longer heard what the professoran was expectant saying. Only silence when did there I was realise he must have finished and given me the version of myself. He was sitting by the aisle most ofsipped out the of way from time back to and time. The was sight holding of him a so plastic utterly disoriented cup me that he a brief introduction,around and I suddenly looked sawthe him, night-porter, the younger sitting on the benches; just like in my day, more women than men.While the professor gave When I stepped in,already there at were least forty students T to enjoy considerable popularity, it was held in a large lecture hall. 8 tm.Tasae noEgihb ihe omn,frpbiaina as publication for World Hofmann, the Michael by English into Translated Stamm. as German in published Originally Hoffman Michael by Translated Stamm Peter He left. can’t far I go, row, and seventh come they all. or them said, know sixth he possibly freshman, hand, a his Probably him. in place cup couldn’t coffee plastic young a the the in asked mine, satisfied, advice I away gone. wanted went long another everyone was time and man the magazine, By student a publisher. asked the woman for finding young piece one sign, a to for books with me me him, follow ringed to mind students a few half had a I but to. go to class hurried another with had theatre, he lecture surprised though the as wasn’t leave steps, to I first the week. of following one those was the double reminded due my and that was conclusion who of author way the by of words present few a said professor the eas etsunigars ohim. to and articles across the I went squinting of kept any I on it. concentrate because couldn’t through I but leafing well, a was as one and down to myself taken door helped the had by he rack because a hear, from to newspaper seem didn’t I and the He bewilderment, order. have in his I’ll me at beer. repeated looked small She approached. a she and when said, sandwich I same, toasted a order, his took waitress student. a as time my in myself patronised often old-fashioned had the an I at to café town off old turned the lake, of lanes the the of through zigzagged it direction and though the theatre, even in top, headed on He rainy. sweater and a cool had was only the He of street. out the him along followed time I and steps. this building the gone down bell running the double had my was sooner there No than finish. to seminar the for hallway the uha as such as such Stamm Peter hrtnWle rz o rnlto yteAeia cdm fAt n etr. Letters. and Arts the of awarded Academy was American he the 2012, by In Translation Roth. for Joseph Prize Kafka, Wilder Franz Thornton Fallada, Hans Benn, Gottfried of Hofmann Michael h lc a lotepy a ona al eidhm h The him. behind table a at down sat I empty. almost was place The in waiting again, department German the visited I week, following The nSrneGresadOhrStories Other and Gardens Strange In Agnes yOhrPesi al21.Rpitdb emsino te Press. Other of permission by Reprinted 2019. Fall in Press Other by , a oni cezne,Sizrad ei h uhro eea oes novels, several of author the is He Switzerland. Scherzingen, in born was nADyLk hs This Like Day A On sPtrSamsddctdtastr ehsas rnltdtewr work the translated also has He transltor. dedicated Stamm’s Peter is i afeGecgliki e Welt Der Gleichgültigkeit Sanfte Die n and rfso fh nwhm rw arlk like hair Brown him. knew he if professor nomdLandscape Unformed swl srdopas elvsi Winterthur. in lives He plays. radio as well as , n hr tr olcin, collections, story short and , h eteIdfeec f of Indifference Gentle The oyih c 08Ptr Peter 2018 (c) Copyright . 9 Swiss I No thought. presages great Eature f from home to school. I was soaked Years passed. I left my small Obviously I was under the that I had long passedbelonged that age to and it a Then past all that of neverturningforty,anagethat was. sudden, I found myself influence ofthen: personal Communist love wasthing ideology not to a greata pursue greater when lovecountry – and there for your the people. was love for yourChinese village for Beijing to study art. Then I left China for theleft West. steamy After southern I China, Imany countries, working lived on novels in and making films. Still,interest in children’s books didn’t I – I have thought any way in a deep senseand adulthood of are brutal, melancholy. Love wonder my parents and my school kept telling us not to fall in love yet, certainly not when we were still young; if we did,our future would be totally ruined. Christian . . At that time Little Mermaid of blooming rapeseed on my XIAOLU GUO would beAmerican taught imperialists at school to defend his country against the I neverencouraged encountered in anystories China children’s about at books. Communist that Fairy revolutionaries. time. tales Instead A were we seven-year-old not were child fed heroic Growing up in a Communist house in 1970s and 1980s China, THE YIN AND YANG OF HEIDI BY dissolves into foam,I I remember was in walkingfields tears. alongside the anothergirl–asupposedprincess.When I read the ending,mermaid in which the little dies and her body Not only did the little mermaid have todance for the princefeet,healsoabandonedherandmarried on her bleeding wasn’t interestedshowed me that in the human worldseductive showing. is but a cruel and It painful place. woman and gain the love of the prince.It presented me with aworld–theonetheChinesegovernment very different it intensely. Mywhen I read that heart the little mermaid had was to cut off broken her tail in order to become a I was still living in southern Chinamy with Communist parents. I was terriblyaffected by this beautiful story. I loved I was already sixteen when I – story a it was children’s first Hans read Andersen’s 10 ea ora read Hegibachstrasse, to began I on in apartment evening, the our In London. or very to Beijing a compared – environment forest pine un-urban in covered hill city. a Zuriberg, the to close of very was beauty house Our and peace the by with Heidi and partner, my and one little my new own my learn like Moon. baby; daughter, to little a start like things, would I mother- and hood! childhood Alps, Switzerland what the – learn and like to was able world be Heidi’s would perfect. I is this Now thought: I and just bought had I Heidi about book brand-new the of the copy at looked I invitation. months. six for residence in writer their ature Heidi illustrated beautifully the bought I after coincidence. another by followed before. read never had few copy a including a books, a bought entered and I sling, bookshop my in child little the Icarried becomethemotherofagirl!As so for myself: incredible! How child. was I in birth, after gave long I forty, not then, And Communist punk. young that longer no was woman. a for changes otahlastruhgen green, through leads a it footpath From situated. charmingly Mayenfeld of is town old little ‘The oIlf odnfrZrc ih with Zurich for London left I So this accept to happy was I eevdalte rmteLiter- the from letter a received I , nm utae ewr tne stunned were We suitcase. my in os nZrc,ivtn et e be to me inviting Zurich, in House ’ebe militant a been I’ve ayyasadnwIhv have I now and years many Heidi odn om is first my London, to om child: my to elsdta I that realised I fof hsThis huh o to thought I Heidi vn a was event eiitfeminist , hc I which itr picture a day A iga utr.Ys h rs nte the on grass the mono- Yes, four- a culture. from lingual come of have I that system given the fascinating, languages-in-one-country I found moment. the at also achieve to able not is has China something ruined money – nature protected contrary, hasn’t the On money nature. Here Earth. on countries beautiful most the obvious of one me is Switzerland wealth, to its besides seemed that, it French And the to part. part German the arrived from we country, the around After travelled we here, things. these but everything is China living. of standard rivers clean and and mountains democratic pristine with apolitical, multilingual, is land Switzer- society. Chinese to opposite something of think Switzerland, about ehp htswyte r bit a are conditions. they why living that’s Perhaps blessed self-critical their of and aware very be to bright seem They people. are archi- and (playwrights, tects) Andes? met psychologists the have scientists, I or Swiss living Himalayas The People the modern? on and fast would what world be this myself, in asked people mountain I in clichés, truth some inward, dull. those were there is if sometimes even But says and cliché conservative the culture, Swiss which of side negative the of greener. always is side other moigyuo h valley...’ the upon down look which imposingly heights the of foot the to stretches well-wooded hns epe hnw hn think we when people, Chinese ofr antecutrdmc much encountered hadn’t I far, So , n h ihs highest the and 11 , his April Thesis We are no longer in Heidi’s time. In Zurich, almost every day, we language). It’s incredible to thinkonly that 150 years ago most peoplestill living in were rural areas and undertaking realtravelwiththeirownfeetorcarts. lit cafés,of political atmosphere quiet, – anment environ- opposite elegant, tohere I Russia devoid was, in then. a softly litZurich. And café in I central wasa writing my book memoirchildhood about – in rural myyoke of China Communist dogma. poverty-ridden under the The modern-day Heidi would beto sent astudying school downtown Chinese (probably as her second appreciate the place. Onwalking one tours, led of by our locals,that Vladimir I Lenin learned had been exiledZurich in during WWI before hetook under- theI October walked around the Revolution. narrow,streets cobbled in As theI imagined the old famous Russian revolu- towntionary of writing Zurich, hisfuture plan forand the a new government. Bolshevik I pictured Partyworking him in one of these brightly as a child labourer andfillhisstomach.Therewerenoflowers young thief to or cutepolluted animals factoryland. There in were only beggars, that capitalists and policemen. grey and walked down to thethere. I lake was and never swamBut inclined perhaps to because sports. Iwould knew that never we beexpensive able city if to we live wereby the not in Literature invited this House, I decided to urban, industrial England had to work to Heidi After I finished reading orphan is surely verybeing different a from Swiss one. Oliver Twist in ing-class kids fightingstreets, which on are stained by itslittered rain and by mean rubbish. Being an English and ever-changing urban world. Then I thought about my adopted country –Britain. Britain is a country with work- PerhapsaSwissgirldoesn’tseepeace- fulness asdoesn’t loneliness, grow up because in a she populated, busy would surely feel very lonelypeople without around.because But I maybe was that’s never a Swiss girl. couldn’t picture myself being happy on thosemountains–Iwouldbe afraidofthe bad-tempered grandfather, and I my child, I watched twoof film the versions book. Iorphan imagined growing myself up as in an the Alps. But I prefer water’. Menown search type of harmony. for their capped mountains andrivers; as the fast-flowing Chinese would say: ‘kindmen love mountains and wise men Hermann Hesse. I thoughtphilosophical that their lifeshaped must and influenced by those have snow- been nature aroundabout me and theRousseau, wondered time of Thomas Jean-Jacques Mann and Luzern, Lausanne and Geneva. Inofthosehotelroomsinthemountains, one I contemplated the grand vista of bankers had gone to LondonYork or New toresidency, do we business? visited During Bern, my Basel, apologetic whenforeigners. I didn’t they meetSwitzerland; a are banker perhaps in most with of the 12 aie ev h onanfrter their for Chinese mountain fellow the leave my natives Seeing visited. also had I which – Rise’ ‘Moon named – Engelberg in the restaurant in Chinese local ready that was presumed lunch I Chinese again. their they lift ski Then the via hill photos. time the down disappeared some enough collectively just take minutes, to ten eight about to for flip-flops! top the wore on stood even They lift. them ski of the taken Some had They their of feet. with own mountain them armies the of climbed none by had But tourists. surrounded Chinese was turned I I that discovering air, thin of the sounds. in string around a camera heard I I clicking culture Then in. the up to grew connections all cutting off – mountain Swiss a on survive could I slope if activity. wondering unspoiled cliffs, some the under at human down gazed I and by mosquitoes swamped paddies in rice up muddy grown hot, had who me, like Chinese woman a for spiritual yet too scenery almost The was panoramic, us. beneath view a empty with in near Engelberg, Titlis, on were We standing mountaintop. 3,000-metre-high a on snow deep heavily, the myself found I breathing point, one At Swiss my friends. with Alps the climbed I land, global. fast, and planet: the technical urbanised, different 1914, totally a in on we are Now US radically. changed the has commercialworld in of travel invention air the Since neto ohv prta spiritual a have my lost to I lunch, intention noodle pork spicy h a eoew etSwitzer- left we before day The os’ atu n os’ ely really doesn’t nature and us and want nature, doesn’t consume consumers the only We from everything. of away source further and us driven further has life modern our that to seemed me It nature? to debt big a we owe Don’t planet? our on us around lies what at looking time enough spend we from ears: the my in ring to sentences to began down the way back the village, get On to Earth. keen to was I snow. silent and nature solemn with conversation on rts oeit.Xal a lodrce directed films. also award-winning several has Xiaolu Novelists. British of Young one as named was In she teaches. 2013 also Europe, she over where all Switzerland, in worked including London and lived to has moved She she 2002. before China in six published books and Academy Film studied Beijing She the China. at film south in born was Guo Xiaolu joy. wild the with nature appreciate of contours to there world, Heidis this more in no be will There us. need ed a idwt joy...’ with opened. wild was had Heidi flowers in yellow blue many and and bathed sunlight, brilliant was mountainside green fresh The night. the the in little cloud every for away driven them, had wind on sky down deep-blue looked cloudless, A Alp. sw ecne,Iwnee:d do wondered: I descended, we As Te tre erl pte the up merrily started ‘They Granta iouGuo Xiaolu sBs f of Best 's Heidi 13 Die Physiker

Another feature of Swiss-German million Austrians,eighty but million Germans. It moretherefore is (and makes natural, financial than sense), for Swiss-German writers to aim a particular clarity,their which accessibility enhances to foreignA readers, hypothesis certainly bornemy out experience of by translatingWeihe, Richard Martin Suter and Peter Beck. Iliterature have – encountered and one its writers share withcounterparts their Austrian accessibility. – According to also population statistics there are relates around 4.5 millionSwiss to Germans, just under nine standardised and is indistinguishable from High German; evenwashed dialogue of its is dialectal colour. I may beoverstating a point here, butto it me seems that when Swiss Germans writethey usespeaking, a is not language their motherI that, tongue. believe strictly this affords their writing

answer lies in the Swissgerman By contrast, the literary Swiss- JAMIE BULLOCH valley to valley. German language is for the most part or even Munich. Theis exacerbated by unintelligibility the fact that dialects differ from region to region, and even scratched their head atthat a appears to vernacular bear no relation tolanguage the spoken in Hamburg, Berlin to thatGerman part of speakers the world, included, native has something that haslinguistic its idiosyncrasies roots of inspeaking the German- Switzerland. Many a visitor than the complexprose. syntax But I ofthat have something else dense is always at play here suspected too; accessibility of their language.very By its nature, grapple dialogue with is in easier a to foreign language two giants of Swiss letters that ensures their place onsyllabus? the One school/university (‘The Physicists’)a to schoolmaster. A-level What is students the enduring appeal during of these my brief spell as German wasrevisited through Swissacting the drama in as dramas a an Dürrenmatt of play, undergraduate, Frisch then met wound and my up Dürrenmatt. future teaching wife I I haveA-level a students long-standing over affection the for years, Swiss my literature. Like first many taste of literature in SWISS-GERMAN LITERATURE - A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE BY 14 n urah oet onls countless outlook to global home organisations? international a outreach, from with and naturally country proceed writers, a it such a does this by or Is effort Rwanda. about conscious in magazine), genocide this the in reviewed his Tage or Lukas Australia, Hundert of Aboriginals mention the at to Bärfuss’s around Not all Europe. jumps which Lowlands’) Flachland Mannheim’s Urs and Lüscher’s Jonas Kraft read have I recently more but adaptation; film 2013 the by famous made Lisbon’), to Train (‘Night Pascale flavour. is Mercier’s here example work international obvious An their distinctly lend a writers German with – philo- resonance. psychological universal political, and – sophical issues masters writers tackling are no with at major article be this two began can I the than that there doubt rather and the parochial; outward-looking content to the if is helps it appeal this achieve To to wider attempt audience an domestic their beyond nasmlrvi,mn Swiss- many vein, similar a In ‘rf’ e hel nClfri) California) in chiefly set (‘Kraft’, emnlnug edrhp readership. German-language Koala ‘onaneigi h the in (‘Mountaineering ahzgNc Lissabon Nach Nachtzug ‘n ude as – Days’ Hundred (‘One ‘ol’,wihlos looks which (‘Koala’), egtie m im Bergsteigen nin hc ae tpriual ie ripe particularly it translation. for makes appeal. broad Which a it gives undoubtedly Swiss-German literatureaccessibility of dimension. worldwide a with one otherwise but brief conspiracy, and banking Swiss a a strong on Thailand, centres has in third have cameo the Sri while particular on Lanka, in Asia, to worked connections the novels I’ve solve Suter New Martin the to of Egypt, Two crime. Norway to and travels England true style, in who, 007 Bond-type protagonist, its James as hero a has magazine) thriller Beck’s the Damnation Peter of Shanren. art Bada and painter, Chinese life seventeenth-century the considers too. pattern micro-epic, Weihe’s this Richard fit translated have I Translation Vanderbeke’s Birgit for German Best Jamie for Prize Schlegel-Tieck Stift. 2014 the won Linda and Delius Christian Friedrich Suter, Vermes, Timur Martin Walser, Alissa by Hochgatterer, Paulus books include translations His as 2001. since worked German from has translator professional and a historian an is Bulloch Jamie h tlsi n hmtc thematic and stylistic The writers Swiss the of three All as eiwdi hs this in reviewed (also TheMusselFeast ai Bulloch Jamie e fInk of Sea , . 15 Swiss German Monique Schwitter © Matthias Oertel TESS LEWIS

ONE ANOTHER (PERSEA BOOKS, 2019) FROM TRANSLATED BY MONIQUE SCHWITTER BY is busy inway his through room working the his week’s emails, make theso slightest I sense, settleSilence. for and smoke, My time, husband, kid.) I assume, NATE. TEDD orNDNE. IAOGN. I TITN. language don’t in know which those of would any out something halfwayHalfway. SMOKE. TIME. sensible. KID. Well. (The alternatives were EUMOR. in myI notebook. study the Not chart until that I can I make know much about Morse code, but until I can seethe her knocking ribcage risewhich sets and then fall. in, I alternate breathe loud. a with sigh Short, longer of sharp relief blows. and hammer I blows draw dots at and first, dashes time forand bed, for theymotionless a screamed on moment like her it’s blanket lunatics. under completely They’re my quiet; desk. finally I even asleep stare the at dog her black is fur lying January. As always,were exhausted after and athey’d overwrought; week either through in the been nursery entire arguing early school, evening the or children crying and later, when it was The knockinginexplicably, comes and here more it and is more again, frequently, this ever late more Friday evening in eyebrows. You’ve tried, init vain, seemed to locatein to the the source come attic of / the now inside knocking; from your skull inside, – now but you from could outside never pin – it up down. the soundand of hear even knockingmorning louder and you the catch moment sight hear of you just the look deep in before vertical the you crease mirror between fall in your the asleep When you suddenly google your first love, it’s in response to As fast as a person walks 16 erne ypriso fPre ok,NwYork. New Books, Persea of permission by Reprinted from Excerpt Lewis Tess by Translated Schwi�er Monique ecoe h door. the closes He no have I him. behind what, shut door for the something, pull to for starts He listens idea. and quickly away looks breath, and say I No, asks. death. he Petrus’s about busy? learned just you a I rest: Are the in himself. swallow angry, beside really he’s completely when or fighting, rage we’re when only happens, he rarely if This as arms his spread He smiled. good. and all me at it’s looked the fly, and to void wanted changed step, the one suddenly Just into added: step quite he single Walking? asked: one then I because and and walking; falling to subject about him. made talking that sad started of profoundly talked how He had and He do met. Not we can’t night this. humans first something for the flying, not on it a But to photographs. started alluded had for have Petrus prepared he Still, this. even shouldn’t am Why I kids. now? and by wife family a to references for ready the Petrus, type I box search love. first the my In of window. name new and a shut, open notebook computer, my snap I the on mind. my doing through on flits Smoketimekid! planning don’t. I out been we’ve calling now, time again. before together long something a evening For Friday midnight. before every just does he something nte’,wssotitdfrteGra okPieadwnteSisBo rz. Prize. Book Swiss the novel won successful and short Prize highly of Book her German volume 2015 the for debut in shortlisted and Her was Prize Another’), Hamburg. Walser in Robert lives the today and stories, world German-speaking the Schwiter Monique nldn he inr fteSisBo rz:JnsLshr oiu cwte n and Schwitter Monique Lüscher, Jonas Prize: Book Abonji. Swiss Nadj the Melinda of winners three including Lewis Tess i o atsmtig s,bth nwr,ntigta a’ at wait. can’t that nothing answers, he but ask, I something? a want you takes Did He something. say to wants he like looks He hesitates. He reason. here. the sitting that’s just Maybe I’m why, idea no have I – I Yes, says. he breath, of out You’re name. my saying or knocking Without room. the into walks husband My also I’m resigned. up, give to and thing a single find to not prepared I’m ensshetbi Krokodil beim schneit Wenn’s n Another One satasao rmFec n emn h a rnltdmn ws rtr writers Swiss many translated has She German. and French from translator a is a oni uih tde nSlbr,promdi harsaloe over all theatres in performed Salzburg, in studied Zurich, in born was yMnqeShitr rnlto oyih c 08b esLewis. Tess by 2018 (c) copyright translation Schwitter, Monique by Anything ‘fi nw,ltsme ttecooie) a wre awarded was crocodile’), the at meet let’s snows, it (‘If oeie ehsn ie oeie sometimes time, no has he Sometimes . isi Andern im Eins weekend ‘n (‘One ! 17 Alice

, JEN CALLEJA

A WHALE IN WATER (DARF PUBLICATIONS, 2018) The Never-Ending Story

, Labyrinth

; stories where heroines and heroes must TRANSLATED AND INTRODUCED BY

MY FATHER WAS A MAN ON LAND AND FROM MICHELLE STEINBECK The Wizard of Oz BY

and Three grey Great Danes, big as calves, come walking down the street. dog dances around the suitcase, pauses for a moment, sniffs. Then it pushes pinningmedownsoIcan’tmove.Itrubsitsrumparoundonmystomachandlegs and pants at threadsofdroolswinglikehammocksfromthelimpfoldsofskin.Thelargest me from above. The dogs flap their flews and let the They’re nipping at each other’s tails and snapping at motes andon mites the floating air. I duck down infound the me. dusty It grass, leaps but straight the at thinnest me. dog I has want already to get up and flee, but it’s already Iyankupatuftofgrassfromtheedgeofthestreetandgnawonit.Ilieonmyback and look up at the sky. It’s completely yellow. The road is lined with chestnutcurb trees and and wheeze. never Maybe seems I tostave could off end. the eat hunger. I I a open sit the bit suitcase on and of immediately the close the it again. kid, Then just a little finger, to The Fair Man When I first read Michelleits Steinbeck’s strangeness. novella I didn’t was I fact question thrilled I the and welcomed weird energised it logic byto and of the gobbled find book it for upsurprises a like book a and second, a shocks in toxic-coloured that are medicine.become disorientates It’s around portals, rare every you or doorways, corner,book so or and will be successively tombs. where taking You corners you andand know on suddenly that a totally, from the journey the like where usual outset none rulesbase you’ve that of of ever plot, this experienced the narrative before, book, anddisturbing fairy even and tale, reality what with don’t its I apply.animorphism strange At suppose and beasts, the drew mistreated fathers, old me children.and crones, stories But to instances of it it, of my also is childhood,in such reminded Wonderland arguably as me a of kindtake the of an odd films and perplexingcome journey to in conclusions order that to wereunconscious. ultimately there find The all themselves along and extract but Loribeth, hidden I’ve carrying in chosen their a dreams isobject suitcase and of the containing lust, a The opening Fair (possibly) to Man... dead Chapter child, 3, meets where her up the lid with its nose. It looks inside and shakes itself so that its ears slap against its throat and skull. It eyes the kid in delight, noses and rummages around in the suitcase, and bites off one of the kid’s ears. Hey, I shout, hey – Shut your face, snaps the dog on my stomach and bats at my face with its paws. The ear falls out of the leader’s mouth, it gives a barking laugh. Then it snaps it back up and gulps it down in one. It burps, the dog on my stomach howls, and all three of them laugh so much that their coats quiver over their bones. They can’t pull themselves together, until they finally let me go and, still chuckling, and with their ears flying behind them, run off. I sit up. A stream of people is coming up the road. I snap the suitcase shut,patdownmyclothes,andwatchthem.Moreandmorepeoplestepout frombetweenthetreesandintotheroad.They’rewearingwhiterobeswith lace collars; the girls have wreaths of flowers in their hair and sandals with frilly socks on their feet. I join them. Snippets from a brass band float through the air, along with the scent of freshly mowed meadow and meatloaf. Theprocessionendsinfrontofafarmhouse.Cluckinghensstalkaround the yard, a calf with bulging eyes drinks from a trough. Red geraniums beckon from the window boxes. A girl is talking with a small, black pig. Thepeoplegatherinthefrontyardandwhispertoeachother.Standing in the doorway is a hulking woman with thick plaits looped around her ears. She’s swinging a cowbell with both hands, and her plaits bounce plumply like smoked sausages. You have to get past her if you want to go in. She looks very strict, and the bell is very loud. The people are scraping their feet and plucking at each other’s white collars. Some muster up enough courage to step forward and scream something in her ear. She drives away most of them with the bell, she lets in a few. That’s when I catch a glimpse into the hall: there they are, at a great table, all eating cake. Flowers float in water glasses on the table. The children are crumbling up the cake and dunking pieces in the flower water, the elders fish them back out again. Some wolf downtheircakeinthreebigbites.Theyguzzleitdownwithcider.Itrunsout of their mouths straight onto their plates and when they laugh it sprays into the yellow faces of the flowers. I sit on the suitcase and run my finger over the cracks in the leather, then suddenly there’s a bang against the suitcase wall from the inside! I jump up and see the suitcase bulging out on one side. There’s a terrible rasping sound, as if the kid is trying to roll over. I knock the suitcase over onto the ground and give both sides a firm kick.

18 Need some help? 19 s and she was . Michelle Steinbeck Translated by Jen Calleja Brixton Review of Book Yes, bloody starving, I say. He looks astonished and laughs. Liver cake, trout cake, sweet cake? Trout cake, I say, I want trout cake. The young man nods and trots Are you hungry? Hisgrinlooksstupidandsugarsweet, as if cut righta across knife. his And faceteeth, like he with a clay figurine. has chewing gum of two large, pale fish eyes. And thereis a kink in his chin, Iall. don’t He like leans that in towards at me. My Father was a Man on Land and a Whale in Water has already made a big name for herself in Switzerland as a writer of is a writer and literary translator from German. She has translated works by The young man abruptly turns and says: Looks like a good time. Bright A young man is blocking out the sun. I don’t react, and stare stiffly and Yes, I say, leering at his biceps, it’s a way of life, smoking. You smoke? Theyoungmanisprofferingatroutcake.Yousmoke!hesays.Idon’tlike Wim Wenders, Gregor Hens, KerstinShe Hensel, Michelle writes Steinbeck a and Marion columnthe Poschmann. inaugural on Translator-in-Residence literary at translation the British for Library the 2017-2018. Jen Calleja stunning, surreal novel, short-listed forEnglish the Swiss by Book Jen Prize, Calleja: has just been translated into Michelle Steinbeck prose, poetry and drama. She is a scintillating performer and widely published. Her first

blonde hair sticks out of hisused chin. to wonder Does the it same hurt thing when about my the father. stiff The young hair man grows? makes I use itisaniceback,youcanseehismuscles.Apathoflightblondehairgrowsupthe nape of his neck outtogether like of young his serpents. shirt and leads up to curly locks that twine silentlypasthim,soheshrugshisshouldersandturnstowardstheentrance,where the woman has just stopped ringing the bell. I subtly eye up his back, that at all. light one up – almost very elegantly –sun and and sit think on about the the suitcase. veins I in smile into the the hand he had placed on my arm. off to get the cake, I root around in my coat pockets. I find the cigarettes, ihleSenek©Affolter/Savolainen © Steinbeck Michelle RIVETING reviews

MY FATHER WAS A MAN ON LAND AND A WHALE IN WATER BY MICHELLE STEINBECK TRANSLATED BY JEN CALLEJA(DARF PUBLICATIONS, 2018)

Swiss German REVIEWED BYROSIE GOLDSMITH

The cover describes Michelle Steinbeck’s debut novel as a Freudian fairy tale in ‘absurdist prose fluctuating between panic and the comical’. Thank goodness for helpful cover quotes, otherwise I might not have got past the first page of this strange book. I’m glad I did. It’s fresh, funny and disturbing, a terrifying coming-of-age novel and a picture of hell, channelling Hieronymous Bosch and the magical, shiny brilliance of Angela Carter.

Our first-person narrator, Loribeth undertake. There are paths and goals, (Lori), is wading through nightmares arrivals and departures, decisions on a journey across land and water, and meetings with significant people. with a heavy suitcase. Inside the As readers we suspect that there suitcase is a dead child. Lori meets an is meaning to all this, that struggle is old soothsayer in a cemetery stroking good, battles must be won, obstacles a furry lizard, who tells her she must overcome, dragons slayed. It is a find her estranged father, ‘a man of highly moralistic tale, psychologically letters, who writes books’, who is the profound and youthfully idealistic. owner of the suitcase. ‘The father Suchaslimvolumeandsodensely stands in your way, he’s blocking the packed with crows, old men with lucky cards. The highest Fortune card stumps, burning houses, Lori’s is there, and the Triumph card too! constant hunger, markets selling Give the father back his suitcase and ears and mountains of teeth. And you shall be showered with love, fame a sense of wonder at Michelle and gold.’ Steinbeck’s ideas and writing, all in the Poor Lori carting around her pacey present tense. She loves suitcase, her head full of horrors. But language and invention but roots her this is clearly a journey she has to story in enough reality for us to 20 21 magical I’ve read itrigdisturbing Rosie Goldsmith modernist, families, home, iden- ultimately, happiness. This is one of the most audacious, Lori is a restless, demanding exuberant and thrilling novels for a long time, evenand if bizarre. it It is is mash-up a about tity and, settles into what? All hertried life Lori has todreariness: ‘I escapesomewhere always else, want dullnesswhere never I to am. the But and besomewhere else? what place I good always take is myselfwith going me.’ narrator in her quest for theof meaning her life.happiness, She wants without sunshine responsibilityattachments, and but or at a cost. down, the prose settles too. But Jen Calleja Brava Lori meets her father on ‘the There’s hope as Lori flirts on characters become older and settle prose changes,expansive and sedate, calmly exploring becomingthe father-daughter more relationship. As maritime quotes. island of fleeting fathers’, and the suitcase with the rottingand child moves on. inside The shipstorm is caught in and a we are soothed with although she loathes children. But no,it’s not meant to be;she he’s not is the searching one for. She shuts the board ship withlegs a and man red shorts. with Theychild spindly discuss they the might have in the future, these anddisturbed mind can’t have the been easy. inside of Lori’s recognise ourselves. for her sharp translationideas of and complex juxtapositions. Rendering

22 igemne,bua aaee– – Japanese is level brutal one stage. single-minded, on the of world caricature a who, almost – the Amakasu on supremacy Nazi establish piece a will – that propaganda Japan of in film a make to ment in govern- German been the by has Japan commissioned Nägeli WWII. to encounter and run-up the the Germany represent between to seen translator, by prose Bowles): Daniel rendered packed example perfect densely (expertly the Kracht’s is of meet official) first (the Amakasu our Masahiko and and director) (the existence Nägeli Emil moment The about future. ideas our and universal past our short both discuss allusion, this with technique, relationships to through narrative symbolic major manages Woolfian But have almost novel Tokyo. to an out through 1930s in turns and that a Japanese power, detail and minor – cross director apparently film through Swiss a official – short, protagonists government this two its Ostensibly in of meaning. dialogue paths with the of packed piece is every book intense encounter, every moment, Every BY REVIEWED BY TRANSLATED DEAD THE onaoe i n r eon reborn are well.’ and as alone die are alone, they born … creatures profoundly lonesome are true dead dream The other’s … being the assured a of and in themselves … out anamnestically other each sniffed have Nägeli and ‘Amakasu nsm as hs w ol e be could two these ways, some In ETCAMEL WEST BY AILBWE BOWLES DANIEL HITA KRACHT CHRISTIAN ainlsi,nationalistic, FRA,SRU N IOX 2018) GIROUX, AND STRAUS (FARRAR, nie.We äeiadAaau Amakasu and Nägeli When system’s antigen. it immune look the a to response to to refers had up) simple (I a ‘Anamnestically’ situation. than political a of complex personification more far have Germans manipulate him. sent the to stooge keen Swiss the is the and of Empire, expansion the to committed is oteecutrbtenNzs and Nazism his between encounter the raises to refer recognises and does moment this other Yes, defences. the instantly in himself each meet, u rctofr oehn something offers Kracht But rvosyecutrd encountered previously h Dead The

eae o how relates

hita rct©Fak Finsterwalder Frauke © Kracht Christian ws-emnreviews swiss-german 23 West Camel maybe God; maybe ‘the past and future, and something Certainly, this is a novel about This could be a perfect description ineffable: primal soundAmakasu of hears thishis demise. planet’ on that the pointfascism of –historical the conditions in which political, it arose, and social in and whichbut it it might is beengagement also ‘reborn’ with the – a nature of brave being. and profound of thisAmakasu are haunted novel. by memories of their Both past Nägeli –shaped their them, and childhoods ashave. all Kracht have seems to our intimate some- childhoodsthing more sophisticated though: that we all continually move betweenexternal our existence –activities, thoughts and opinions our – and everydaythe dreamwhich of is shaped our byof the memory, interior visions lives, : walking in , was the recipient of the Hermann Hesse Literature Prize and the dead.’ is a Swiss novelist whose books have been translated into thirty languages. not The Dead The Dead In a dream, Ida, Nägeli’s fiancée, This complex idea is referred to Swiss Book Prize. Chris�an Kracht His latest novel, where dream, film, and memory hauntone another’. ‘somewhat timidly enters the realm ofthe dead … that world-in-between falls in death, dies in falling. It islike perfect this.’ In itsattains mortality immortal perfection. the blossom throughout Tokyo, Nägeli ‘pauses before an almost bare cherry tree … A cherry blossom it, and ridiculous, too; he doesn’ttodie,norishe want Amakasu thinks, whenlife it is seems over,something his ‘The tremendously clear whole about matter has It explores our immortalitythrough too: our how, veryhaving act existed of – being we – are of eternal. As each other’sreminds mortality us of our becausegoes own. even This further it moment than that, however. Japanese nationalism,represents but how itacknowledge we and also are as threatened individuals by ws-emnswiss-german

DAMNATIONBY PETER BECK TRANSLATED BY JAMIE BULLOCH(POINTBLANK, 2018) REVIEWED BYMAX EASTERMAN reviews ‘In the past, right-wing extremists used to rob banks; these days they speculate and manipulate stock market prices. It’s more profitable.’

When Peter Beck originally wrote literally (and a major problem for the Damnation – in 2013 – he was reader trying to find time for that a newcomer on the thriller scene and, restorative cuppa). Unputdownable! to a point, this shows: Tom Winter is Bankers don’t like anything that a bank security chief, but otherwise disturbs their image of stability, of something of a sprig off the James a secure pair of hands, with just the Bond genome, a man trained to use right amount of added hypocrisy: violence, who does so with gusto, and who’s also capable of superhuman ‘Although he found it distaste- feats. Hanging off the runner of ful, he operated according to the a helicopter while being shot at by a principle of “what I don’t know very nasty thug (but then they all are, can’t hurt me”. Also known as aren’t they?) is just one of the many “discretion”. exploits that come his way, along with the regulation dishy female That image, that discretion, sidekick: they’re thrown together by comes under increasing pressure as circumstance, of course, not choice. Winter pursues his suspicion that the The sex thankfully takes place off the death in a helicopter crash of one of page and leads to regret rather than a the bank’s best clients, Muhammed rosy sunset – Winter is at least more Al-Bader, along with Winter’s interested in love than pure libido. beautiful deputy, Anne, who’s also the Here the similarities end. This is object of his (undeclared) affections, an original, very Swiss, white-knuckle isn’t as accidental as it seems. Enter ride of a story, as high-powered as the Fatima, equally beautiful (are there bankers and investors who pepper no plain, even overweight ladies in its pages; the core of the plot is banking and investment?), fluent in the worldwide race to invest in English and Arabic, but not German, infrastructure, in this case electricity, which makes her and Winter a perfect for Egypt’s burgeoning economy. fit as both heroes and hunters. But Nuclear power, Arab oil money, it soon becomes clear that there organised cybercrime and outright areotherhuntersoutthereandoutto terrorism make for an explosive mix – getthem . 24 25 Max Easterman is the first outing for is his debut. – awaits Jamie Bulloch’s Damnation Damnation Korrosion university lecturer, translator, media trainerSounds Right, with jazz musician and writer. Tom Winter. The second German title – (I hope)Meanwhile,thetyroPeterBeckisnow superb translation hailed as skills. ‘Europe’sGrisham’. Film answer rights, please? to John Max Easterman is a journalist –five he years spent as twenty- a senior broadcaster with the BBC – under attack, and why?ago, Not I so longimprobability might of havebut, after the hinted what happened in dénouement; at– Salisbury a mere the half-hour from whereI I live reckon – ‘incredible’staid, has lost financially itsSwiss strong ‘in’: banking and maythere stable claim is to – be, accordingpure to but evil Peter lurking Beck there. –economics And Beck, an andgraduate, clearly knows all about it. business school keeps you guessing: who, or what, is studied psychology, philosophy and economics in Bern, Switzerland, where he also He is followed and attacked, followed.’ announced his arrival. Hetold hadn’t anyone which hotelstaying he in. was Clearly he was being ation … he will pickthe you Shepheard at 8:30pm.”Winter up fromsmiled … and wondered who’d ‘ …Kaddour The … would be womanyou delighted would if accept smiled: his dinner invit- “Mr and an MBA fromhelping businesses Manchester, to UK. shape Today their he corporate divides culture. his time between writing thrillers and Peter Beck gained a doctorate in psychology. He was a cyclist in the Swiss Army, has a black belt in judo

At every turn, the story grips and several times over, as the action moves from the Bernese Oberlandto to the Cairo Hardangerfjord and to Boston. ee ek©Fo h uhrsArchive Author’s the From © Beck Peter ws-emnswiss-german

LIFE IS GOOD BY ALEX CAPUS TRANSLATED BYJOHN BROWNJOHN (HAUS PUBLISHING, 2018) REVIEWED BYFIONA GRAHAM

‘I believe we should read only books that bite and sting us. If the book reviews we are reading doesn’t wake us with a blow to the skull, why read it? So it can make us happy, as you write?’ Those who share Kafka’s literary views as expressed here may fail to appreciate Alex Capus’ gentle musings on the good life. If, on the other hand, you enjoy a narrative that meanders like the path on the novel’s cover, embracing the eccentric, the humorous and the lackadaisical, then curl up in front of a crackling log fire and prepare to be entertained.

Max and Tina have been married something shinier and more lucrative. for twenty-five years. When Tina is Max is having none of it: offered a one-year visiting professor- ship at the Sorbonne, Max has mixed ‘But it isn’t making way … I like feelings; although he’s pleased for her, that. I like things that last.’ heknowshe’sgoingtomissherduring the week and wishes she could just In a different setting, this sense of stay put in their quiet Swiss town. He rootedness might reflect provincial describes himself as ‘an Odysseus in conservatism. But Max’s Swiss town reverse’, with his Penelope going out is actually rather cosmopolitan. The into the world while he stays at home. regulars at his bar have names like The way this novel is framed Vincenzo, Sergio, Ferdinand, Ismail, suggests that Max is about to face Toni, Stefan, Suzette and Miguel. It is new challenges with Tina’s temporary Miguel, a scion of the Spanish departure. community that founded the ‘Sevilla But this is not the direction the narrative takes. Rather, Max reflects on the life and love they share, and the very many ‘little’ things that make it lxCps©Wikipedia/Udoweier © Capus Alex good. Like Capus, he is a writer and runs a bar. Unlike Capus, he has always lived in the same place, and almost every street in town holds memories. However, new buildings have shot up all around Max’s ‘Sevilla Bar’ and he is frequently approached by developers keen to replace it with 26 27 , SwedishBook Fiona Graham . Alex Capus is A Matter of Time (Scribe UK). She is a , is the translator of Elisabeth Åsbrink’s graduate of NewEmerging Translators scheme. Books in German’s 2018 gentle irony and anturned sentence. exquisitely Alex Capus’ well- prose, in John Brownjohn’s translation, is ato joy read. This is a bookto that lends itself reading outtranslate very well loud, to radio. and it would Fiona Graham, reviews editor at the Review 1947: When Now Begins delight anyone who appreciates , will Sailing by Starlight: In Search of Treasure Island and Robert Louis , , longlisted for the 2011 German Book Prize, , as digressive and A Price to Pay , Léon and Louise Three Men in a Boat Skidoo: A Journey Through the Ghost Towns of the American West is a French-Swiss novelist who writes in German. Other works that have appeared and Life is Good Stevenson married with five sons and runs bar a called ‘Galicia’. Alex Capus in English are: Almost Like Spring Malagueño, but with laughter. whimsical as from Schleswig-Holstein?to – somemade leads me comical snort. Not like interludes Cubanito or that its mascot?replacement, ‘Malagueño’ – Max’s or should that search be ‘Sieglinde Kunz-Gerstenhofer’ for a stuffed bull’s head thatbeen on has permanent loan. hitherto But what is‘Sevilla a Bar’ without a fighting bull as Bar’, who setsstrands off of the narrative. one Short of of cash,he asks the Max main to return ‘Cubanito’, the ws-emnswiss-german

ONE HUNDRED DAYS BY LUKASBÄRFUSS TRANSLATED BY TESS LEWIS (GRANTA, 2012) REVIEWED BYLUCY POPESCU

‘Is this what a broken man looks like?’ asks the first narrator in One reviews Hundred Days, Lukas Bärfuss’s novel about the Rwandan genocide, seamlessly translated by Tess Lewis. He is referring to his school friend, David Hohl, who is about to tell him how he ended up ‘in the middle of a crime of the century’. Like Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness, Bärfuss employs a double narrator. When Hohl, the principal storyteller, takes over the reader inhabits the role of sympathetic friend.

organisations move out. David decides to stay and, after hiding from his colleagues, hunkers down in his agency accommodation. He hopes to rescue Agathe and escape with her to Europe, but she does not want to be saved and David finds himself in the midst of a ferocious slaughter. Lukas Bärfuss © From the Author’s Archive The 1994 massacre of Tutsi by members of the Hutu majority govern- ment and local militias lasted one hundred days and shocked the world. Hohl (his name means ‘hollow’), is on With a nod to Conrad, Bärfuss his first posting to Rwanda as an suggests that the heart of Rwanda’s administrator with the Swiss Agency darkness actually lies with the for Development and Cooperation. European powers who sowed the Hebecomesobsessedwithabeautiful seeds of, and enabled, the violence. Rwandanwoman,Agathe,whohefirst Rwanda was lauded as the ‘Switzer- encounters in Brussels airport. When land of Africa’. The Swiss favoured he finally finds her again in Kigali they the Hutus over the Tutsi and, begin a dissolute sexual relationship, together with other international indulging in reckless debauchery, ‘like aid agencies, provided development two hungry animals, breathless and money to a corrupt government, outofourminds’. despite being aware of its human He recognises, but ignores, the rights abuses. hypocrisy of his aid work. After the Bärfuss conveys horror in an Rwandan president’s plane is shot often oblique fashion. David rescues a down, mayhem descends and the aid buzzard with a broken wing and feeds 28 29 . Her , focusing on the Lucy Popescu One Hundred Days New Humanist and refugees was published in June TLS , FT A Country to Call Home Lucy Popescu reviews books for various publications including the anthology, experiences of young 2018. She is chair of theNovel Authors’ Award. Club Best First horror allresponse around isBärfuss him; paints cowardly an unflinching portrait butof and Western his grisly. influencehis in Africa sympathiesweakness and are and clear.honourably his David’s come failure tonation’s inability represent to to hisand the act irreparable admit damage of turning mistakes a blind eye. midst, and David is infected by the , born in Thun, Switzerland, is one of the most successful dramatists to emerge David is also naïve about the (‘Hundert Tage’), which wasCassens published Prize, in the Germanynominated Schiller for in the Prize 2008, German Bärfuss and and Swiss was the Book awarded Prizes. Erich-Maria-Remarque the Peace Mara Prize. He was also Lukas Bärfuss in recent years, and his plays are staged all over the world. For his first novel keeper forviolence her brutalises those bicycle. living in Inevitably, its that she is a Hutu militia leaderlittle it to does dispel his ardour. His gardener loots and then slaughters the house- corruption ofhim. those Agathecombative. becomes nearest When increasingly to David discovers savagery, chopping its heada machete. off with fat and sleek onoutside the the flesh garden wall of does corpses he– react and does so with unexpected Although Davidparadox, acknowledges he does not the stop. Onlyhe when discovers that the bird is getting it deadstrong, dogs: healthy ‘I dogskilled was that so had I chopping could been feed up a crippled bird.’ RIVETING extracts

FROM SCHILDKRÖTENSOLDAT (‘Shellshock’) BY MELINDA NADJ ABONJI (SUHRKAMP, 2017)

Swiss German TRANSLATED AND INTRODUCED BY ALYSON COOMBES

Set in the 1990s, against the backdrop of the Yugoslav Wars, this clever and intriguing novel explores the impact of war and celebrates the beauty of language. The protagonist, a young boy named Zoli, adores wordplay and crossword puzzles, and spends most of his time in the garden tending his flowers. When his parents enlist him in the army to toughen him up, Zoli is forced into a brutal new life for which he is wholly unprepared. Melinda Nadj Abonji’s second novel is utterly compelling and unique, her masterful use of language and vivid imagery a treat for any reader.

P-L-U-M-D-U-M-P-L-I-N-G-D-A-Y They say I fell off the motorbike that day just like a sack of potatoes, my fatherrodeonwithoutme,tookhimagestonoticetherewasnoonebehind him, I was lying in the road, fresh bread in my satchel vrrrrrrrrm my father came riding back, I heard him clearly even though I was unconscious, as they all said later, my father came back into my world, which was orange, red, turquoise and purple, there were flowers in every corner and along every border of my world, and these flowers smelled like bread, like the white bread that lay next to me in the dust, and I heard my father calling my name, I heard his voice, it sputtered over the flowers, shook me by the shoulder, Zoli, Zoli! and I sent my papa a plague of locusts, whistling mice that would make his knees knock, I called the neighbour’s dog to come and lick his calves – he hates that so much – there’s nothing I didn’t wish on him to make him leave me in peace why would he do that? well I’ll tell you, if you’re patient, and of course you are, papa tugged on my earlobes, son, get up, it’s plum dumpling day today, remember? and there was another voice as well as papa’s, and this 30 31

Melinda Nadj Abonji © Wikipedia /Julian Nitzsche and at that moment, that’s they all gawped at me, he’s but they dragged me from my paradise garden, a garlic-doctor pumped I must say I knew then where my flowers came from, when the whispering mycolours…andIwaslyinggold in dust the …and the doctor’s help, with my rage, and Ithem screamed, why told I’d cried, that becausethem, of my flowers the … birds and … words on his white righteousness,disturbed his perfectly parted hair when I jumpeddoctor by up, his coat grabbed collar, puked the my asking for his bread, listenhe wants to to know where him, his bread is crying, said the doctor, the nurse, andson, my you’re father’s bawling face like appeared a above baby, me, and us?smacked we’re a sick kiss with on worry, and my skin, my where’s father my bread? birds grew smaller and smaller, thinner, and once the redagain was all they washed out flew away, becausebehind, and of that, the that raised, is crazed the reason voices, I they cried left as me I opened my eyes, look, he’s down, why can no one hearleave me me? alone, so I much screamed, fuss, but they no all one, kept no talking one at heard me, me, and my flower- hecouldseesomethingthereinmyeyeballs,yes,yes,thewarpedworld,andthen they heaved me onto a vehicle, he’sthese heavier than hands he around looks, they me, said, all all this sweating from the exertion, just let me lie flowers me up with his air, patted me, took my wrist, he lifted my eyelids as though were bunting heads, shaped like flowers,bland but or they banal weren’t brown, like weren’t buntings gleamed are, a instead, colour behind red my that eyelids exists only the in buntings our imaginations, in the shape of nor irises or gerberas, tulips orthey even were begonias, birds’ they heads, weren’t oh flowers no, at I’m all, not making this up, I’d have to say they voicesaidIwasbleedingIknewstraightawaythatmyflowersweregrowingoutoftheblood,yes,outofthebleedingholeinmyhead,andIswearonmy life I’ve never seen such beautiful flowers, they weren’t carnations or roses, voice hissed, sent my flowers spinning, yourhead! quick, boy we is need bleeding, to look, call a here, doctor! his swiss-germanextracts New Books in (‘Fly Away, Pigeon’) won both the German by Astrid Dehe and Achim Engstler was published Tauben fliegen auf in July 2017 by The New Press. Nagars Nacht was born in Becsej, Serbia. She and her family moved to Switzerland holds a BA in French and German and an MA in Literary Translation. , and was translator-in-residence at the Crossing Border Festival in The Hague. the dust-devil! the gypsy-devil! oh-P-L-U-M-D-U-M-P-L-I-N-G-D-A-Y- yes, the day we get to eat plum the Zoli-devil! Eichmann’s Executioner

German Her co-translation of as Alyson Coombes In 2015, she took part in the Emerging Translators Programme run by Melinda Nadj Abonji at the beginningmusician. of In 2010, the her 1970s. noveland She Swiss Book lives Prizes. in Zürich, where she works as a writer and

Translated by Alyson Coombes Melina Nadj Abonji vanish into my mouth, and I can easilyevery eat time. seven to ten dumplings, dumplings, usually on a Friday, Ipotato love coats, to to free take the plums the from plums, their still doughy hot, almost too hot, and make them which stinks of money, which he spirits awayand in my his papa coat gapes at pocket me, … Zoli, is that you,like it that can’t before, be Zoli, you, what you’ve never is talked this devil inside you … 32 33 JONATHAN BLOWER (AUFBAU VERLAG, 2018) cancelled all contracts, made the final rent payment, put the land- lady’s key in the letterbox and be thinking about the size ofnose, my themy eyes. distance between I don’t know whetherhas Clemens understoodI have me. told himfurniture Should that to a I secondhand took shopin my a town just south of here,I that closed my bank account, TRANSLATED BY nything Could Happen Here’)

HIER IST NOCH ALLES MÖGLICH (‘A FROM GIANNA MOLINARI BY People fall to earth, wolves are hunted, pits cave in; it’s possible that I take the photofit out of my trouserMaybe pocket and Clemens look at still it again. thinks I robbed the bank. Maybe I’m the most

ground we’re standing on, notof a the border. aircraft we board, not the other side that ships could sink; awhole poison villages could might make have swathes to of beflooded, land moved, frontiers uninhabitable, islands erected, could fissures sink, could towns grow. could Nothing be is certain; not the a single story but to be part of many stories at the same time, iffactories at like all. this could explode, that a hall like mine could be ripped apart, people usually think. I’d like toplace, tell not him to that settle I’ve down, decided not not to to stick stay to in one one career path, not to be part of left? The world is bigger than we think; it’s far looser and more flexible than they’re planning a bank robbery. Maybetime the for holiday me. came at Maybe just I’llbecause the never right be he’ll able to only speak to ever Clemens like remember this again the photofit and he’ll only ever obvious suspect. Maybe I was behaving the way people behave when I know Clemens is sitting in the surveillance roomat right the beneath monitors. me, A looking thick wall between us. An above and a below. anMoia kpdi/AriMarie r a Amrei-M ia/ ikiped W © o olinar iannaM G swiss-germanextracts contest, in is her first novel. , was published by the Getty in Anything Could Happen Here Principles of Art History is a translator of German texts on the visual arts. His first major was born in Basel and now lives in Zurich, where she co-founded the man in the lighthouse is self-sufficient; he has his telescope and the I use my fingers to measure the distance between the eyes in the pho- Perhaps the wolf has already creptthrough the holes in the fence many I’d like to tell him all this but then I think I shouldn’t confuse things by The

currently working on the writings of Caspar David Friedrich. Jonathan Blower translation, Heinrich Wölfflin’s 2015. He recently co-translated the Selected Writings of Harald Szeemann and is received the Robert Walser Prize. Gianna Molinari art action group Literature forhelping World refugees. Events In together 2012, with2017 she Julia she received Weber, was with the awarded the first the aim prize 3sat of Prize at at the the MDR Ingeborg literature Bachmann Prize, and in 2018 she

Gianna Molinari Translated by Jonathan Blower times. The traps are set forshut him. yet. None of the leg-hold traps have snapped tofit. The same distance on my own face is also two fingers. camera and I’ll find somewhere new. sciapods; when the sun shines too brightlyfor they this make their they own need shade, nothing and more thanfactory. their Sooner own foot. or I’m going later. to I’ll leave the pack my Universal General Lexicon and my sky. The people on the poisonedcard games, island their waiting are and self-sufficient; their stories. they Most self-sufficient have of their all are the trying to explain myself, that this is just anothersome place point. to be left be behind at 34 35 RUTH MARTIN (LIMMAT VERLAG, 2017) Words of Resistance’) (‘ TRANSLATED BY MARIELLA MEHR BY WIDERWORTE FROM The nights in these rooms, those cursed nightsLucerne of unwanted 1950. children. A children’s home at the edge of the woods. Its own Night then, in sheets that weren’t ours, curled up like embryos, was celebrated Christmas without me, who stood therelacking on all the tenderness. bottom landing, clung on there, just a cold grin. Shewas wanted ugly a and doll squinted. child, A a nun’s child hand to grippedtoo, play my with. arm, I lifted with it up. So broken-winged I waved fingers, waved to my mother, who always wanted a pretty child,waving with shouting red fingers, and my mother, waving who wantedalcohol. at Her a pretty me laugh child seemed and in to stank have of my slipped to invisible the corners cage, of her mouth and unclimbable. Don’t go down into the street withplayed the people, with where children balls, wheredown, there danger lurked were on the bottom parents landing. And and there it strong was, a boys. woman who Don’t go large garden, chickens in the backyard, nuns from theThe Seraphic Love charity. front steps, a children’s Matterhorn, enormous in my memory, beds. Each child was an only child – we weren’t a family! it was the children’sdidn’t great want to no-man’s-land. live. We Night, and too itwe was were waited the for matron’s lovable. her metallic But voice. call, Trembling, and we all the embryos crept back to their own strange affection for the stranger’s embryo beside you. Night:in the it dark, was moth-like hands thoughts, dreams groping cast out intoscreaming an inhuman children’s emptiness, prayers, ice-cream, icebergs, unconsciousness. Night: another world. Dormitories, embryos in beds, craving a womb.light A blue night- (the eye of justice, judging), every breath a meagre measure of having to feed the kids in theof home. humanity We torn were apart by tough our by boundless day, anger. our last shreds Butthatwasalwaysit.Thesearchforalostland.Love.Ourfucked-upyouth,always exploited, betrayed, bribed, lost. Lies, sadism, theoftheoneswhowerestrongerthanus.Love,auselesspastime,badenough malicious laughter Nightmare of the Embryos swiss-germanMariella Mehrextracts © Ayse Yavas . She has Eichmann Trilogy of Violence is a collection of texts that ; and selected essays by Hannah Words of Resistance The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio sand- -sewn chickens ; Hubert Wolf’s was born into the nomadic Yenish people and was the victim of a notorious translates fiction and non-fiction from German, and teaches translation at December 1951. St Nich- oke the other children’s r

Ruth Mar�n the University ofBefore Kent. Jerusalem Her recentArendt. translations She include helps Bettina to Stangneth's run the Emerging Translators Network. received numerous prizes for herrange works. from poetry to essays and short stories. Mariella Mehr programme run by the Swiss charity Prochildren Juventute, which from systematically their removed Yenish parents. Mehr’s major literary work is the

n the yard. I And stole. so I spent Translated by Ruth Mar�n Mariella Mehr I had a sick mother now. She never came again. Theyaway called it in alcoholic a psychosis now sanatorium. and It put sounded her less disreputable, alcoholic psychosis. brown sack with the child tiedaway. up In inside, the hesitated, hall, then at resolutely theIwasabed-wetterandIsquinted,andtheycalledmymotheradrunkenslut. moved party, they were eating vanilla pudding and syrup. ‘dry’ children, the ‘honest’hundred ones. joyful I children in could the hear decoratedwas hall. the filled I muffled with dreamed hate. of shouts Adult mandarins of footsteps. and They two stopped by the sack, this lumpy i Christmas Eve in a well jute sack ‘out in the cold’. The saint’s love was reserved for the others, the toys, dive-bombed their castles and tormented laughed. I was aI bed-wetter, wasI ugly b and squinted. behaved children. They hungon his red, paddedtouched coat his and beard. They all olas, you good man, they sang, because he loved the well- 36 37

Jens Nielsen © From the Author’s Archive ALAN ROBINSON Me and Myselves’) (‘ TRANSLATED BY (DER GESUNDE MENSCHENVENSAND, 2018)

ICH UND MEIN PLURAL JENS NIELSEN BY FROM At first he too made little jokes Then increasingly he wrinkled his forehead The psychologist wanted even more investigations For those we had to see a neurologist Who peered all the way into my skull In the course of which it would emerge That my mother’s worries were unfounded But things weren’t so simple it transpired It promised to be a relaxed appointment With little jokes between tests That I had to take He found that funny In short Who’ve we got here then? I said We’ve got me here We drove there He greeted us He said Until a doctor had examined me First up a child psychologist Fine Just look at yourself But she didn’t want to get into that What’s not right then I asked You’re sometimes a bit odd Iamodd More precisely when I was already some yearsMy old mother had the impression more and moreSomething that was not right with me My Brain Since my birth swiss-germanextracts

He had never had a result of thisNever kind yet before heard of such a case He therefore couldn’t say at all And paused He didn’t want to cause alarm What all this might mean for my futureDevelopment development He said That on the whole I was all right Just my behaviour was a little odd Then she asked the neurologist As something given Which it was best to handle without complaint So she emphasised My mother had a gift In no time she could assimilate bad news A small world power had arisen in myIn brain the stillness of my early early childhood Because there was ample room And over time had overrun everything there Had founded a kind of cerebral colony And functionally insignificant While the second half had expansively encroached Upon the empty side Meanwhile it appeared That strictly speaking I had indeed two halves But one had just remained as tiny as a millet seed That in itself was a symptom of this disorder No I never knew which half of brain wasThe missing neurologist said I’d only one The right No the left At last he said That something really was amiss With my halves of brain 38 39 Jens Nielsen Translated by Flusspferd im Alan Robinson is also a performance for the stage. wasaJohnDoncasterScholarinGermanatMagdalenCollege,OxfordandaJuniorHeath worked as a writer for theatre and as a radio drama producer. He is now a full- (‘Hippo in the Women’s Pool’) he was awarded the Swiss Literature Prize in 2017. Me and Myselves arsncoaiGra.eatuhatenvriisfxodLnatrClgenaalh Alan Robinson HarrisonScholarinGerman.HehastaughtattheuniversitiesofOxford,Lancaster,Cologneandatallthe GermanSwissuniversities.Since1990hehasbeenProfessorofEnglishattheUniversityofStGallen. time playwright, actor, speaker, performerFrauenbad and author. ForHis his novel short stories Jens Nielsen And to this day I have never told a soul Asked my mother Who was watching me in the rear-view mirror IsaidNo That had stood for ages at the edgeAn of elk the was village hiding Do you notice any difference Somewhat later a monitor lizard crawled along theLarge roadside birds wheeled above us And among a few fir trees Belonging to the millet seed So in that eye I was partially blind On a mown field stood tapir a Which wasn’t there however When I looked through the eye And indeed Through one eye I saw animals in theThat landscape weren’t there through the other For the neurologist had explained to me Each eye was separately linked to the brainCrosswise hemispheres The other To establish whether a difference In the back seat I looked out ofTook turns the in window covering one eye with my hand then Fine We got the appointment with another doctor Then we drove home What it meant for my possible development But he had outlined my case to aWho specialist now wanted to examine me TWO STORIESFROM GLANZ UND SCHATTEN('Light and Shadow') BY MICHAEL FEHR(DER GESUNDE MENSCHENVENSAND, 2017) TRANSLATED BY SHAUN WHITESIDE ws-emnswiss-german The Queen in the Forest

An old man has gathered berries and nuts in the forest in a basket he carries them home through the forest When he arrives at the clearing where his house stands extracts he sees a snake lying in the grass outside the door ‘What are you doing outside my door snake’ he asks it the snake replies ‘I amthe queen in the forestand I amwaitingfor you old man if you try to go into the house I will bite you to death and then eat you if you try to escape then too I will bite you to death and then eat you if you try to stay where you are standing then I will wait until you have starved you will die all by yourself and then I will eat you’ meanwhile the man has recognised that the snake belongs to a species which is known in the whole region for its deadly and particularly painful bite ‘I fear your poisonous bite snake therefore I prefer to sit down where I am on the ground and wait until I have starved but look I still have these berries and nuts in my basket 40 41

Michael Fehr © Franco Tettamanti singly into his mouth with thumb and index finger you’re big huge even yes I see that now I understand’ The old man says ‘that’s how you do it I just eat its inhabitants that’s quite simple’ ‘Oh if I meet an animal in the forest I will eat it ifIpassahouseinaclearing I must take what I can get ‘Don’t you see how big I am to sustain such a body you have seen I am old and thin and certainly nothe treat snake raises its head snake what makes you want to eat me ‘If this proves to be my last meal then I would at least like to conversetell a me little chewing he turns to the snake at my age I will hardly grow fat but I am still happy to eat thethe berries old and man nuts’ takes a handful out of the basket and pushes some of them ‘they might make you nice and fat’ ‘I don’t think so I’ve never looked different to the way I look now what am I supposed to do with them’ ‘Just you eat them’ the snake replies and you’re beautiful at that swiss-german your scales gleam like precious metals but not as hard on the contrary they gleam smoothly

it looks to me extracts as if each one were a single dew-drop reflecting the morning light in colours of green and brown’ the snake twists and turns it sticks out its tongue ‘Yes you’ve noticed I’m not just big I’m also beautiful have you looked at my eyes as well they are as yellow as the inside of a bird’s egg and in between a narrow deep crevice so dark is the black of my eyes’ the old man opens his eyes wide ‘No that hadn’t occurred to me yet but you’re right your eyes are wondrously beautiful and your tongue is beautiful too fine and pointed and split precisely in the middle’ ‘I know my tongue is beautiful too’ says the snake

‘Recently when I wanted to dive into the lake in the forest for the first time to catch a fish I saw my reflection and in it I recognised my beauty I swam to the middle of the lake and curled up there on a lily pad until my tail was elegantly rolled up on it and my head stuck out like a blossom I called into the forest ‘Look at me I am the Queen in the forest’ 42 43 if you go into the house I will bite you to death ‘Stop what are you trying to do have you forgotten already ‘but for my meal I want to fetchwithout some bread bread and and cheese cheese it from only the tastes house halfthe as snake good hisses to me’ that you tell there’ the old man interrupts the snake imagine how hard I can bite’ ‘That’s a great story they became my first meal as queen innow the you forest can imagine my strength trickled away among the stones and dispersed inthis the made water the birds fall silent startled to death they fell from the tree and splashed into the lake then I slipped back into the clear waterimmediately and the bit stone into turned a blood big red stone crimson the blood ran down the stone precocious species joined the first on the branch‘Who and knows cried perhaps this time you just got lucky and the tree is rotten it had recognised my strength and was willingthat to I believe was the queen in the forest then a second bird of the same small and it admired how sharply and smoothly the teeth had pierced the wood the bird sailed down from its tree crownto to make the sure lowest branch how deep the holes were prove first that you are strong as well’ I swam from the lily pad back tomy the teeth shore left and two bit deep into holes a in fallen the tree wood then a bird cheekily twittered from a tall‘what tree a spectacle you’re making of yourself size and beauty by no means make a queen you are afraid of my bite after all’ swiss-german ‘No I haven’t forgotten that you threatened to do that but I don’t believe it any more'

'Why don't you believe it any more extracts I advise you not to try’ ‘Still Iwanttotry I am an old man and I have heard a lot in my life if I have never heard something before at my age I can’t resist doubting it a little a snake biting into a stone is something I have never heard of in all my life and it seems very fatuous to me because a snake would break its teeth on a stone or wouldn’t it still I want to try’

What an Idea

No one in the family has imagination not the mother none the father the daughter no imagination the son no imagination no one has potential one lives the life of the family from dawn till dusk and at night in the beds of the family one succumbs But one night the mother haunts the daughters dream it occurs to her that should create herself from strange special lilac material a dratted helmet with an immeasurable point she poses with her lilac helmet amidst 44 45 bosom of the family with the mother in the middle bend their knees and arise so that the mother may climb the mesh father son and daughter the family numbly endures the mother’s preparations but then she poses with lilac helmet amidstwho the according family to her instructions mesh their fingers ‘It occurs to me that I should create myself a lilac helmet with an immeasurable point’ But early one day, the mother wakes thethe husband son the daughter The daughter keeps the dream quiet one lives the life of the family from dawn till dusk she gets back into the light shoots with lilac helmet through the hole in the moon and succumbs in the where the light of the sun expires in the dead point the mother manages towhereupon turn she around gravitates back leaving a clean hole for the return’s sake rushes further out unto the dead point she dashes out and further out gets through the moon which she smashes with lilac helmet they bend their knees and arise until it is enough and the mother is blasted from the bosom of the family with the mother in the middle bend their knees and arise so that the mother may lower and lift intended as a firing mechanism father son and daughter the family who mesh their fingers so that the mother may climb the mesh so that the mother may lower and lift swiss-german they bend their knees and arise until it is enough and the mother is blasted from the bosom of the family she dashes out and further out gets through the moon

which she smashes with lilac helmet extracts rushes further out unto the dead point where the light of the sun expires ‘Darn it what an idea what a rush’ she exclaims although she cannot be heard at home the family sings at the top of their voices and dances in a circle and celebrates the immeasurable potency of its own kin in the dead point the mother manages to turn around whereupon she gravitates back she gets back into the light shoots with lilac helmet through the hole in the moon and finally truly succumbs in the bosom of the family who all welcome and congratulate her with the utmost warmth

Michael Fehr Translated by Shaun Whiteside

Michael Fehr was born in Bern. He studied at the Swiss Institute for Literature, Biel and at the Y Institute, Bern University of the Arts. He has published three books: Kurz vor der Erlösung, Simeliberg and Glanz und Schatten. On the studio album Im Schwarm his stories appear as songs, oscillating between narration and music.

Shaun Whiteside’s latest translations from French, German and Italian. include Black Water Lilies andTime is a Killer by Michel Bussi,The Temptation to be Happyby Lorenzo Marone,Malacqua by NicolaPugliese,Blitzed byNormanOhlerandToDieinSpring byRalfRothmann.Hehaspreviously translated works by Nietzsche, Freud, Schnitzler and Musil for Penguin Classics. 46 47

Fro m Hunte r – Mo n s te r Po e ms (Vo lan d & Qui s t, 2 0 1 3 )

. ANNIE RUTHERFORD NORA GOMRINGER BY TRANSLATED BY

TRILOGY OF SURFACES AND INVISIBILITIES POEMS FROM THE (Years pass before a well is found, deep enough to let things pass and fade.) And if he hadn’t died, he’d live happily ever after. once more and you absolutely don’t wantdon’t to want serve to and lift to your pour, skirt andlegs, spread shots your are fired. in the woods outside the town. But when cake and wine are then demanded It is years before there is someone who teaches you and Grandmother what issecretly needed, of course, after work, at a shooting range And he never quite eats all youralways cake, puts drinks a all bit your wine, aside in case of worse times ahead. if he can’t have any cake, any wine. That’s how this marriage begins, for you stay. you turn it and start. But the wolf snarls that you mustHis stay jaws for are Grandmother’s so sake. big, he says, all the better to eat her with, that the wolf cannot lead you away from the path. Finally the key slips into the ignition, He is standing right up against yourand car you window pray that he will notthat guess a button pressed in your red Ford does not automatically mean He unzips his trousers and says: Reach inside. Hunter You are bringing cake and wine, and meet the wolf. ws-emnswiss-german Mutabor 2015) Quist, & (Voland Morbus – Mutabor From

The error in the gene The error in the egne The error in the eneg The error in the gnee extracts The error in the neeg The error in in the gene The error in in egne in The error in in eeng inn The error in in eeng ginn

The error in in eeng gginnn .

Mutavi Kinitz Judith © Gomringer Nora

Elfriede Gerstl

In the midst of despair – this is the place in the web where a stitch is missing, where a thread lies not like a blade of grass but like a blade – there in the middle of the publisher’s flat – this is the place where a swastika is scratched into the doorframe just beneath the mezuzah, 4th ring of the city of Vienna – I met Elfriede Gerstl.

I was so young that my word was not of importance. And she found my corpulence strange, she said so herself, what a wee soul I seemed to her, delicate, like a membrane between always seeing and 2017) Quist, & (Voland Moden from always blind – this from one who was as slight as a leaf, no, as a very sharp blade on which a hair would split almost just from awe at the possibilities, almost just from fear of torture

through the possibilities. . 48 49 Nora Gomringer Translated by Annie Rutherford . Far Off Places , is now available from Burning Eye Books. She is Hydra’s Heads makes things with words and champions poetry and translated born to German and Swiss parents, is one of the best known poets of since her has someone about the Lost she spoke quickly and heydays of Escada. also editor-in-chief of the literary magazine Annie Rutherfordliterature in all itsScotland’s guises. international She poetry currently festival,Nora works and Gomringer’s as as work, a programme freelance co-ordinator translator. Her for translation StAnza, of member of PEN andinternational has artists’ house, taken Villa up Concordia. residencies all over the world. She is Director of the Nora Gomringer, her generation in either country, acclaimed for her alternatively playfulas and piercing well poetry as her lively performances. She has been awarded several prizes for her work, is a Years later when she died, they found trailersand of the Chanel dreams of Elfriede Gerstl sewn from something special. said to my eyes that all my lifeThat I was would the play stitch the of role this of poet. the doll. Gerstl watched me as she did. We were both silent. Never Clothes, the book, the one in production. The publisher, Elfriede Gerstl entered the kitchen like a dream from the What was spoken? Where women once wove. Something Howdidshegetin?Idonotknowtotell. Perhaps the window was ajar. And the moth fEature Swiss

WRITING FROM THE MARGINS BY ALAN ROBINSON

Across the border in France and Germany, Swiss literature often slips below the cultural radar. Although close geographically, Switzerland remains unfamiliar – linguistically and in its cultural tastes and traditions. How do Swiss writers deal with this situation?

One response has been to emphasise smaller countries must assert their national or regional differences, by autonomy. A resurgence of local constructing a cultural identity in identity, also in reaction to opposition to their larger neighbours. globalisation, is evident in the Since the late eighteenth century proliferation of Swiss dialect in broad- Swiss literature was held to epitomise casting, music and social media and in rural authenticity rather than metro- the remarkable upsurge in dialect politan sophistication. Declarations of literature, often in spoken-word Swiss distinctiveness culminated in performances and poetry slams. the ‘spiritual national defence’ Paradoxically, however, the mandated by the government in standard Swiss High German used by December 1938 in order to counter most Swiss authors has become less Hitler’s regime. Such isolationist regionally marked than in earlier resistance to foreign powers – literary generations. This reflects whethertheHabsburgs,theBurgundians, another strategy of ‘provincial’ or, more recently, Brussels – has long writers: adapting or even moving, to been integral to Switzerland’s self- the cultural metropolis. Many Swiss concept. Switzerland’s cultural authors live in Paris or Berlin and identity is thus indivisible from aspire to publication by the leading geopolitical developments. Prior to French and German houses. Acquiring 1989, there were four German- prestige or cultural capital plays a role, speaking literatures: Austrian, East as does heightened media visibility, German, German Swiss and West better access to marketing and German. Subsequently, Germany’s reviewing networks, and hence reunification has reinforced its greater chances of winning literary cultural dominance, against which prizes. Swiss authors published in 50 51 Alan Robinson such as Melinda Nadj AbonjiGrigorcea, or Dana migrated toThus, Switzerland. within what internationally isminority a literature, there isinterplay a vibrant of minoritySwitzerland’s voices, decentralised whichis well society placed to foster. its inhabitantsbackground. have Todynamic changes Switzerland a understand andliteratures its migrant the aretherefore needs undergoing,the to transnational one relations and consider intercultural all thatcountry today. characterisetrilingual inhabitants Many speak a language bilingual theat home or other thanofficial the nation’s languages; four some ofinteresting the most contemporary authors, nation, and the fact that almost 37% of . This Heimat Underlying these literary inter- to the world as an innovative export ignores Switzerland’s pivotal position at theroutes heart and cultural flows, its openness of European transit cultural purity, yearning nostalgically for an agrarian, self-sufficient societyrooted in an idealised nature ofEuropean Swissness. As countries,groups in promulgate nationalistic many an ideology of constricts artistic creativity. relations is a wider debate about the convergence hasaccompanied by sometimes heated controversies been about whether living in Switzerland published in Switzerlandexposure have abroad. lesstowards This linguistic tendency and cultural France or Germanyaudience not increase only in theirbut those countries also in Switzerland; those 52 n efpbihdatosdnigfl rtrsga nodr order in success, gear of writer’s pursuit the full in artists. immigration, donning amazing hang-ups from become an authors arising their to death voices self-published of planet, hardly new his literary rid and would women, another the after getting – almost more part – years authors Goncourt it’s and French-speaking – Chessex Prix more ten the emerging with a Jacques Almost is in awarded landscape eyes. before. on literary be his ever to going writer believe than writing Swiss More of only lot Switzerland. a of is There BY WRITING SWISS-FRENCH TO INTRODUCTION AN hspaigterlswihwr were which roles the playing books, own unknown thus their allows promote to that writers media a of social now explosion the is phenomenon: what global observe also can you new to clubs. way book private to and given bloggers have criticism literary worse, traditional and And studies for literary view. of or out point your on better depending hands for institute degrees, writing ative cre- and German- literature a and regions, speaking French- the between work. collective performing Nicolas ‘forever-young’ the and being travel writer), Swiss famous Bouvier (the about writers, Jet’ fantasising ‘Easy meet also can One IOA VERDAN NICOLAS ws french Swiss nteFec ato wteln, Switzerland, of part French the In border the on Biel/Bienne, In uhr,sil still authors, ufc falti ciiy eodte the beyond activity, this all of surface and publishers agents. literary of province the once hr nalo hi ok Generally, work. their of or all in dialects there and here of appear expressions echoes regional and region, Swiss and over-populated small, live a all in write do they thread, common of most paths. but own their follow strong, them be might Paris of attraction the and France, all- powerful to close be might They adopt. subjects they and styles of diversity surprised the be by you’ll think I and writers world. us, the about books say tell they what might the they what examine themselves, and publicity, e’ aealo ne h the under look a have Let’s hl ti ifcl ofn a find to difficult is it While Swiss French-speaking out Seek 53 Nicolas Verdan is his first work available in English. All this said, I’m actually feeling The Greek Wall Bern, Neuchâtel,Vaud and Fribourg, Geneva are Valais,fact witness that to literature in the French-speaking Switzerland is alive. Nicolas Verdan was born in Veveyparents.Hewasaprominentjournalistbeforeturning of Greek-Swiss to writing fiction full-time.between He Switzerland divides and hisa Greece. time number of He literary has prizes for won his previous novels. rather relaxed. Because,festivals and thanks cultural events, contacts to are now easy betweenwriters) readers in (and France, andwriters, Swiss-French suchPopescu, Jean-François Haas, as Daniel de Marius Roulet,Michel Daniel Anne-ClaireAntoinette Decorvet, Bühler, Rychner … Butunfair, Amélie this list because is it’sSuffice Plume, to not say that all exhaustive. of the writers us – all – living in the cantons of Jura, Another way to access the French The challenge, though, is to be Maybe Switzerland is too close? market is toexotic write country, far in away from French France. in an is an ‘open sesame’I’m to joking, Parisian sort fame. of …from but reality. it’s not so far a … Swiss-German writer. Thenbe you’ll considered aA translation real from German to Swiss French writer. intoaFrenchbookshop,aSwisswriter needs apublisher. French In fact, the best literary way is to agent be or to achievemountains represent that more than just goal aphysical barrier. – To the get Jura their books read bypublished in Switzerland French doesn’t help readers. Being Switzerland, which isremains not a one, Paris reference,French writers even won’t admit if it. Swiss- however, littlewriting distinguishes from that of theirFrance; and their in this fellows French province in of FROM THE GREEK WALL BY NICOLAS VERDAN(BITTER LEMON PRESS, 2018)

Swiss French TRANSLATED BY W. DONALD WILSON

The street rises and falls like a wave, surges again, swells, and falls again. These undulations give a sense of the neighbourhood, with its crests and hollows, its gentle slopes. It is a street leading into the city, when this story begins, once upon a time, at two in the morning, on a densely populated hill, on the night of 21 and 22 December 2010, on Irakleous Street, in Neos Kosmos, Athens, Greece. ‘What does a severed head look like?’ wonders Agent Evangelos. He is standing in the street facing the Batman, a bar diminished by everything about itself: the green phosphorescence of its sign, the cheap alcohol it serves and its regulars, all participants in the death of a world, still devoted to the songs of yesteryear, and their youth pinned up on the wall – aphotoofTheodorakis,aviewoftheAcropolistakenfromtheterraceofthe Galaxy (another bar, on the twelfth floor of the Hilton), the faded colours of Greek summers on ads from the 1970s, and the round yellow sun on Olympic Airways posters. Every evening in Athens, the Batman’s customers carry on as if nothing had changed, although so much is dead and gone and despite all the pitfalls that await, the menace outside, beyond the window of the bar, on this street where Agent Evangelos is standing, uncertain about what to do next. If there hadn’t been that phone call, that conversation with his colleague – with that severed head to blame for it all – this story would have been very different, it wouldn’t have taken the same form, would have been impossible to relate, have had neither head nor tail – ouch! He’d have ordered another drink and sat with his eyes closed listening to Kazantzidis; and if he had waited a little longer he would have been joined by Irena, the owner of the only jazz club in the capital worthy of the name. 54 55

Nicolas Verdan © Louise Anne Bouchard same Nicolas Verdan Translated by W. Donald Wilson © English Translation, W. Donald Wilson 2018. , islands. world would has taught at universities in the West Indies, the United Kingdom, Published by kind permission of Bitter Lemon Press. © Bernard Campiche Editeur 2015; at does a head severed from the body look like?’ he wonders. h her inexhaustible affections, ‘W Just a few more minutes and Agent Evangelos might have encountered Agent Evangelos likes Irina, her When she comes to the Batman, . Foundation translation prize. W. Donald Wilson and at the University of Waterloo. In 2013 he was a finalist for the French-American greenish glow from the forestasphalt, of flattened balconies, candle the flames. They squashed havealong oranges seen they on passed all no the remark. of it by, go but driving The passengers on the rear seatthings: glimpses look of out; the all city, of the themgraffiti confused on have message the seen of filmstrip the the streets, the of voiceless walls, the weight lowered of shop blinds, the Irina. That approaching soundmanoeuvresthefour-by-four,whichhasjuststoppedinfrontoftheBatman. of an engine is she; with one finger she A phone call has come; he must leave immediately. set here in the Batman, but veryHe soon goes Agent Evangelos back must inside, be for on he hispays has what way. he left owes, his and leaves. jacket on a hook under the bar. He tions, her generous love for theturns her masculine corpulence gender into a – distinction. It a would have generosity been of a different being story, that plump figure, her outrageous asser- Not for anything in the she miss an ‘after’,rolling as the ‘r’. she calls it, an employeean and entourage her drawn alongturbulentwakeofaferrytothe barman in the Irina makes her appearance around by a few accompanied musicians, 1.30, 56 oit,weeitlrnead and intolerance where society, quest her it, memories, resentments after and realisations. foranswersdrawsherdeepintoatangleof suicide; was before his shortly he him visited whom estranged, from Ania, daughter thirty-something between His groups. extremist violence for eventually threats, and and indignation for focus the becomes funeral his suicide, commits shunned, widely subsequently he threatened. When sacked, and is He young men. two an by immigrant of African murder East motivated defending racially after the grace from plunges Gabriel, old year famous fifty-eight a journalist, novel, real-life Kramer’s a In by scandal. inspired was story The

eg n nesadi tesadthemselves. and acknow- others to in personal, fail understand often and contradictions, the characters ledge realistic that proffer the thoughts with might and with that feelings instead political ambiguities, narrative brim pages a the Her eschewing In answers. timeless, weaves facile father? the with She your topical were disquiet. the he of him if around tolerance react community you the Father a might would views How How xenophobic indefensible? espouse react? to the intellectual defend left-wing and a drive might What Swiss French EIWDB BY REVIEWED BY TRANSLATED FATHER A OF AUTOPSY RI h itr fafamne fragmented a of picture The acl rmrpssucmotbequestions uncomfortable poses Kramer Pascale , V ETING AEI VESCINA VALERIA OETBNNO BONONNO ROBERT reviews BY ACL KRAMER PASCALE sntol irrdb,bt but by, mirrored long-lacerated only through experienced not is surface, the beneath simmer tensions fte l,md aietb e her and school by boarding manifest to go made to demand all, them of judgement harsh own her by hurt been have Gabriel and they could But aloof. cared who keepers, disappointing his judgemental of harshly eyes, her in and, redoubtable figure cultural a was father present. shifting her and past her her in by individuals the about revealed views is stake The at Ania’s. issues society-wide is the of access complexity most narration us third-person gives the which to perspective The relationships. family BLEU IEAYPES 2017) PRESS, LITERARY (BELLEVUE hnAi a rwn phr her up growing was Ania When agtr i house- His daughter. o e,see seemed her, for n et or your tests and uos f of Autopsy 57 . (Eyewear Valeria Vescina is a quiet novel Autopsy of a Father , and That Summer in Puglia The Child , The story is moving, though Autopsy of a Father The Living to convey her sensebewilderment. of And Robert isolation Bononno’s and translation gives a faithful rendition of this writing style. Valeria Vescina is aHer first writer, novel, teacher andPublishing) was launched critic. this year. book pointsand out dangersphenomena the to a few of clear-cut difficulties factors: a ascribing simple linearseductive these but narrative would be would more fictionalthan the be complexity the novel hints at,and thereforeattempt to defuse such unhelpful threats. tounsentimentally any told. Kramer’s prose is sparse, the voice narrative held at just the right distance from the protagonist self and recalls the time they wereclose; still when‘finally, he by your permission’. She kisses thinks his her, is saying adopted ‘the with her ever since she seductive ceased toneto be pretty’. Their moment he together is hadwrecked by these dynamics. with a powerful punch.which In xenophobia, racism, a nationalism world inanda extremisms frightening resurgence, Kramer’s are seeing points to a photo of her four-year-old of s ouldallthe C And what about Ania’s , recipient of the 2017 Swiss Grand Prize for Literature, is the author of fourteen Novak, the father of her others and oneself more tnigmakesstanding the proces subsequently staying away? glad they’ve come: ‘he had simply A poignant example of this is . books, including three novels published inBorn English: in Geneva, shedocumentary film has festival about worked children’s in rights. Los Angeles, and now lives in Paris, where she directs a Pascale Kramer

resigned himself, whatever she mightthink, to keepingdismisses his his distance’. Ania tenderness when he and Theo’s long-awaitedhaven’t visit; given they himhe’s any notice, but andhurt. Gabriel’s show of annoyance at Ania understanding aredifficult; perspectives distorted and trust is by eroded misapprehension every otaitr images shecontradictory now holds of these people be true?misunder every Certainly, Clara, tells her.own ex-partner, deaf six-year old son, Theo? wife, her Iranianyears go by without mother? a word. You’re ‘You theone who let can’t love,’ his second wife, by her Could her father have sufferedthan she more realised from the death of his a er e©DviIga e i oo amrion lammar F © Koboy ki/ s zew gnas idI Dav mer© leKra a c Pas ws-rnhswiss-french

TO EACH UNFOLDING LEAFBY PIERRE VOÉLIN TRANSLATED BY JOHN TAYLOR(BITTER OLEANDER PRESS, 2017) REVIEWED BYSTEVEN J. FOWLER

When we encounter very poetic poetry, do we view it as it was read when reviews it was written? Not just in terms of its era, and not just in terms of its original language (if it’s translated), but in this sense: do we read it through the lens of knowing it isn’t fromnow ? Even the most beautiful work can poetics, especially Francophone seem of the past, of a very specific works, is a battleground on which lyric moment, and it’s very rare indeed that sensibility and language itself can the opposite is true. We encounter be reclaimed. classical poems through a lens so There is perhaps nowhere that thick, it frankly stops many people at this tension is better exemplified than the door of poetry. So we might in the work of Pierre Voélin. Maybe it’s approach this massive, ambitious and because Voélin hasn’t the harshness admirable volume of Pierre Voélin’s of some of his more noted contem- life’s work, translated vividly by John poraries, or the vivid idiosyncrasy. He Taylor, with a great appreciation that is is instead controlled, elegant, insight- perhaps qualified with a temporal ful, cautious, concentrated. This footnote. This is often graceful, deeply extensive collection of his work in felt poetry but it seems from a different English is therefore, and without time. This is a compliment in many doubt, a considerable addition to the ways: people like to read of the past English reader’s awareness of a poet more than they like to read about it. It who represents more than the is axiomatic, of course, that the work aesthetic of the French-language comes from another time, but I mean Swiss poetic canon. He is a poet of this modally, stylistically, too. Voélin’s work and its like will never be able to

be written again. This powerful wadge Archive Author’s the From / Wikipedia © Voélin Pierre of poems from a lifetime writing, is maybe the last of its kind. The great twentieth-century poet and his remarkably consistent aesthetic is here in these pages. That is powerful, but the work is also littered with phraseology, vocabulary and gestures that feel perhaps a touch too rich. That said, post-war central European 58 59 (2011). Six Steven J. Fowler De l’air volé (Dalkey Archive, 2012). In 2016 he won Inevitably the works, drawn from were translated by John and Taylor published deserves one. Steven J Fowler is aworks in poet, poetry, fiction, theatre, writer video, photography, and artistvisual who art, sound art andfounder performance. and He curator is of The the director Enemies Project, of and Writers'European Poetry Centre Festival. Kingston and the throughout. eleven collections published between 1976 and 2015, contain withingreat them multiplicities incontent, terms Voélin’s of concernsas the he evolving ages.uniform. And Stylistically, yet Voélin thethe remains book feels same.empathetic, compassionate, Simple, curiously clear,personal, homely gestural, even. This,guaranteesthebookareadership,asit I hope, seems to be gestured towards (2010) and the essay collection Dans une prairie de fauche L’été sans visage ’s work is perhaps was born in Courgenay (Canton Jura), Switzerland. His most recent books include Voélin Perhaps this is his greatest Modern and Contemporary Swiss Poetry: An Anthology in the Priz Louise-Labé. Pierre Voélin the poetry collection poems from his sequence patient beyond my own reading,will who be rewarded with a depth that at the very surface, whichmany readers will and please become something of an inspiration. The other, those achievement – to be clearly a poet who can be understood on two levels: one subtler, more involved with anabsence, maybe active even, in stereotypical fashion, leaning towards Paul Claudel. without the bite or linguistic playmarks that the workMichaux. of Char, Celan or Bonnefoy, André Frénaud,Jaccottet, Gérard Philippe Macélanguage (all poets, French- all men) but perhaps but also quiteand consistently pleasing melancholy. conversation with Voélin poets such seems as Yves in elliptical gesture,patience, and of as such his body imagery ofis work decisively and poetic, in no way formal THREE POEMS BY PIERRE VOÉLIN TRANSLATED BY JOHN TAYLOR

Light – it has its whips – heron squawks falling and staining the day

and no one recognises his day in it

But may you come to hide in this voice among the flowering trees – the bare boulders and the trunks – the tongue of the lichens the coal in its hideaway

Towards the alpine pasture – higher up – blind the shot-off capercaillie’s head a billhook of blood flying veering over the trails

but may you come back – you – your hands and water for my mouth

You more humble – who used to listen to the word

*** On this May morning the poem awakes early among the flowers of the chestnut tree

very early – in the other season the snow guides it into the mountains

where the wind trims our lips again where our inspiration returns 60 61 If Night Pierre Voélin Into the Heart of and Translated by John Taylor please see Trafika Europe 11 Swiss – Delights: https://cld.bz/5mId9jo Paths to Contemporary French Literature y . has translated books by Jacques Dupin, Philippe Jaccottet, Pierre-Albert , published by The Bitter Oleander Press in 2012. He is also the author of the three- . European Poetry John Taylor Jourdan, José-Flore Tappy, andIs Louis Falling Calaferte. His latestvolume personal essay collection collection, is the father’s arms – scratched by the blackberries There is where the walls rose – and your house evening – at prayer in the secrecy of the lower branches Your sisters’ blood – the swan’s whiteness the imperfect iv and fear – the heart laid bare The lilacs – the hazels – the silver baskets the maple’s winged seeds raining down covering the paths *** and watch at night Orion the Hunter kneeling among the other stars forget that I am this man that you are this woman and where I also see your shoulders beneath the frost the crystals barely grazing you Published courtesy of Trafika Europe. For more contemporary Swiss literature in English translation, ws-rnhswiss-french THREE DROPS OF BLOOD AND A CLOUD OF COCAINE BY QUENTIN MOURON TRANSLATED BYW. DONALD WILSON (BITTER LEMON PRESS, 2017) REVIEWED BYDOUG JOHNSTONE reviews

Readers not familiar with crime fiction often wrongly assume that the only thing driving such stories forwards is answering the mystery of ‘whodunit’. In reality, good crime fiction can compel the reader to keep turning the pages in a myriad of ways, and the solving of a murder is often tangential to the core of the novel. Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of develops a keen interest in the new Cocaine is just such a book. The fourth crime. Franck is a coke-snorting, novel from the young Swiss-Canadian blustering sociopath – the yin to the author and the first to be translated sheriff’s yang. His lack of respect for into English, it demonstrates society’s mores is at the heart of a refreshing breadth of vision and Mouron’s book. a willingness to play with genre The author uses Franck’s conventions. There are elements of outrageousness to poke satirical fun satire, hefty doses of psychology and at Watertown’s population generally, philosophy, and even a splash of and at the hypocrisy of its chattering metafiction inThree Drops…, all set classes specifically. Through Franck’s within the framework of a terse, drug-fuelled proclamations about the tight plot and combined with some nature of human existence Mouron startling characterisation. raises questions about how society ThestorytakesplaceinWatertown, functions and examines the poten- just outside Boston, and does, in fact, tially broken links between morality start with a murder. Old Jimmy and legality. Henderson is found killed in his As the plot progresses, McCarthy pick-up truck, his eyes and cheeks arrests a prime suspect in the case – mutilated and his tongue cut out. Alexander Marshall, a low-life drug There appears to be no motivation for dealer and violent thug who was living the attack, and local sheriff, Paul with the deceased’s daughter. But McCarthy, who knew Henderson, Marshall’s guilt seems too convenient takes the case on with a world-weary to the sheriff, who seeks more meaning shrugatthedepravitythatsurroundshim. behind the crime. At the same time, Into the mix steps Franck (no Franck’s behaviour becomes ever surname is given), a private investigator more erratic and dangerous, and it from New York who happens to be in becomes clear that he and McCarthy town on another case and who are on a collision course. 62 63 , The Jump . and Doug Johnstone . He has written Crash Land , Fault Lines Towards the end of the novel, Au point d’effusion des égouts Doug Johnstone ismusician. He’s an had author, eightrecently novels journalist published, and most which was a finalist forScottish Crime the Novel of the McIlvanney Year. Prize for Franck’s proclamations become both metaphysical and metafictional, as heponders hisagency, own and the motivations startlingcerebralasitisdebauched.Wedofind climax and is as out whodunit, butscarcely matters by in what this isoriginal and a point impressive strange, addition to the it crime genre. Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine No – so much so that is a poet and a novelist. He was born in Lausanne and is Swiss and Canadian. Mouron has a lot of fun with this Quen�n Mouron In 2011 he wonthree the other Prix highly Alpes-Jura acclaimed for novels before his novel

is athat debt. sneaky acknowledgement of Chigurh in CormacCountry for McCarthy’s Old Men I suspect Mouron’s Sheriff McCarthy Franck owes much to the wonderfullysymbiotic relationship between Sheriff Ed Tom Bell and psychotic killer Anton double-handed senserelationship of between fate. McCarthy and The niMo n©Wiie a i cen1 oc Dic ia/ ikiped W © on r ou entinM u Q ws-rnhswiss-french IN PRAISE OF WEAKNESS BY ALEXANDRE JOLLIEN TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL ESKIN (UPPER WEST SIDE PHILOSOPHERS, INC., 2017) REVIEWED BYJONATHAN LEVI

Writing a memoir is a challenge. It becomes even more challenging if reviews you are unable to write or type easily, and dictation is hampered by unclear speech.

In late November 1975, Alexandre caregivers’ and teachers’ rigidity! Jollien was delivered by a midwife in Struggle – against medical diagnostics, the small town of Sierre, Switzerland. discouragement and the other kids’ ‘Turning one too many somersaults’ in cruel and hurtful taunts!’ his mother’s womb, Jollien got his Jollien’s ‘professional horizon’ neck entangled in his umbilical cord. was ‘rolling cigars’. And yet the An emergency trip to the hospital, camaraderie of struggle gave Jollien cardiopulmonary resuscitation and the determination, strength and ten days in intensive care saved his life humour to leave the institution. He but left him with cerebral palsy. ‘You entered a mainstream high school and are looking,’ he writes, ‘at the fallout.’ eventually the Université de Fribourg, Unable to walk steadily, control where he studied philosophy, and then his movements or speak intelligibly, he Trinity College, Dublin, where he met was sent to a nearby institution, his wife. A father of three children, he where he spent the next seventeen has received several awards from the years in the company of a hodgepodge Académie Française. of other boys with a vast spectrum of Jollien wrote hisIn Praise of physical and cognitive challenges. ‘Our Weakness in 1999 (it has only recently motto,’ he writes, ‘was:struggle with been translated into English by and against everything … in spite of our Michael Eskin) in the early flush of his enthusiasm for philosophy.Know thyself, the instruction written at the entrance the Temple at Delphi, became Jollien’s mantra – it was the driving force for Socrates in Plato’s Dialogues. And so, perhaps, it seemed reasonable for Jollien to write his book of self-knowledge in the form of

Alexandre Jollien © Raphaël Bourgeois a Platonic dialogue – a friendly chat between himself and Socrates. It’s a cute device. But Jollien’s interlocutor is more Sigmund than 64 65 .A Jonathan Levi – at the age , he currently lives and Granta A Guide for the Perplexed In Praise of Weakness and this final prop, trust his ownand bracing thoughts optimism, and walk free of the shadows of the cave. US-born Jonathan Levi is the authorSeptimania of the novels founding editor of teaches in Rome. has found the courage to throw away grew up in a home for the severely disabled. He , Jollien Alexandre Jollien In Praise of Weakness Myownhopeisthatinthetwenty . succeeded in completing secondary educationlater at and Trinity studied College, at Dublin. Heof the twenty-two, published and Université his has de first since Fribourg book established and himself as – a moral thinker and spiritual teacher. Born with cerebral palsy, years thatwriting have of passed since the book feels morephilosophy. like self-help than the device ashelp a him rhetorical write crutch hishumour to story and with hope. grace, As a result, the Socrates; anquestions rather than a questioner askerunexamined of assumptions. Jollien uses of leading RIVETING extracts

FROM HIVER À SOKCHO('Winter in Sokcho') BY ELISA SHUA DUSAPIN( ÉDITIONS ZOÉ, 2016)

Swiss French INTRODUCED AND TRANSLATED BY ANEESA ABBAS HIGGINS In the depths of winter, a guest arrives at a small hotel in Sokcho, a provincial seaside town in South Korea, not far from the border with North Korea. Old Park’s hotel has seen better days and attracts few guests, especially at this time of year. A young woman who works in the hotel wonders what has brought the latest guest to this remote spot. As she books the newcomer in and shows him round the premises, she finds herself drawn to him, perhaps because he comes from the land of the French father she’s never met.

He arrived muffled up in a woollen coat. He put his suitcase down at my feet and took off his knitted cap. Western face. Dark eyes. Hair combed to one side. He looked straight through me, without seeing me. With an air of lassitude, he asked me in Englishifhecouldstayforafewdayswhilehelookedaroundforsomething else.Igavehimaregistrationform.HehandedmehispassportsoIcouldfill in the form for him. Yan Kerrand, 1968, from Granville. A Frenchman. He seemed younger than in the photo, his cheeks less hollow. I held Guélat Romain © Dusapin Shua Elisa out my pencil for him to sign and he took a pen from his coat.WhileIwasbookinghim in, he pulled off his gloves, placed them on the counter, scrutinised the dust, the cat figurine on the wall above the computer. I felt 66 67 there a month. g and a girl of about my age, fleeing from the capital to recover from It was dark. We set off down a narrow alleyway past Mother Kim’s stall. Guests were few and far between at that time of year. A Japanese The computer froze. While it spluttered, I told the Frenchman what he There were two buildings. The first housed the reception, kitchen, mouth all the way down the street. Icelights. cracked We beneath crossed our a feet. second Pallid alleyway and neon came to the front porch. Her pork balls gave off an aroma of garlic and drains that lingered in the wife died last year, the hotelcleared had out been the rooms operating upstairs. What at with half my room strength. andwere Park taken. Park’s, The all had Frenchman the could sleep rooms in the annexe. climber plastic surgery to her face. She’d been there abouthad two just weeks, joined her her for boyfriend ten days. I’d put them all in the main house. Since Park’s recommended, for the snow. Bear in mind thatThere Sokcho wasn’t was much a to seaside do resort. in the winter. word, no capitals. Convenience storemetres open down twenty-four the hours road. Bus aNational stop day, Park, on one fifty hour the away, open left all day just until past sunset. A the good shop. pair of Seoraksan boots washed should be leftground in floor; the I’d machine take at care the of end the of laundry. the Wifi code: corridor ilovesokcho, on all the one kitchen adjoining the reception, through thefor sliding toast, glass butter, door. jam, No coffee, chargeextra, tea, put a orange thousand juice won and in milk. the Fruit basket on and top yogurt of the toaster. Items to be needed to know about the day-to-day running ofdid the this. hotel. Old He Park wasn’t usually there that day. Breakfast from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00, in the frozenfountain,abarechestnuttree.TherewasnomentionofOldPark’sinthe guide books. People washed upmuch to there drink by or missed chance, the when last they’d bus. had too a traditional house on stilts updated to make thetheir best heated of the floors two rooms and with paper dividing walls. An internal courtyard with a strings of blinking lights. From the boiler room, onbeach stretching clear all days, the I way could to see the the Ulsan mountains,sky ballooning like towards the a matronly bosom. The second building was down a few alleyways, lounge, and guest rooms incorridors, lit a by row, blueish light upstairs bulbs. and Old Parkafter down. hadn’t moved the Orange on war, from and the when green days guests were lured like squid to the nets, dazzled by ople,for thecompelled, first time, to for make excuses myself. for responsible wasn’t I statethe of run-down this I’donly place. been workin Kerrand slid the door open. Pink paint, plastic faux baroque mirror, swiss-french desk, purple bedspread. His head brushed the ceiling, from wall to bed was no more than two steps for him. I’d given him the smallest room, to save on cleaning. The communal bathroom was across the courtyard, but he wouldn’t get wet, there was a covered walkway all around the house. It didn’t bother him anyway. He peered at the blemishes in the wallpaper, put extracts down his case, handed me five thousand won. I tried to refuse it but he insisted, wearily.

Elisa Shua Dusapin Translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins This article was first published in the Autumn 2017 edition of Asymptote (www.asymptotejournal.com), a free award-winning online portal for world literature that has published work from a hundred languages and eighty countries.

Elisa Shua Dusapin was born in France and raised in Paris, Seoul, and Porrentruy, Switzer- land. Winter in Sokcho (‘Hiver à Sokcho’) is her first novel. Published in 2016 to wide acclaim, it was awarded the Prix Robert Walser and the Prix Régine Desforges, and has been translated into Korean, Spanish, and German.

Aneesa Abbas Higgins is a London-based translator and writer. Her first published translation, What Became of the White Savage by François Garde (Dedalus, 2015), was the winner of a PEN Translates award. 68 69 ) , 2016 THE PUBLISHER ÉDITIONS ZOÉ ( find the perfect path It all began with a bathy- coasts ofbeaches America of Brittany, free from ofobstacle, any the abyssalsubmarine canyon, volcano. or Still, the down here, because they neither cover it nor make up fluff. scaph. This submarine, designed for great depths,to was cross meant and the Atlanticfor Ocean FLIN’s longkilometres,noless–toreachthe body – 7,000 INTRODUCED BY AUDE SEIGNE (‘A Web as Wide as the World’) BY

UNE TOILE LARGE COMME LE MONDE he ocean. It is motionless, slender, and tubular; t FROM ALEXIS BERNAUT, TRANSLATED BY In the pitch blackness of the ocean depths, it takes these graceful flakes Let’s call it FLIN. The bottom of the ocean looks like snow, just like when the screens of

six months to sink towards the wire; but the analogy with the snow breaks fall from the surface. the old cathode ray-tube TV sets got scrambled. It’scrumbled both poetic bodies and of organic: fish and pulverised detritus from the whole wide world a lamp, between the socketa and wire, the really. computer’s input connection. It’s just What if the World Widefew Web were people to scattered disappear?generation This she around is depicts, the plays the secret oncondemning wish world. her of the characters’ a The contradictions. WWW Withoutdescribing author, ever or the herself its huge part users,a data she world of centres without makes the and the thewill internet, data be she virtual flow. nothing makes like world Playing it the real with old very one. obvious by the that idea this of new worldIt lies at thegray bottom – of or maybe black;we it’s have hard in to our tell living in rooms, the behind darkness. the It baseboards, looks between like a what wall and udeSege oan ́a élat u RomainG eigne© S e d Au 70 rnltdb lxsBernaut Alexis by Translated Seigne Aude htte hkdo hm hstriaigterteedu ie life tremendous their terminating big’ the eat don’t nonsense. thus small utter ‘the is saying them, the that show on to remains goes fact Which expectancy. choked The toys? it or they seaweed Was with that America. them mistake to floor? whales ocean the sperm Europe to up Did tied loosely link more then, solid to less were cables cables because undersea transatlantic first the deep. metres of 3,000 – edge waters black the in light at white bacteria of bioluminescent halo a tentacles, by octopus’s lit shines, shadows, scene whole the movie the Disney a – of of out straight baddie to ecosystem a like looks months it this that octopus take it. red devilish of skirt a will to part one monkfish a This and no eels be whale. almost forcing long sperm really a will is of there and body that decompose, conceive the animal to enormous as challenging an thing so such such actually of It’s death whale. the sperm of a of feasting body busy the lice, sea upon marine giant and crabs toad metre-wide with mix and documentary. a ocean an which continents two apart. set separated: had been it had mere but what peaceful, a and reunite was slim, deep, would It so to ever crossed. discreet, north be be would to from FLIN need. had Atlantic logical plates, the continental both crossing bonding backbone south, a like ridge, mid-Atlantic . abroad. and France in reviews in published and Korean, and translated Hebrew, been English, has poetry into own His Lovelace. Earl Trinidadian novelist and Hamill Sam poet translator and Poet nomade Seigne Aude o eae,semwae aebe itm fFI’ netr,te the ancestors, FLIN’s of victims been have whales sperm decades, For legs repulsive of in wisps are sees which only arthropods, one feeds snow creatures marine of The kind the dwell FLIN of vicinity the In wonthe2011NicolasBouvierAwardinSaint-Malo(FestivalÉtonnantsVoyageurs). saFec-paigSisnvls.Hrfrtnvl novel, first Her novelist. Swiss French-speaking a is lxsBrat Bernaut Alexis a oni ai.H a rnltdteper fU US of poetry the translated has He Paris. in born was hnst apr rmhl uh such – hell from vampire a to Thanks

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ws-rnhextracts swiss-french 71 ) , 2017 THE PUBLISHER ÉDITIONS ZOÉ ( INTRODUCED BY

MONSIEUR AND MADAME RIVAZ CATHERINE LOVEY FROM BY ROMY FURSLAND, TRANSLATED BY ‘Well, in that case, you’ll get to have a little look at the mountains,’ Juste look up what aconcluded that mirabelle I was had never andtree, eaten in find my a life. mirabelle, nor a picture set eyes of on one, a mirabelle and rapidly I she know I couldn’t tellimpressive mirabelle a tree – magnolia you couldn’t miss from it, she a said. I hydrangea. had to She go online mentioned to an seem to haveMonsieur Rivaz any had handed street mevarious over trees names. to and flowers his When to wife look and out we’d she’d for, to told talked help me me about on find way: my the little did phone, Rivaz had said, with amusement in his voice. I had trouble locating the couple’s house. The village where they lived didn’t mademoiselle, at our age.’But I’d refused, saying Dream Waterbe World very would unhappy if they knew I’d caused customers to be inconvenienced. why?’ Monsieur Rivaz had asked. ‘A complaintoffered about what?’) to the come couple to had L. themselves. ‘We’ve got plenty of time on our hands, Monsieur Rivaz had said on theand phone. see I’d them, had rather to than insist themeet that other them I way to should around. discuss come When the I’d complaint asked their if son I had could made (‘A complaint? But winding road that led to Monsieur andfrom Madame the Rivaz’s winter house cold, had and suffered new scarshadn’t had been been added repaired to all after the old the ones last that frost. ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’ ruined The air was mild, the light almost tender: it was a beautiful May day. The A young woman, aafter tour they announce guide politely oncruise that a their they cruise son would has ship, ‘prefer bookedfashioned not befriends for to’ them. modesty an go They’d elderly creates rather on couple gocouple’s a the to kindness, luxury turning see generosity a point and film.cling in This appreciation on old- the of to young her simple own pleasures woman’s humanity help life. in her the The face of the demands ofWe’re modern surrounded life. by beautiful things, but most of them have been Catherine Lovey © Giuseppe Pocetti swiss-frenchextracts ‘Our son Jonas is in a bit of a tizzy about it, you know what kids are ‘Of course it was our decision ‘We grow edelweiss too, but you can’t make tea with that,’ added Juste Juste and Hermine were standing side by side waiting for me outside

Madame Rivaz. like, but we’ve told him we’re going to sort everything out,’ added not to go onhis the voice. ‘I can’t cruise,’ understand why said they’re giving you Juste grief aboutelle it, Rivaz – mademois- after firmly, all, it’s up to us a hint whether we of want to go indignation on holiday in or not!’ because she was suffering frombad a back. about to layemployee off of their twelve dedicated years’ ing, stand- my friend Laetitia Lang, renew my temporary contract for three short weeks,citing and which budget – constraints – was aiding andcompanywhichhadonlyseenfitto abetting a travel day before. ‘Don’t leave untilhe’d you’ve insisted. got By signatures getting offsign them those two the to idiots,’ declaration I would be I’d driven for almost two hours toa get these declaration kind, of welcoming people liability, to just signBerg to who’d save called Alexis them Berg’s idiots skin when – I’d the spoken same to Alexis him on the phone the the oven, and an apple tart more beautifulfancy than patisserie. anything I you looked might from find the in delicacies a back on the again, table to several the times, couple and and I felt like a Mata Hari of the basest kind. Rivaz, and I noted with surprise that edelweiss mustOn actually the be table a there real was plant. also a plaited brioche loaf, fresh and glistening from tea, showing me the glass jars filled withall dried from leaves the that same I’d plant. assumed were already laid, with a cafetièrealways taking coffee pride in of this place house,though day in she or the were night,’ describing middle. Hermine some ‘There’s Rivaz law of informed fate. me, She as also offered me a herbal their front door. They weren’t armsomehow in to arm this be time, holding but each they still other seemed up. Inside the house the table was 72 73 . . (2008), Catherine Lovey Translated by Romy Fursland (2016). Die neuen Leiden des jungen W Cinq vivants pour un seul mort Monsieur et Madame Rivaz (2005), followed by (2010) and comes from the canton of Valais. She studied international relations and is a translator of drama, poetry and prose from German and French. After L’Homme interdit ‘Do tuck in,’ said Monsieur Rivaz. ‘You’re so pale, anyone would‘Was it think pretty, at least?’ asked Hermine. I said it wasn’t. They seemed disappointed. at the University of(‘The East New Anglia. Sorrows Her of Young translations W.’) by include Ulrich Plenzdorf. Romy Fursland studying modern languages at Oxford University, she took her MA in Literary Translation criminology before becoming afirst journalist, novel writing was on economic andUn roman financial russe affairs. et Her drôle Catherine Lovey there’d been no sunshine in the Mediterranean.’ fEature Swiss

AT HOME ABROAD - ATTEMPTS AT INTEGRATION BY MELINDA NADJ ABONJI Extracts from her keynote speech at the Leipzig Book Fair 2018 Translated by MAX EASTERMAN YOU’RE A TREE – SO WHERE ARE YOU FROM? My kindergarten teacher was a kindly soul: one day, she dressed me up as a tree, with brown trousers, a dark-green felt hat on my head and, if I remember, she also put green greasepaint on my face. The reason was that I had a part to play inSnow White: I was a fir tree. There I stood, eyeing up the dwarfs who I am sure was trying to achieve and, of course, the pretty girl playing the exact opposite. Snow White; but what else could I have been other than a fir tree, given I’m pretty sure that when I was five thatIspokenotawordofGerman,but years old, I had just one burning ‘only’ Hungarian. My teacher was desire, and that was to be the same as trying to integrate me into the play, as everyone else. I didn’t have to be we would say today, but what about Snow White, but if I could at least me? I felt humiliated by my costume, be a dwarf? Moreover, in no way was embarrassed because I couldn’t say I going to be seen in a white blouse anything, ashamed that all I could do with an embroidered collar and sleeves. was stand there, for what seemed at So I refused to wear traditional folk the time like an eternity. But what I did costume, not just because the other realise was that I was not the same as children didn’t wear clothes like that Snow White and the dwarfs. I can’t (and I may have realised this already in remember if there were other trees, kindergarten, even though wearing just that I was a tree, and that this the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ clothes wasn’t story, which is now almost no more yet a factor in our juvenile rule book), than a jokey little anecdote, is my first but also because I could see just how memory of feeling excluded, and that, much that outfit meant to my parents. ironically, that sense of exclusion Back then, I could not have put arose from the action of a teacher, this into words, but even so, I knew 74 75 – nor puszta puszta Melinda Nadj Abonji Translated by Max Easterman Originally I came from a tiny, My point is this: asking someone where I came from originally. you originally come from?’ white house withcourtyard, a a henhouse and loft, adung pigsty, an heap a and inside aare garden. closely and My inextricably origins boundwith up myI grandmother, went to join andland, my I parents didn’t leave when in Serbia or Switzer- my village,Zenta, I lefthouse and my her way grandmother,correct of answer life. her to That’s the the question as to which country they come from isoften very aasking paternalistic the act. questionthe The is one answering, one pigeonholing assigning themthat to country, so that there’sfor no room detailedideas are simplified, and distinctions, trigger a word is complex enoughpreconceptions. Ifquestion I to ‘where answered are you‘from the confirm Zurich, from?’ District with 4’, they’d usually laugh and their retort, ‘OK, but where do recognised myassumed broad there was cheekbones, firetalked in animatedly my about blood, thethe Hungarian steppebut – pointedly charmingly ignoringI the knew fact nothing that aboutindeed the about theBudapest, and were thermal deaf to my baths explan- ation in that the CommunistHungary regime was in hardlythe socialist comparable regime in Yugoslavia. to interlocutor’s expression relax as they –and Crowds and Power carnival in Switzerland, it When I finally began to be more Later on, questions like ‘where are words ‘Hungary’mother and tongue’, I ‘Hungarian would see my Sinti, Roma, Germans, Bulgars, as well as Hungarians, which was mynationality; family’s when I uttered the key a whole raft of different ethnic groups, including Serbs,Ruthenes, Romanians, Bunjevci, Šokci, Slovaks, Croats, came from the Voivodina, and that this area, which was known asbasket the of bread- Serbia, was populated by where I came from: from Yugoslavia? precise about my origins, that I in fact Elias Canetti’s I oftenpeople’s saw faces the when I astonishment had on revealed questions about namejust or the origin beginning of are anwas interrogation something I learned after reading the result of someone seeing my name written down, or whensomeone I my had to surname. tell That such you from?’ hadeffectonme.Thequestionwasusually a similar, alienating old woman with a feather duster.when And my mother asked me whomeant I to be, was I just shrugged. costume: I stuffedunderalong,redgown,putacrownon a hugemy cushion head and disguised myself as an why, whenFasching I celebratedmade me uneasy. So my I made up my first own both were the resultmake of an ‘something’ effortI out to didn’t want of to be. me Perhaps that was that very well that theredistinction was between hardly anya being tree and cast a Hungarian as peasant girl: Swissitalian

FIFTY YEARS OF SWISS-ITALIAN LITERATURE BY VANNI BIANCONI

Much of what poetry is about occurs on the border – where the written words meet the white of the page. This may be one of the reasons why so much poetry is written in provincial areas and border regions. Italian-speaking Switzerland – the canton of Ticino and part of Graubünden – once played an important role in connecting and separating the Germanic and Latin, as well as the Catholic and Protestant worlds. In Ticino’s capital, Bellinzona (its folk etymology derives from ‘war zone’), a wall connecting several castles once enclosed the whole valley, to restrict movements from the north.

Poetry is definitely the leading genre both the strict and metaphorical in Italian-speaking Switzerland, both senses) and poetry itself. in qualitative and quantitative terms. Bellinzona was home to Giorgio It’s best poets have all operated some Orelli(1921–2013),aSwisspoetwho, sort of connection with other like no other, brought the Italian languages and regions; and while literary tradition into the Ticino that’s probably true of every good landscape, and vice versa. One of the poet anywhere, here it is perhaps best poets of his generation, Orelli more obvious, but also more inevit- bypassed the more hermetic ‘linea able, probably because it’s an area of lombarda’, developing a poetry of the just 366,000 inhabitants, with differ- object, made of observations, asides ent cultures on each side. So and anecdotes,all spun into the most inevitable in fact, that the region captivating phono-symbolic cobweb. seems to define itself according to Sitting silently on his sofa, generations opposites: very Italian in the other of younger poets have journeyed, poem Swiss areas; rather German in Italy, by poem, through world literature, etc. This is in fact a productive following the particular group of letters condition, in terms of translation (in that happened to stimulate his ear. 76 77 La carta is one of the Bocksten (‘The Map of The Oranges’), I’d like to mention several other Now, back to poetry. The writer (b.1954), Priscawho Agustoni writes in (b.1975, Italianand and Portuguese a fewJurissevich other languages), Elena (b.1976), Pietro challenges the most repetitive rhythms while addressing, in his longpoems, narrative unsettling socialMassimo Gezzi (b.1976), the sober and conditions; offspringfull-bodied of the finest Italian andtradition; Laura (b.1985), Accerboni and her short, sharp shards of poems. poets, but can’tnaming even them get all:Beltrametti close beat to poet (1937–1995),Buletti Franco (b.1946), Aurelio Massimo Daviddi Philippe Jaccottet, who he translated. Pietro De Marchi (b.1958), even more influenced by Orelli’s poetry thanothers, the seems tomaturity with his have recent book, reached delle arance full which won the Gottfried Keller Prize in 2017. De Marchi was born in Italymoved and to Switzerland assome an of adult, the as most interestingpoets younger haveAlborghetti (b.1970), also who constantly done: Fabiano Robert Walser. who followsfootsteps, both in in termsyounger Giorgio of inspiring writers Orelli’soutstanding poetry, is and Fabio(b.1957). Pusterla His of best writing poetry books written in Italianthe in twentieth century. Aside from thestrong relationship with the Italian tra- dition, Pusterla is influenced by poetry in that particularly French, of Swiss poet philosophy of language, magic and ), Genealogico Albero Il fondo del sacco Two special prose writers are Within our fifty-year timespan, Giorgio’s cousin, Giovanni Orelli simultaneously manages to create dia- logues with photography, the miracles to bringto German Italy; and Matteo literature Terzaghi (b.1970), who in short prose works Enrico Filippiniwith (1932–1988), his work who as journalist,translator publisher, and novelist, performed cavemen’. That woman, by themy way, great-great-aunt. is my mother’s childhood fromage her old isbetween wider her than as a the child distance and the (1969) by Piero Bianconi (1899–1984), which opensstatement: ‘the with distance separating the striking forget: the novel(1970) by Plinio Martini (1923–1979 andthenarrativeessay two seminal booksboth addressing were the deep rural published, misery that Ticino was only just starting to Extracts from some of theseread in you this magazine. can Virginia Helbling (b.1974), TommasoSoldini (b.1976),(b.1977) and Andrea Fazioli Oliver (b.1978). Scharpf Anna Ruchat (b.1959), Erminio Ferrari (b.1959), Pierre Lepori (b.1968,writes who in both Italian and French), mention are: AnnaFleur Felder Jaeggy (b.1940), (b.1937), Alberto(b.1940), Nessi Paolo Di Stefano (b.1956), and translator (of Emily Dickinson,the in darkBedretto). syllabic Other patois authors we of must Valle (1928–2016), was one of the region’sfinest authors, besides being a poet Montorfani (b.1980), Daniele created in Ticino. It publishes texts in Bernardi (b.1981), Yari Bernasconi every language and alphabet, and (b.1982), Andrea Bianchetti (b.1984) translates them into any and every and slam poet Marko Miladinovich other language. You can find it here: (b.1988). www.specimen.press. Many other factors, such as time and the important demographic Vanni Bianconi changes created by the most recent migrations to Switzerland, mostly Vanni Bianconi was born in Locarno and now lives from the Horn of Africa and Syria, will in London. He has published four poetry collections soon add to this list, as did the influxes in Italian and one prose book in English,London as from Italy and the Balkans. As I have a Second Language. He’s the founder and artistic tried to suggest, the literature of this director of Babel, festival of literature and region is strongly informed by its translation, and of the multilingual web-magazine linguistic hospitality. www.specimen.press. The latest experiment in this direction is an online magazine called Specimen which I and colleagues just 78 79 Fleur Jaeggy © Basso Cannarsa ,

Swiss Italian ,a TESS LEWIS FLEUR JAEGGY FLEUR JAEGGY Three Possible Lives BY BY reviews I am the Brother of XX REVIEWED BY (AND OTHER STORIES, 2017) (AND OTHER STORIES, 2018) Death is an overt presence in all people accessphotographs their and paintings. dead through but two of these stories. Jaeggy’s destruction.’ Equally grim tales follow. Works of art arethe gateways real between andare the released imagined: fromlikenesses, nymphs their terra to cotta their distress, and ETING GINI ALHADEFF Roberto V , translated RI

I AM THE BROTHER OF XX MINNA ZALLMAN PROCTOR TRANSLATED BY

THREE POSSIBLE LIVES: ESSAYS with her husband, Bronx’,the narrator sits in a res- I am the Brother of XX TRANSLATED BY down theadoptive house of mother:narrator her pithily ‘Creation,’ indulgent notes, ‘is the a form of she communes with a fish thatto is soon become someone’s dinner. InHeir’, ‘The a ten-year-old orphan burns taurant Calasso, and their friend Oliver Sacks, but instead of joining the conversation, and imagined figures. In ‘An Encounter in the iheqiiepeiinby precision with Gini exquisite Alhadeff, of portraits deftly real sketched contains coldcomfort.Excessisruthlesslycutaway, yetherpithysentencesareeminentlysug- gestiveintheirverybrevity. ngitlkctesHretneaeandglintslikecutgems.Hersentencesare hard as diamond and smooth asThey offer the and reader little purchase glass. nhstook,agysrsgem Inthesetwobooks,Jaeggy’sprosegleams delectable distillations ofregrettably under-recognised Thomas French Symbolist De Marcel Schwob. Quincey, John Keats, and the doled out in slim portions.up The publisher a New Directions veritable recentlymedley feast served of with two twenty-one collections: bite-sized stories; and Fleur Jaeggy hasfour been writing decades. concise, Her unsettling haunting works prose of is fiction all for the more addictive for being close friend Ingeborg Bachmann Jaeggy then unexpectedly juxtaposes appears only twice but can be seen as with this a picture of Keats as the collection’s presiding spirit. The a belligerent and combative schoolboy. subtle influence of Bachmann’s His metaphysical awakening, we unflinching cycle of novels,Todesarten understand all the more forcefully, will (‘Ways of Dying’), can be traced come later. through these stories in the frigid light We see Thomas De Quincey taking they shed on the psychological and leave of his youth ‘like a caliph takes physical violence human beings leave of his rosebuds’, struggling with perpetrate on themselves and on dyspepsia, and indulging in laudanum, all those close to them and themselves. the while wrapping ‘his words in smoke, Three Possible Lives, elegantly chains, links, captivity, bondage’. translated by Minna Zallman Proctor, The piece on Marcel Schwob is bears the somewhat wry subtitle of a masterwork of concision. In less than ‘essays’, for these three portraits are ten pages, Jaeggy captures the essence rather exercises in biography-as- of a man known as both the Great Sheik kaleidoscope. While these essays follow of Knowledge and Grimoires, by the the general arc of their subjects’ lives – eminent Orientalist Claude Mardrus, from birth through childhood, adult- and Pookiewooky, by his consumptive hood, and death – they advance through working-class lover, Louise. aclusteringoffacts,images,peculiarities, The foreboding atmosphere that impressions and anecdotes, which seem pervades these two books, with to shift and refract as they accumulate, their undercurrents of despair and offering new perspectives on, and ofloss–bothexperiencedandanticipated insights into, these writers. The essay on – along with the omnipresent momento John Keats, for example, opens with the mori, is, however, far from morbid. Para- observation that ‘in 1803, the guillotine doxically,this atmosphere, leavened as it was a common children’s toy’. Jaeggy is with by subtle gallows humour, then reflects on the possible influence imbues these volumes with a sense of of toys on character, and the meta- lightness and urgency, and sparks physical difference between a tiny a desire to understand more fully the guillotine and war, concluding that brief time allotted to each of us. Death, ‘children are metaphysical creatures, afterall,bothconcentratesthemindand a gift they lose too early, sometimes at is the mother of beauty. the very moment they begin to talk’. Tess Lewis

Fleur Jaeggy is a true original of European writing and has been translated into more than twenty languages. The Times Literary Supplement named Proleterka as the 2017 Best Book of the Year, and her Sweet Days of Discipline won the Premio Bagutta and the Premio Speciale Rapallo. 80 81 Pierre Lepori © Yvonne Boehler ANNA BLASIAK PIERRE LEPORI BY (SPUYTEN DUYVIL, 2017) REVIEWED BY almost as ifstretches Lepori of focuses silencebeing on between words said the anddirecting things our being done, attention to the something grounding, perhapssomething even that cansuch issues. help Which doesn’t deal meanthe that suffering with behind those incidents is any less apparent, or that theis tragedy less sizeable.painted with It’s a more just subdued,pastel-like almost that it techniquescreaming is expressionist colours. instead It’s of PETER VALENTE closets

WHATEVER THE NAME White bread, was now salt, once and for all. TRANSLATED BY thrown in the sand. (‘There are wounds known as chimney-smoke, and the imagined: nymphs Everything was given to us would never give birth to speech. was in fact the cause of my despair. clothes carefully tucked away in the What I admire about this book is Henceforth what was known as rain, for the summer months, the mothballs the smoke rising from the sleepy village, But the cry that arose from the stomach become almost scalding, transformative, but also dreamy. hatred do not breedLepori children’). strengthen Together, each the other, quiet to images the created by point at which their power can stripped of anything surplus.experiencing And its only richness. whenmorsel Occasionally you popping do on you that, your can do tongue taste you (‘Rotting meat start a of small refusal’ lyrical or ‘Roots of poetry and about thehushed character(s) – he you really creates. need Theadjust to voice be to he free of writes the any in distractions is to seemingly tune into plain it, to language and pace, to the language There is something delicate and extremely fragile about Pierre Lepori’s the fabric of life.archetypal There is something about these poems, with no name’), insuggests, a without way that justifying almost them,course, that of they are a regular part of the fact that the painful and traumaticissues discussed are presented without the usual drama ws-tla swiss-italian negative, the reverse of events, as if work that went into simmering those he believes in silence: ‘Silence is your poems down to their complete and heart of wind and your childhood absolute essence. As he says in the home’. And somehow he allows the note closing the book, his ‘goal – private pain to distil over time intonon- certainly too ambitious – had been to personal history, into pure archetypes. start medicating the language. This reviews is the reason for certain purely That silence of descriptive inserts (though not devoid the countryside asleep in the sun, of affection), in a book born as a path no longer any omission or guilt towards the re-appropriation of for not having spoken: instead there language.’ will be Thereisnodoubtthathesuccess- a fire in which nothing burns, crying for fully achieves his goal. rest. Anna Blasiak Pierre Lepori had been writing for years before he decided he was ready AnnaBlasiakisanarthistorian,poetandtranslator. to publish, before he felt ready to call She runs the European Literature Network with himself a poet. And that comes across Rosie Goldsmith. She has worked in museums and very strongly in this, his first volume. a radio station and written on art, film and theatre. The reader can almost sense all the

Pierre Lepori is a writer and translator,and a journalist for the Swiss public radio network. His works includetheprize-winningQualunquesiailnome,Stradebianche (2011),andthreenovels:Grisù (2007), Sexualité (2010) and Come cani. He’s founder of Hétérographe, revue des homolittératures ou pas,a queer literary review, and directs the company Théâtre Tome Trois. 82 83 y (1994). – the sense of LAUREN BENNETT FABIO PUSTERLA BY (ARC PUBLICATIONS, 2012) – of light and dark, of Things With No Past REVIEWED BY Simon Knight skilfully translates It is precisely this mixture of that inspired his poetry, is evident; foreven in ‘the more difficultas passages’ – Knightpreface refers to the to book them in his conjured up when thea speaker radio report hears of a little girl crusheda by tank in Gaza. This pairing ofand violence innocenceimpression on leaves the reader and a leads usto reflect, profound with great a on the deal destructive of world alarm, our may children one day have to face. the Italian text intowork, English, securing from and Pusterla hisunderstanding a of lucid the circumstances book, contrasts harshness andmakes tenderness Pusterla’s poetry so –One resonant. poem that that for me is apowerful particularly example of this juxtaposition is ‘Firstmemory of Strawberries’. a littleclimb A girl pretending her to wistful Everest in own a meadowenchanted miniature by the full wonder of of Mount nature, is daisies, the poems taken from Pusterla’s third SIMON KNIGHT focuses TRANSLATED BY

DAYS FULL OF CAVES & TIGERS he poetry of the poet Swiss-Italian Fabio Pusterla has a Alpine distinctively momentarily, are mirrored bydepicting scenes childhood tender and family that memories appear in of instances, whenthreat nature’s is inherentundeniable overshadowed beauty, even by if its only the concise ‘On Tiny Wings’,mirth in and which joy stillup manage to through bubble murky waters. These morose or despairing. Throughout the collection are unexpected moments of grace, as described in poems such as sensitive to thebleak battle waged endless between humanity andand often nature, his work is never overly this serenity is beingrampant trampled on by consumerismlessness. However, and while the poet care- is a deep appreciation of the tranquillityand contentment that can be foundnature in with an underlying anxiety that trunks’. There is amentalist distinctly environ- streakPusterla’s running poems: through they combine on images ofslicks’ ‘black soil’, and ‘viscous oil ‘frost that cleaves tree This is nature poetryfrom a million clichéd miles flowery fields. Pusterla depictions instead of idyllic, humankind feature prominently in poses isenvironment Pusterla’s coupled with work, the much greater threat that and environment the andfaces from negligence ignorance. humanity’s danger the touch to it; his work feelswhere the highlight rugged well landscapes unforgiving and fragility suited to vulnerabilit the of environment of the birds High and Alps, animals struggling to survive. between Interactions nature and T ws-tla swiss-italian earnestness and urgency still shines adversity, the armadillo coming to through. The introduction by Alan symbolise a kind of undeterred Brownjohn also provides enlightening rebellion as he marches on, never commentary onPusterla’s poetry and becoming panicked or losing courage. further enhances the reader’s experience reviews ofhiswork. Lauren Benne� Ultimately the collection ends on a hopeful note, with the extended Lauren Bennett is an undergraduate student of satireStories of the Armadillo, which English and Comparative Literature. One of her explores the importance of resistance main areas of interest is poetry in translation. and persistence in the face of

Fabio Pusterla is a poet, translator, essayist and scholar. For his work, translated into many European languages, he has been awarded the Premio Montale, the Schiller Prize, the Premio Dessì and the Premio Lionello Fiumi, the Premio Prezzolini for translation, the Premio Marazza and the Gottfried Keller Prize.

Congedo

Fly gentle severus Albus / Wikipedia © Pusterla Fabio dragonfly hasten skim through the rain clouds of those who despair most and have no voice, bring fast into view your azure, capture our eyes and our wonder. Deep amid lost lives in furrows’ black depths weave your luminous spindle, lay down the emerald of a hypothesis, of a wing.

Then, touch every thing From: Argéman by Fabio Pusterla spell its name Translated by Vanni Bianconi make it true. (Marcos y Marcos, 2015) 84 85 Elvira Dones © Elvira Dones AINA MARTI ELVIRA DONES BY REVIEWED BY (AND OTHER STORIES, 2014) own, as Virginiaone really Woolf cares: she did, must conformWestern but to standards. no are as normal as possible’.he Mark finds hassociety, in which flown women lack freedom, fromto another one in whichfreedom a structured the is sense overshadowed of by notionsof normality: ‘all she hasinto to a do woman, is for turn realto […] do All is she has getown. a All job she has and to a doAll is room to of she be normal. her hasmight not to wish to do have a room is of her forget’. Hana el the tells of story student a Hana, university SWORN VIRGIN CLARISSA BOTSFORD wr Virgin Sworn TRANSLATED BY Dones’ book makes clever use of lainlglcd salse nteffenhcnuy hc uvvduntil the which survived in century, the legal code fifteenth established Albanian century. twentieth late eoe sonvri’–mkn not ormi ignad‘eoe a – an man a and to oath ‘become’ making a virgin’ remain virgin ‘sworn becomes of an experience by attemp- Hana’s is reinforced – suggests, the novel a decision, an the with ancient Kanun, engages thus The novel alone. travelling ted while rape 90 and1990s 2000s, early fromthenorthernmountainsofAlbania.Inthisregionawomanisnotpermittedto by a she which through and tradition live alone, can Hanna marriage only escape lvaDones leads theElivra into reader a to world unknown many, yet real. Set in the because Mark wants[employers] a want job is and employees who ‘all the USA. All Jonida wantsto is for Mark turn,‘a not normal woman as into soon as Hana, possible’, but into does it mean toJonida be normal? Through theacceptedversionsofsexandgenderin novel questions the and identity arewithin therefore the explored frame ofurgently a feels question he Mark must answer: what a mother. Jonida’s missionMark, is to turn now a woman. thirty-four, Issues of back sexuality, gender into and the East. Leavingdecides to Albania, move Mark to thehas US, a cousin, where Jonida, he who is a wife and the Kanun, a specific Easterntradition, to Europe raise questions about sex, sexuality and gender in both the West gun, smokes and meets with the othermen of the village. Hana becomes Mark and lives alife. man’s Living on hishair, own, dresses Mark like cuts a man, his owns a shot- ws-tla swiss-italian The novel is therefore critical of normality. In the US, Hana can read both societies. And it is also extremely and write poetry, take decisions and differentiated and subtle in the way it smoke without forgetting who she approaches Mark’s transition back has been. into Hana. The Hana he once was is reviews lying, somewhere deep down in the Aina Mar� depths of the body; the process of bringing her back to the surface turns Aina Martí is Assistant Lecturer in Catalan at Kent out to be pleasing for Mark, as Hana University and Researcher at the TVcompany contemplates the possibility of living Bryncoed Productions. without conforming to her cousin’s

Born in Durres, Albania,Elvira Dones is a novelist, screenwriter and documentary film-maker currently dividing her time between the US, Switzerland and Albania. After seven novels in Albanian, she wrote the two most recent in Italian, her adopted language: Vergine giurata (‘Sworn Virgin’) andPiccola guerra perfetta (‘Small Perfect War’). A film adaptation ofSworn Virgin was released in 2015. 86 87 Swiss Italian )

’) Folgendes Folgendes

Liquid knew that demanded, in the – ‘what follows’ – rang, they would Folgendes SHAUN WHITESIDE

LIQUIDA (‘ Folgendes Folgendes Folgendes extracts (EDIZIONI OPERA NUOVA, 2017 – ‘what follows, let’s get to the FROM :Mr TRANSLATED BY Folgendes Folgendes ETING ANNA FELDER V BY knew that in the other town by the lake where I was RI Folgendes If Mr At home he was known as I always hear the hint of a greeting through his panting breaths, an varying intervals to realise that I am at homein as soon that as I greeting step into caught the street, in mid-air, if my dog-walking sooner or later, me yesterday by the river, you today in the street. born, in that town in Italian-speaking Switzerland, to which I return at tell me when I gotshivering, in home, the examination and of the conscience that dayparagraphs, paused the risk for assessments a and moment, the it disasters stiffened, which befall everyone point’ – immediatelyinsurance policy. itemising, point by point, the particulars of the is what hestanding would in for peremptorily surname and announce hello, on the telephone, obligatory beginning perhaps concludedthat beyond regular my opening footsteps, each and timeof we I the meet greetings bet he does delivered not in his mean working the life. old alittleberet,andIwonderwhetherhemightbetooengrossedinhiswalktorecognise me. The insurance broker inI the moved town to in decades German-speakingmeet ago him Switzerland retired walking that when his dog he by reached the that river, wearing age. overalls I and a sometimes balaclava or Enjoy the rest of your trip adoubleofhis,anaccompliceoracolleagueisalsogettingtothepointdown there, repeating and multiplying it in the byways of the town centre, walking, walkinginourfootstepsonbehalfofeveryone:thisotheronewithoutadog, in an overcoat and scarf or in a dark suit, he too a tireless master of the lake, of the lakeside walk and of Paradiso; never in a hurry, but not idling either, with a flat briefcase under his arm or a newspaper or even a baguette. Tall, chest and belly carried prominently, the head always held high to keep the glasses in place, it looks as if he can only see a great distance away, very far off on the horizon, misfortunes and catastrophes as far as the eye can see,folgendes , folgendes beyond the traffic lights, beyond Campione and the border. And in fact as soon as I pass him, having freshly arrived from the other side of the Gotthard, he is already anticipating my greeting, he is already dismissing me in a few words, looking at my absence, not at Cygnebleu / Wikipedia © Felder Anna all surprised by my presence. ‘Enjoy the rest of your trip’, he says all of a sudden without stopping, without a hello or any kind of preamble, ‘enjoytherestofyourtrip’,asheused to stay to my father and mother when they were still alive. ‘Enjoy the rest of your trip’, he says again when he bumps into me two hours later or even two years later, thus discounting the possibility, forever each time, that my next return or my next departure will ever occur.

Anna Felder Translated by Shaun Whiteside

Anna Felder was born in Lugano. She studied at the Faculty of Arts at Zurich University, where she specialised in Romance languages. After spending time in Paris, she gained her doctorate in Zurich. She taught French and Italian and is now a full-time writer. She is best . known for her novel La disdetta (‘The Cancellation’, 1974). 88 89 Tommaso Soldini © Edizioni Casagrande, Bellinzona ) ) Lato and at home we Tommaso Soldini ‘One by One’ ( and a front door ne by One. TOMMASO SOLDINI my window, stone-built BY (EDIZIONI CASAGRANDE, 2013 Ribelle di nemico privo and the novel O

UNO PER UNO Iconcentrate,Icanhearthescrapingof But I’m not mad. I have my of moments derangement. And I’m Swiss, insense that I the was born in the Mendrisio to bearea, oppos- Genestrerio precise, ite where the priest lived, on the other side of the I street. could see his house clearly from with green shutters that had a medieval look about it. If FROM ’nml guida, L’animale have not been able to If find the us. out you extract. contact please who know, translated The Team Riveter was born in Lugano, and teaches Italian at the Bellinzona Cantonal to In father. calling fact I also he thought was my dad, mother’s because , as well as a book of short stories, east Tommaso Soldini Commercial college. He has written two volumes of poetry: dtr'nt:Dsieour note: Despite best efforts, Editors' rnhwrrbweiwsieohra.hdd’pawtdlsSeintorinthewardrobewhenitwastimeforhernap.Shedidn’tplaywithdolls.Shedidn’t payattentionwhentheyreadherstories.Shedidn’tclearthetable.Butshesmoked cigarettesonthesly.MaryLongsfilchedfromgrandmother’spacket. laEns eiga,with cheesealla and They strong caciotta Ernest told Hemingway, swordfish. me so. She the hide under would bed had excessively beenmother a maybe child, lively With because she mother, had given herself to my In father. the end, gotmother of cancer my the it, to womb grand- We her. and, decided snuffing before forgive wentouttolunchatarestaurant,thethirdtimeIhadbeentoone,andIhadspaghetti shecalledhimfather,too.Butthen,whenIwastwelve,mymaternalgrandparents came from Zurich on a visit, and then I It understood. never My spoke of were parents angry. was dead; father’s mother’s the because grandparents. nl,gapn himankle, grasping as if he were the apple. But forbidden for many years I didn’t know I had a father. Orgot rather, used I thought my dad was Don Enrico, whom I’d attic there are of some photographs him as young man, wearing flared trousers, owlishglasses,apulloverthecolourofclotted-bloodoverrunwiththefirstlayerof pus. He was smoking a pipe in the company of my who mother, had him by the horses’ hoofs, the giggles of the ladies, the odour of rubbed their handkerchiefs over parts and their private at thrown the feet of one. Of that favoured night’s my father I have no They memories. tell me he lived with us, for a few In months. the ws-tla swiss-italian FROM UFFIZIO PROIEZIONI LUMINOSE (‘The Light Projection Office’) BY MATTEO TERZAGHI (QUODLIBET, 2013) TRANSLATED BY ALTA L. PRICE

Therewasawell-knownbookofscienceexperimentsforkidswithachapter extracts titled ‘Every Eye Has a Blind Spot’. It opened with a horizontal black rectangle framing two illustrations: one looked like a faraway full moon; the other was the head of a little girl. Like the moon, the girl’s head seemed to float in the night sky, and even though she was beheaded – or rather disembodied – she looked happy and beamed a mischievous smile. The caption told readers to cover their left eye, stare at the moon with their right eye, and slowly lean toward the page. It said the little girl would disappear, and that’s exactly what happened: she disappeared behind a dark veil, only to reappear as soon as you backed off. The book went on to say that, if you stood twenty-something yards away from someone, you could make the entire person disappear, even a grown-up, and that it was due to the head of the optic nerve. This spot – the optic disc – can’t detect light. At first I thought the magic of this exercise lay entirely in the possibility of making things and people disappear (an astronaut, I thought, could make the entireEarthdisappear).ButthenIrealisedthatthereallyinexplicablepart wasthat these objects and people – especially the girl in the black rectangle, on whom I’d developed a bit of a crush – reappeared or simply appeared to the viewer’s sense of sight, complete in their own recognisable forms. The ‘seeing spots’ struck me as even more remarkable than the ‘blind spots’. When I thought about animals that had no eyes, I felt sorry for them, and then

Matteo Terzaghi © From the Auhtor’s Archive I also felt sorry for trees and stones.

Ma�eo Terzaghi Translated by Alta L. Price

Ma�eo Terzaghi was born in Bellinzona. His latest publications are the collection of prose pieces Ufficio proiezioni luminose, his pamphlet on silence in literature La gag del cappello, and the chapbook Gotthard Super Express.

Alta L. Price runs a publishing consultancy specialised in literature and nonfiction texts. She translates from Italian and German into English, is currently vice president of the New York Circle of Translators, and is a member of the PEN Translation Committee. 90 91 Anna Ruchat © Germana Carbognani ANNA RUCHAT BY ROSEANNE ROGOSIN TRANSLATED BY

AUGUST SAINTS FROM of September This of madness his is kind – made up On Saint Bernard’s day he brought me a beautiful sunflower. ‘It’s Saint ‘It’s Saint today, and Bartholomew Saint Roch It’s tomorrow.’ eight o’clock, last year, when he bumped in into living the the people old the under house one of before and are now uttered with childish ‘It’s seemsopenness. Saint today,’he Tecla to have said at the end of flowers, fruit and of vegetables, words which had never come out of his mouth the world and is even to ablethanks saints. the calendar to master it a renowned architect and very hard to he pleaseconcerned, as looks and run-down far happy, as low-key is stylishness like who someone has come to terms with Bernard today, Pius X He tomorrow’. doesn’t say ‘Saint Pius X’, just ‘Pius X’smiles as and a partner in crime. He still has really bushy and glowinghair,and grey even his though crew wife looks cut after him just as she did when before, he was often steals an iris or a or daffodil an orange reed, the who annoying neighbours plant them and dare don’t complain. like the ones that along grow the spontaneously Thank footpath. this goodness, means that today he hasn’t picked anything in the garden, vegetable where he and he must have already been by whenhandle, I earlier this came into the morning, half kitchen because an on hour ago, there was the a door yellow flower, aktlotonoikesadleodryruesscsncoe-o jacketalmostdowntohisknees,andbluecorduroytrousers,socksandclosed-toe shoes. He is still as tall as in the on hisoperation past, His heart. on drop loosely clothes but him. bent over and much thinner after the still in my and nightgown it’s barefoot, very hot these days, even here, in this old house just a few metres from hundred the lake. A end scorching of oddly August, so, after a cool and rainy month of July, but he is wearing a thick, heavy woollen rai akdby backed Croatia the NATO Storm rebels. against has its Serbian launched Operation today,and opened the Saint Roch‘It’s glass Saint tomorrow.’I door Bartholomew 4th 1995 August arbour,a friend and colleague of his in the old days. ‘Tecla that’s who’s got big tits,’ swiss-italian he added in his dialect with a dreamy look, and then continued his walk, dragging his feet on the grass, with his hands buckled behind his back. Who knows where Tecla’s big tits popped out from, who knows whose faces and bodies the saints’ names bring up from the depths of time. extracts

Anna Ruchat Translated by Roseanne Rogosin

Anna Ruchat was born in Zurich. She has translated a number of writers from German into Italian and has published novels, short stories, and poetry. She also teaches at the Municipal School for Interpreters and Translators in Milan. Since 2002 she has been in charge of the Foundation dedicated to the poet Franco Beltrametti. 92 93

Laura Acerboni © Edizioni Nottetempo From La parte dell’annegato

(Edizioni No�etempo, 2015) La and FOUR ITALIAN POETS BY Attorno a ciò che non è stato POEMS . She has won the Lerici Pea, Piero Alinari and Achille Marazza awards and has published two poetry collections: La parte dell’ annegato Laura Accerboni parte dell’annegato was one of the poets selectedShe for is the member Versopolis project, of promoted the by transnational the literary European agency, Linguafranca. Union. in the form of lullabies. to wash their hands and listen to the news the order ofand the discipline dead. Then they ran n ucl ahrdupand gathered their toys. quickly They their mothers showed is only home. a ransacked all the boys tallest Yesterday made starve their enemies what a mouth can do when to pushed extremes and that home a ransacked and began to chew. He showed his mother etra the boy tallest Yesterday put a stone hisbetween teeth rnltdby Tatge George translated From by Laura Acerboni ws-tla swiss-italian

Versant

by Vanni Bianconi Archive Author;s the From © Bianconi Vanni

translated by the author extracts

And there you are. Rain digs them and follows steep paths in rivulets, deer trails slope across. If lost, let the curving ones lead you, the unseen, stemmed by years of undergrowth. Tread them. Listen, your steps spell syllables, taste them they are brief,berries, Eiin aarne 2012) Casagrande, (Edizioni nouns. Shout if haunted by a name. rmFrom Over your shibboleths, lichens grow and turn them into REM dell’uomo passo Il but don’t be afraid, it’s only them, the Unspeakable remains so (yet if It stirs within the rock, timbers screech, the pasture strips bare).

From La Carta Delle Arance by Pietro de Marchi translated by Marco Sonzogni Eiin aarne 2017) Casagrande, (Edizioni

Orange Papers e con ardente affetto il sole aspetta From Dante, Par., XXIII 8 acradlearance delle carta La This tissue paper, multi-coloured, rustling between the fingers that smoothed it, stretched it carefully, especially at the corners, to erect before our eyes a fragile cylinder, 94 a flimsy tower and then to light it at its summit, with a match; and we who had waited intently to see it, this sun of Sicily printed on the paper, lifting off the dish with a slight shrug, then turning into trembling flight – but the higher it went, the more it burned, and, remaining an instant suspended in the air, look a piece of burnt up sun a fragment of the flaming tower falls back onto the ground: and then, while this confetti of Jaquemet Alexander © Marchi De Pietro scorched paper still floated about us, and even though no longer hungry I kept asking for another orange to peel, I was begging to do it again, to have another go, this playing with fire.

Pietro De Marchi was born in Italy and since 1984 has lived in Zurich, where he teaches Italian literature. He has published three collections of poetry, Parabole smorzate, Replica and La carta delle arance, and a book of short stories, Ritratti levati dall’ombra. His poetry is available in English in Here and not Elsewhere. Selected Poems 1990-2010. 95 ws-tla swiss-italian

Mulberries by Massimo Gezzi

translated by Damiano Abeni and Moira Egan extracts

You traced this simple gesture with your hand: you raised it to your face, you stretched it towards my window, while I was driving: I looked, and against the hazy morning light I counted them: eight, eight mulberries with outspread branches like the tail of a stuffed peacock, a procession along the line of our gaze, so perfect

that for a moment I forgot Vrljić Silvestar © Gezzi Massimo timetables and connections and I slowed down to comprehend howonecansayofeighttreesinarow ‘look, how beautiful!’,as you said, iftheyhavenotdecidedtobethatway, and everything’s just a chain of senseless alternation, orwhetheragestureofthehandanda smile are enough to make, out of eight trees in a row, an illusion of redemption.

. Massimo Gezzi was born in Sant’Elpidio a Mare. He has published three volumes of poetry: Il mare a destra, L’attimo dopo and Il numero dei vivi, and was awarded the Metauro, Marazza and Carducci prizes. He has also published Tra le pagine e il mondo, a collection of his reviews and interviews with various poets. 96 97 Gion Antoni stories praising the mountains, the In the decades following WWII, Giachen Caspar Muoth and Wood’ byPeiderLansel. ‘Tamagur Romansh literature enjoyed a second ature in the nineteenthwriting century. of The that period consistsof largely poetry and short the language,homeland, andstrength of the the Romansh community. freedomThe main aim was and to bolsterand the pride identity of theand Romansh the people, prestigePoems of typical their of‘A the language. Farmers period Freedom’ include by ‘ToHuonder, the People’ Romontsch by &Swiss religion and politics. The politicalcultural and pressure felt by allminority European groups duringnationalism the spurred risedevoted to of the a defence and revivalthe movement Romansh of identity. This resulted in the first golden age of Romansh liter- . RICO FRANC VALÄR, UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH BY s not until the A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF ROMANSH LITERATURE descriptions and dra-

for religious purposes, it was also hlwitnoaswsrmrl WhilewrittenRomanshwasprimarily

matic forms. Itnineteenth century wa that Romansh lit- erature began to abandon the fields of used for drafting statutes, legalpolitical texts, verse, patriotic songs, rhymed chronicles, travel grammars, vocabularies and literature. used today’s five different written regional traditions, all of which have their own which provided a vehicle for sectarian polemics. Early on,written varieties developed, several leading to regional a written form of thewas language, which first used forBible, and translations for or catechisms of psalms, and the proverbs, poems, legends andThis myths. changed with Humanism and theProtestant Reformation, which led to Before the sixteenth century, Romansh was mainly aculture, expressed in the spoken form of songs, language and programmes are broadcastare published in in Romansh; Romansh;create and newspapers Romansh a music, and theatre lively webpages and literature cultural scene live inschool the classes cantonof are the taught of high-school in Graubünden. and Romansh, In university and curriculum. Romansh-speaking the Radio language areas, and is television part Romansh is Switzerland’s fourthFrench national and language, alongside Italian. German, Most of the roughly 60,000 Romansh speakers oas dialects Romansh heyday. The growing risk that Romansh questions, such as ecology, individual would become extinct, despite the liberty, gender and sexuality; it increasing legal and cultural acknow- eschews idyllic visions and instead ledgement of the language, spurred voices controversial appreciations of a new generation to write in Romansh, Alpine society and realities. There has inspired in partby modern literary also been a marked interest in movements in Europe. The literature of linguistic experimentation, language this generation reflects a desire to hybridisation and spoken word break throughcultural and literary performance. Poetry remains a very boundaries, and to promote the productive field in contemporary language and its relevance to native Romansh literature. A new trend in speakers. Romansh authors began to publishing – an attempt to reach write as chroniclers of their times: broader audiences – is bi- or multi- their short stories and novels depict lingual editions (mainly combining the whirlwind of changes brought by Romansh and German) and the modern world to remote mountain translations into other languages communities. It is also during this time (mainly German, French and Italian, thatpoetssearchedfornewformsand and occasionally English). new modes of expression and embracing Renowned living Romansh modern trends, including surrealism, authors, who are both translated and symbolism, expressionism, subjectivity, public figures, include: Leo Tuor, Leta intertextuality and metapoetry. Semadeni, Arno Camenisch, Dumenic Partial translations of the major Andry, Rut Plouda and Jessica Zuan. works from the sixteenth century up Dalkey Archive Press publishes to the 1970s are available in English English translations of Romansh thanks to two anthologies:The Curly- literature, for example the anthology Horned Cow (by Reto Bezzola, Owen Modern and Contemporary Swiss Poetry Editions, 1971) andRomontsch (by by Luzius Keller,and Donal McLaughlin’s Douglas Gregor, Oleander Press, 1982). translations of Arno Camenisch’s trilogy: Thebest-known Romanshworkworldwide, The Alp, Behind the Station and Last Last however, is the children’s book:A Bell Orders (included in this magazine). for Ursli by Selina Chönz, illustrated by Romansh artist Alois Carigiet. It was Rico Franc Valär first published in 1945 and became an international bestseller. It has been Rico Franc Valär is Professor of Romansh Literature translated into nine languages, and Culture at the University of Zurich. He has including German, French, English, researched the history, cultural backgrounds and Dutch, Japanese and Afrikaans. literature of the Romansh language and heritage Since the 1980s, Romansh literat- movement and independence movements of ure has addressed new topics and minority Romance languages in Europe. 98 99 Romansh&Dialects ) appeared in Blösch ALAN ROBINSON BEAT STERCHI (HEAD OF ZEUS, 2018) BY reviews generated few reviews and

COW (‘Blösch’), in Michael Hofmann’s REVIEWED BY Blösch units’, formerly known asvillage’s cows. The cannycapitalist innovations but farmers areconservative. socially embrace Sterchi captures and outsider in linguistic inward-looking 1960s Innerwald, the settingstory. It of is the achange: society traditional on farming thedisplaced is cusp being of modernity by the ofchemical milking technological fertiliserinsemination. machines, In anddriven the rationale, artificial new,boost feed market- the productivity supplements of ‘large cattle . Cow ETING MICHAEL HOFFMAN V RI The Satanic Verses TRANSLATED BY coincided with a major dispute at the publishing house, Pantheon ’s timely republication enables Beat Sterchi superbly conveys Cow as Books. Two unfavourable mainstreamfate. reviews And appeared that, to it then seemed, seal was the its end of the story – until this year. October 1988, attention wasSalman focused Rushdie’s on the Bookerwas shortlist, rapidly including remaindered by Faber & Faber. Its American release in 1990 modernist techniques,English-speaking linguistic world, energy by contrast,When and Sterchi’s Michael novel moral Hofmann’s failed translation protest. to (then take In titled off. the in 1983, Sterchi’sbest novel fictional debut wonby in the reviewers German-speaking prestigious as countries. Aspekte a It prize was remarkable for acclaimed combination the of documentary realism, The 2018 reissue of Beatvigorous Sterchi’s translation, is a major literary event. When first published Ambrosio’s bewilderment as a cultural in a city abattoir as commodities within an exploitative systemmeat production. of industrial of Ambrosio,worker, a andemployer’s the Spanish herd, Blösch; lead both end migrant up cow of his migration, ecologicaland the sustainability ethical treatmentThe of plot animals. follows the intertwined fates Cow this intensely Swiss novelseriously to today’s address global concerns with brilliantly the speech rhythms of their its variety of stylistic voices; and in its Bernese dialect, their ingrained symbolic resonance. Sterchi cites mentalities, and their instinctive Upton Sinclair’s muckraking exposé of xenophobia, which pressurises Ambrosio’s Chicago slaughterhouses,The Jungle, kindly employer into terminating his butCow is less an indictment of contract. He is replaced by a machine. industrial malpractices than an The chapters depicting a day’s unforgettable evocation of archetypal labour in the municipal slaughter- life-and-death struggles among house confront readers relentlessly humans and between mankind and and unsparingly with the gory other creatures, epitomised by the routines of killing, disembowelling maltreated but indomitable Blösch. Ever since Beat Sterchi’s great Bernese forebear, Jeremias Gotthelf, agricultural novels have been important vehicles for social criticism in Switzerland. In depicting the capitalist endpoint of farming,Cow marks the culmination of this genre. Sterchi has subsequently become one

Beat Sterchi © Gerald Wesolowski of the leading voices in Swiss dialect literature and in ‘spoken word’ performance, notably in the ‘Bern is everywhere’ (‘Bern ist überall’) group, alongside Pedro Lenz and Guy Krneta. and dismemberment – cows in the Cow remains his only novel. It is morning, pigs in the afternoon. The a monumental and unmissable narrative has an epic scope: in its landmark in Swiss literature. exhaustive descriptions of butchery; in the socially representative life Alan Robinson histories of the individual workmen; in

Beat Sterchi is a Swiss author who writes in Standard German and Bernese. He worked as a butcher before moving to Canada then Honduras, where he took a job as an English teacher and published his first poems. He then studied at McGill University in Montréal and worked as a teacher at the Goethe-Institut. He is best known for his 1983 novel Blösch (‘Cow’), which won several awards. 100 101 Arno Camnisch © Janosch_Abel . The trilogy, set ANDREA CAPOVILLA ARNO CAMENISCH BY (DALKEY ARCHIVE PRESS, 2015) REVIEWED BY Last Last Orders the abundancestory of of hilarity, fragility anothertake and shape. loss Camenisch is begins a master to of would be avalley. spoiler) in Related theparagraphs, Surselva in the novelthe short, conjures essence concise up the mundane of attains themythical, childhood, aura and of apparently the unimportant when characters come into theirbehind the own. children’s But perspective, and DONAL McLAUGHLIN

BEHIND THE STATION and concluded by is told from the The Alp TRANSLATED BY Behind the Station perspective of two brothersup growing in a village of forty-one(possibly inhabitants forty-two; more explanation is colourful,and transnational. readable, relatable influenced howspecific I read settinga them. vivid mode of oral The storytelling, is which matched by me. However, no previouswith familiarity the areathem, although is in my required case it definitely to enjoy neighbouring Austria, not far from the area Camenisch writesthese stories have about, a special appeal and for may well belanguage vanishing, that and has aliterature no minor to great preserve it. body I of grew up in universal appeal, andattraction part is of Camenisch’spreserve their in ability writing a to way of life that Although set inEurope, a the remotetrilogy stories part of have of the both Alpine immediate and published six more books, still awaiting English translation. The Alp is the onlytext. instance Amazingly, when the he trilogy producedby two was versions swiftly Donal of and the McLaughlin well same translated for into Dalkey English Archive Press. Camenisch has since both in his nativehe Switzerland and wrote beyond. TheRomansh. simultaneously first Camenisch book continues in in to the both write trilogy in Swiss German and German Romansh, but and the regional This is the second volumepreceded in by English of Arnoin Camenisch’s a Alpine Grisons trilogy, / Graubünden valley, has made Camenisch hugely popular, oas ilcs dialects & Romansh the art of elliptical storytelling: the not yet published in English, also apparently idyllic village life is governed transcends local concerns. In fact, it is by strict hierarchies, simultaneously best read in the global context of appealing and suffocating. climate change. In the novel, two ski- Camenisch’s books are great reads, lift attendants, painted in recognisably but they also lend themselves particularly Beckettian colours, pass the time welltobeingreadoutloud;indeed,partof waiting for snow, which, in this region,

their success is due to Camenisch’s won- has become ‘rarer than cocaine’. reviews derfulskillsasaperformer. The Riveter is delighted to be able There is, however, another reason to present an extract from this why his work is so engaging: his stories, startling book below. while fixed to a particular location, are anything but parochial; they succeed in Andrea Capovilla immortalising a specific way of life while asking universal questions about belonging and about the need to escape Andrea Capovilla is Director of the Ingeborg and explore. Bachmann Centre for Austrian Literature and Camenisch’s most recent novel Culture (IBC). Der letzte Schnee (‘The Last Snow’),

Arno Camenisch, born in Tavanasa in Graubünden, writes in German and Rhaeto-Romansh (Sursilvan). One of Switzerland’s master storytellers, his novels include The Alp, Behind The Station and Last Last Orders. His texts also appeared in Harper’s Magazine as well as in Best European Fiction 2012 published by Dalkey Archive Press. 102 103 Romansh&Dialects ) ’) he Last Snow , that have we’d to live to (‘T ANNIE RUTHERFORD (ENGELER-VERLAG, 2018 extracts Madre mia TRANSLATED BY ETING ARNO CAMENISCH

V DER LETZTE SCHNEE BY RI FROM , the old man up in heaven is taking his time this year, michty me, They stand next to the ski lift with their hands in their and pockets look at it, he snow up like a rug at the end of the year and stow it in the as bunker,and soon she’s bonnie, eh, says Paul, he looks at Georg, built in 1971, the nag’s got awhile good in her yet, she’s already given us loads of the pleasure, bonnie tow. Georg see this too. out fallen now Whoops, of the cigarette’s my says mouth, Georg and looks down into the snow. the cheat Austrians too. Georg puts the red bucket down next to Paul and takes a out of cigarette the of pocket his ski and jacket it, lights hm. And if they catch us, says Paul and looks at the sky, we’ll play deid. to wear when gloves out you’re on the fetch moped, we’ll the old snow out of the depot and roll it out, no if notice one’ll we put down a bit of last who’d snow, year’s even think of it, and it doesna say that anywhere it’s not does allowed, it, after all, cocaine now, it is. Next year we’llt do what the Austrians do, we’ll simplyasNovember’sshovedOctoberoffitsperchanditgetscolderagainandyouhave roll bit of sugar on the mountains, it’ssays a Paul, start, or eh? do The Almighty’s we lost have His to nerve, go down on our knees for snow, it’s rarer than comes, Georg says and straightens hisexactly do cap, magic. there’ll He’s be wearing an more, old but skihand. jacket we There’s and a canna holds coating a on red the bucket ground in anyway, so his at least it looks like winter, be getting on with. He holds a handandstandsinfrontoftheskilift’sweehut.Theskyisblueassteel,thesunis above his eyes, a woolly hat onrising. his head, What can you do, there’s been a wee bit at least, just take it as it Ora pro nobis itwidnaexactlybewrongifit’dsnowabit,saysPaulandlooksatthesky,butthat donkey Saint Peter’s keeping us waiting and his boss has other things to straightens his cap, he’s holding a coffee cup made of glass, do you want a filter coffee too, he asks and turns to Paul. Steam rises from the coffee. His red jacket hastheskilift’ssymbolonit.Wewerethefirst,wehadtheworld’sveryfirstskilift hereinourdistrict,itallstartedhere,andfromherethetowconqueredtheworld likewildfire,we’reatthehuboftheworld,saysPaulandnods.Hm,saysGeorgand pours himself a coffee, strictly speaking, he says and pulls a face, well, actually it wisnatheveryfirstskilift.Heputssugarinhisdrink.Ach,whatareyousaying,says Paul, of course we had the first one in the world, that’d be news to me, we dinna want to start rewriting history at our age, do we? Aye, of course we had the first T-bar lift, says Georg, that’s right, but. But what, says Paul, nae buts, there you are then. Aye, says Georg, but them in Schneckenhof in Germany, back there in the Black Forest, they were almost even earlier. What ‘hof’, asks Paul, in the Black Forest, there’s no been snow there for ages, why should they have a ski lift, I’d like to know, that’s just nonsense. That Mr Winterhalder thought it up, says Georg and takes a sip of coffee, for the spa guests who went there to fix their motors. Paul laughs, for the asthmatics, he says, and looks, hands in his pockets, up the mountainside, that doesna count, that wisna a proper ski lift, that was a rope with apulleyandtwoladswhoworkedatit,naebodyknowsifanyoneeverwentupthis rope, it was more of an elevation aid, which you could use when someone had bronchitis and had coughed out his lungs till they lay on the floor like rags, so they could stand up again. It wisna a proper tow, it was just for their health, health equipment, and it didna even have electricity, you still had to pour water onto it, no, no. Georg shrugs his shoulders and says, hm. Ours was still the first proper tow, says Paul, a T-bar, still the most honest way to get to the top of a mountain, switched on for the first time in Davos in 1934 – at Christmas, as it should be – and since then business has been good in Grisons, and as long as Saint Peter doesnatakethepowderawayfromus,it’llgoonforalongwhileyet,butthereyou are. Georg stirs his coffee.

Arno Camenisch Translated. by Annie Rutherford

. 104 FROM NAW MUCH OF A TALKER BY PEDRO LENZ (FREIGHT BOOKS, 2013) TRANSLATED BY DONAL McLAUGHLIN

It aw started long afore that. Ah kid jist as well make oot but: it aw started that wan evenin, a few days eftir the let me ootae the Joke. Boot ten in the evenin, it wis. Hawf past, mibbe. An’ see the wind? The wind widda cut right through ye, fuckin freezing it wis. Fog Valley. It November an’ aw. Ma heart wis like a soakin-wet flair-cloth, it wis that heavy. So ah takes masel intae Cobbles, fancied a wee coffee ah did, wi a guid shot ae schnapps in it. The dosh they gi’e ye when ye leave the nick ahd awready blown awready, naw that ah kidda tellt ye whit oan. So there ah wis: fuck aw dosh, desperate furra coffee but, wi schnapps in it, furra bit of company an’ aw, a cunt or two tae talk tae. Ahm tellin ye, arent ah? Ma pockets wur empty, part fae a few fags, a few coins.Thingswurabittightlike.Tighterthantight,taebehonest.Waitinonmoney somecuntowedme,ahwis.Trysayingthatbutwhenyirfreshootaethenick.Ahm owed a whack o money,jist dont hiv it yet. Impresses nae cunt, that. So ah goes intae Cobbles, like ah say, an’ order a coffee wi schnapps. Regula asks hiv ah the money fur it? Lenz Pedro © Lenz Pedro Naw a bad question, ah admit. Dae me a favour, Regi, ah gi’e it, spare me the patter, bring me o’er the coffee jist an’ we’ll take it fae there. Total patter-merchant ur whit, she goes – an’ goes an’ fetches it. She’s like that, when she comes back: Ah didnae pit it through, an’ she looks at me thon wey – ah dunno whit way, masel. Diffrint, anyhoo, diffrint fae usual, wi a bit mair longin in her eyes, or summit. Ahv nae idea whit like it is fur ither guys, see me but? That kinda thing warms ma heart – toasts ma insides, it dis – a woman like Regi lookin at me like that. ThanksRegi,love.Ye’llgetyirrewardinheaven.Themoneyan’awsometime. Gi’e her peace wi that kind patter, she gi’es it next, an’ ahm naw tae start 105 getting used tae it eether, cos if Pesche finds oot she didnae pit it through, aw he’ll’ll break loose so it will. Ah know masel whit like he can be. She’s brilliant, Regula, ye hiv tae hand it tae her,she looks oot fur us, jist takes dialects & Romansh itintaeherheidnawtaepitsummitthrough,naecunt’llknow,an’anyhoo:Pesche, the gaffer’ll be the last wan tae notice. Goalie here, meanwhile, his his coffee an’ that’s aw that matters. Ahd known furra long time she his a big heart, Regula. That evenin there but, ah started tae like her a loatae other ways too. It’sstrange,that.Deadstrange.Yivknownawomanfuryearsan’nawthought

nuthinofit,an’suddenly,Christ,suddenlyshe’sgotsummit.Shehis:she’ssuddenly extracts got summit that’s got unner yir skin, suddenly ye like her like. Explain that yin tae me! That particular evening, ahd a loatae questions tae answer, tae be honest. Suddenly, but, wan single question, jist, intristit me – an’ that wis: wis there any chance at aw, in this here lifetime, that me an’ Regula kid become an item mibbe? Regula, love, ah gave it, kin ah ask ye a wee favour? Kid ye slip me a fifty tae Monday?Whititisis:ahmowedaloadaemoney,jisthivnaeactuallygotitactually yet. A wee cash-flow problem. Yeken hoo it is – She looks at me like that. Then goes like that: so ah hidnae changed at aw in theJoke,eh?Yewidnaethink,taelistentaeme,ahddonenearlyayearinthere,ah hidnae changed a bit still full o the same auld shite ah wis. Don’t yet yirsel work up, Regi. Yedont know whit yir on aboot. Yeknow fuck awabootme,fuckawaboottheJokean’aw.An’it’sbetterthatwey,believeme.Ye should coont yir blessins. As fur the dosh: ahm naw begging, certainly naw goney beg fae you, it’s up tae you, eether yiv a fifty or ye hivnae an’ we kin talk aboot summit else. That’s aw there is tae it. She gave me the fifty: folded it an’ pit in ma breast pocket, wi’oot a word. Ah tookherhaun,gi’edtheinsideaeherarmaweekissan’gaveit:seeifyedidnaehiv tae go tae work, ahd take ye straight hame so ah wid an’ blow ye away. Ah swear, Regi, ahd make ye a happy woman. Shewislikethattaeme:ahwisadaftbastard,reallywis,an’shegaveaweelaugh again,itreallywis.Ahhidnaehidmuchtaelaughabootrecently,ahreallyhidnae.

Pedro Lenz Translated by Donal McLaughlin

Pedro Lenz was born in Langenthal and is famous for his poems, articles and novels written in dialect. He has won numerous poetry slams and prizes, notably for Der Goalie Bin Ig, a novel about a downtrodden ex-con with big dreams. It was translated into Glasgwegian dialect as Naw Much of a Talker and made into the Swiss vernacular film I am The Keeper.

Donal McLaughlin is a freelance writer and translator. He was Scottish PEN's first ècrivain sans frontières and a recent recipient of the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Award. 106

107 From. RAZ (Verlag Mar�n Wallimann, Alpnach 2011) Leta Semadeni © Yvonne Boehler TESS LEWIS

, have been

LETA SEMADENI Tamangur FOUR POEMS BY fromeachother tensed in skins weneed so many words That’s why Because we are different TRANSLATED AND INTRODUCED BY

Leta Semadeni’s poetry and her novel,

fluorescent mushrooms Feed off me Fast growing Build nests inside me extend their illuminate bodies from books Born in Scuol inboth 1944, German Leta and Semadeni the writes Valladerin, concise, dialect luminous and of Romansh. poetry slightly She inher is removed poetry equally from, in at bilingual home both editions. poems Semadeni languages does and not into translate publishes her German,language, Romansh almost so or all that vice theseems to shifting versa, give ground only a but underruns small the shrug. recreates through Indeed, reader a all them of senseworld, of both of in ambivalent versions often familiarity her the work. discerningresisting other the She kindred temptation is to soulsopen an anthropomorphise in new them. acute realms Animals, the observer of likenoted, of words, ‘inasmuch animals perception as for the they around her. have natural their Words her own are lives but like and canrecognised animals, be with she very has a stubborn’. numberCanton Graubünden, of the awards, Schiller includingPrize Prize in the in 2016. literary 2011, and prize the of Swiss the Literature Words Some words

Caaeiuarmnsh,Cu 00 2010) Chur rumantscha, editura (Chasa Fuchs als Leben meinem In vuolp- da vita mia In From 108 From Poesias da chadafö - Küchengedichte (Uniun dals Grischs, 2006) rnltdb esLewis Tess by Translated Samedani Leta sleep polished my at paws bowl the cleans day the of remains the devours vixen the night Every Vixen City nLvn eaeihsbe wre eea rzsfrhrwr,icuigte21 ws Swiss 2016 the including writer work, freelance her a America, for as prizes worked Latin Prize. several and Literature awarded in lived been worked has has and she Semadeni 2005 Lavin. Engadin Since in and York. New Zurich and in Berlin schools Zug, several Paris, at taught She Zurich. Semadeni Leta a oni co,Sizradadsuidlnugsa h nvriyo of University the at languages studied and Switzerland Scuol, in born was

ue h roar the quiet to wife his of flesh white the kneads he And torrent a becomes stream The ghosts calves’ the graze banks the Along lowing the out drowns refreshes Moldau the in bath This Smetana with off blood the wash to slaughter the after Upstairs Butcher Village

oas ilcsextracts dialects & Romansh 109 Swiss responsibility, ALAIN DE BOTTON generallysocleanyou BY itis According to the Romantic REFLECTIONS ON ZURICH What most appeals to me about leadingan‘ordinary’lifethere.Toleadan ordinary life in London is generally not an enviablehospitals, proposition: schools, ‘ordinary’ housing estates, everyone says (though youpeopletrying), don’t see could eat your lunch off the pavement. Zurich is the image of what is entailed in team is honoured to publish these reflections pay Zurich isthe to great bourgeois describeThis cities it of might as thea one not, world. of compliment of having – course, the become seemoutset word like for of ‘bourgeois’ the many, the early nineteenth century, a Romantic since significantinsult. movement the ‘Hatred in of the bourgeois is The most sincere compliment you could Finalfeature1 event which took place at The Tabernacle in London in Swiss Riveter streets are the Literally Swiss and (perhaps) bracing walks in the fresh air. Consequently, But perhaps anything word ‘exotic’ with camels and And finally, as special a treat, on his birthplace, by Swiss-British writermade Alain de at Botton. This our is the firstFebruary text of 2018. the address Alain

by random gunshots, thequiet, the parks are tidy, and, as word. What I findthe most exotic city about everything is is. how No one gloriously is being boring killed the pyramids. different and desirable deserves the Zurich is exotic. We normally associate for aboutworld the have last been two quite as hundred deeply years, unfashionable as few the places city in of Zurich. the Western to be bourgeoiswith is money, synonymousprudishness, safety, with labouring tradition, under cleanliness, an obsession family, was as muchan actress a and taking badgevalue a of trip system, to one’s which the profession Orient. today as still having dominates an the affair Western with imagination, the beginning of wisdom,’for felt a Gustave mid-nineteenth Flaubert, a century standard French utterance writer, for whom such disdain li eBto egi General Penguin © Botton de Alain or restaurants are nearly always a few francs, an efficient, stately tram- disappointing. There are, of course, way will transport one across the city at great examples, but they are only for a level of comfort an emperor would the very wealthy. London is not a bour- have envied. geois city. It’s a city of the rich and of This commitment to the ‘exalted the poor. ordinary’ continues in architecture. People are happy to be ordinary in Zurich has very few iconic buildings. Zurich. The desire to be different The museums and the opera house are depends on what it means to be sedate. Nothing is flashy. And yet thisis ordinary. There are countries where a city with some of the best architecture the communal provision of housing, in the world; ordinary buildings have to transport, education, or health care is them a quality and thoughtfulness at such that citizens will naturally seek to the level of design that in other places escape involvement with the group and would be accorded only to the icons. barricade themselves behind solid Visitors will notice beautiful detailing in walls. The desire for high status is the window tracery and concrete finish never stronger than when being of schools and railway stations. There ordinary entails leading a life that fails are parking lots that should be winning to cater to a median need for dignity prizes, and primary-school buildings and comfort. that display world-beating approaches Then there are communities, far to the innovative use of timber and rarer, where the public realm exudes brick.Forarentthatwouldbuyyou respect in its principles and architecture, a dilapidated one-room box in New and where the need to escape into York, you can live like a merchant a private domain is therefore less prince in a brand-new apartment intense. Citizens will lose some of their building. ambitions for personal glory when the Zurich’s distinctive lesson to the public spaces and facilities of a city are world lies in its ability to remind us of themselves glorious to behold. Simply how truly imaginative and humane it being an ordinary citizen can seem like can be to ask of a city that it be nothing an adequate destiny. other than boring and bourgeois. In Switzerland’s largest city, the urge to own a car and avoid sharing Alain de Bo�on a bus or train with strangers loses some of the urgency it may have in Los Alain de Botton was born in Zurich and now lives in Angeles or London, thanks to Zurich’s London. He is a writer of essayistic books on love, superlative tram network – clean, safe, travel, architecture and literature that have been best- warm, and edifying in its punctuality sellers in thirty countries. Alain also started and helps and technical prowess. There is little to run a school in London called The School of Life, reason to travel alone when, for only dedicated to a new vision of education. 110 111 Swiss The nldsaincludes ELKE HUWILER BY 12 SWISS BOOKS 12 Swiss Books Eature 2 iee-nCif RosieRiveter-in-Chief, Goldsmith. As well as these twelve introducing Every year in Swiss literat- writing and international ure. You’ll already be familiar with thisspecial feature as it is the brainchildyour of ilsadrcmedn a six, the further and recommending titles magazine introduces readers towinners of the the annual Swiss Literature Awards and useful provides information about the with and agencies, translators supportpublishers, opportunities for detailsofresidenciesandgrants. about a feature topical and mover shaker in the British literature and translation world, who someone has a keen interest about why thetranslation. books are In worthy addition, ofasampletranslationofthreetofivepages, they writeso that foreign publishers interested in the books can get an of impression styleofthetextsinquestion. the FINAL f . is published annualy by the Literature and Society . Here Editor-in-Chief Elke Huwiler introduces us to Pro Helvetia’s own 12 Swiss Books Twelve native English language n ulte n iigteroiin andand their opinion giving qualities eiwof itsreview con- each book, describing The Swiss Arts CouncilSwiss Pro Helvetia Riveter has contributedmagazine both financially and creatively to a tent translators from Britain areassess asked to the twelve books: they write aac salse andbalance established new writers, as well as the demonstrating diversity ofSwissculture. aaie Inmagazine. order to be these selected, twelve books must also aims to be magazine quality.The literary of outstanding literature, providing synopses, reviews andsampletranslations,andrecommends a further six books, to present in the Helvetia. Every year, thechoses department twelve of therecently best published and works most of Swiss ainlltrtr to literature thenational world outside – and it is oneLiteratureandSocietyDepartmentofPro of the main goals of the The translation of literature isthe one most of important ways of promoting of Swisspublic literature. (and publishers)in Each German, twelve French, issue newly Italian, published and, focuses whenever works on possible, of Rhaeto-Romance. literature introducing to the 12 Swiss Books Department ofas Pro Helvetia. the The main magazine promotional was launched tool in to 2012 raise international awareness Amongst others, Rosie has interviewed the critic Boyd Tonkin, translator Frank Wynne and Swiss-British author Alain de Botton (who also features in thismagazine). Every year, 12 Swiss Books is widely distributedacrosstheworldofpublishers, translators and literary agents – the magazine’s main target audience. Pro Helvetia also uses the magazine across the year as a calling card for Swiss literature at a variety of key encounters with cultural institutions, book fairs and literaryfestivals. The magazine is launched each year at the autumn Frankfurt Book Fair and is also available online: www.12swiss- books.ch

Elke Huwiler

Elke Huwiler is a graduate of German and Spanish literature and holds a PhD in modern German literature. At Pro Helvetia, she works as an administrator for German-language literature and book services. In 2018, shewasEditor-in-Chiefofthe12SwissBooks magazine. 112 113 Swiss oenn modernand hcibigwhichisbeing of , tpe Wa�s Stephen i eetbooks His recent FROM STEPHEN WATTS BY RepublicofDogs/RepublicofBirds ehnatiaoteioadrnltrI21h tephenWattsisapoet,editorandtranslator.In2017he national and National Poetry Library. include madeintoafilm.Heisalsoabibliographer contemporarypoetryandproseintranslation. dedicated Swiss Lists) this bibliography would be a lot It poorer. would be won- derful to see larger publishers showing agreaterinterestinSwisstranslationsand we might hope that committed smaller will not publishers but only maintain, can expand,theirinterestinnewSwisswriters. S wasTranslatorinResidenceatSouthbank’sPoetryInter- it represents and atranslation a on willingness the part healthy interestof in a fewtranslation of publishers Swiss literature. to Without promotecertain the publishers (Dalkey Archive and Seagull Books, for instance; both have SWITZERLAND I’ve (SINCE 2010) A LISTING OF TRANSLATED SWISS LITERATURE fromSwiss-GermanandSwiss- RIVETING WRITING The majority of the list is of I have included authors who were and very few, almost no, Romansh. listed in total 144 titles published since 2010:ifthisseemssurprisinglyhigh,then translations French writers, with fewer Swiss-Italian, Agota Kristof) who,born, while did live many not years in Switzerland Swiss or took Swiss citizenship. Switzerland (BlaiseRobert Pinget, Cendrars for example)writers and and (such also as Hermann Hesse, or Swiss born but lived mostly outside whatever their publication date. Maybe the time is ripe for a funded programme of new from Romansh. translations so scant and with none, sosee, far published as since I 2010, can that Isimply have listed the very few titles, The onetranslations from exception Romansh, which to are this is for and other Swiss writers without new translations may be absent. the seemingauthors increase such in asworks translated Max were Frisch titles, translated or but before Friedrich 2010, it Dürrenmatt, do many does not of mean have whose a that full listing here, have onlyare included substantially re-edited. newof It editions is new of therefore translations. essentially existing This a translations bibliography puts if the they emphasis on translation and Below ispoetry a and partial, prosenot though published included fairly in straightforward thorough, English reprints list translation since of of 2010. earlier modern I’ve translations, Swiss and riveting writingfrom switzerland . , Pierrette (1915-2007) , Jean-Pierre (b.1955) , Ella K. (1903-1997) , Quentin (b.1989) (lives in Canada) ,Agota(1935-2011) , Philippe (1965-2017) , Charles Ferdinand (1878-1947) , Pierre (b.1949) , Charles Ferdinand (1878-1947) , Robert (1919-1997) (note: many earlier titles (& author , Noëlle (b.1968) , José-Flore (b.1954) , Hermann (1877-1962) (lived in Switzerland & took Swiss , Hermann (1877-1962) (lived in Switzerland & took Swiss , Klaus (b.1945) , Werner (1930-2016) 2013 (paper only). MERZ OUT OF THE DUST, tr. Marc Vincenz.2014 Spuyten (with Duyvil(NY) 5 White Pine Press 77pp, b/w Vincenz. illustrations DEVELOPMENT,tr.Marc byUNEXPECTED Heinz Egger). For The Series. NY) Journey 2018. Companions 140pp, (Buffalo HESSE citizenship in 1923) RAMUZ BEAUTY ON EARTH, tr. Michelle Bailat-Jones.(Black Onesuch Hill, Press Australia) 224pp, 2013 (novel).WHAT IF THE SUN…, tr. Michelle Bailat-Jones, fore. LauraOnesuch Spinney. Press (Black Hill, Australia) 178pp, 2016 (novel). DERBORENCE: When The Devils Came Down,Onesuch tr. Press Laura (Black Spinney. Hill, Australia) 118pp,many 2018 translated (novel). titles (note from : mid-C20th) REVAZ WITH THE ANIMALS, tr. W. Donald(Champaign Wilson. IL, Dalkey Archive Dublin Press & London) 232pp,Literature 2012 Series. (novel). Swiss EFINA, tr. David Ball & NicoleLondon) Ball. 208pp, Seagull 2014 Books (novel). (Calcutta, Swiss NY, List. THE POSSIBLE IS MONSTROUS: Selected Poems, tr. Daniele Pantano, aft. Peter Rüedi. Black Lawrence Press (NY) 214pp,HESSE 2010. citizenship in 1923) SEASONS OF THE SOUL, tr. LudwigHarvey. Max North Fischer, Atlantic fore. Books Andrew (Berkeley CA)LUTZ 113pp, 2011. KISSING NESTS, tr. Marc Vincenz. Spuyten Duyvil (NY) 110pp, THE BOWL, PILGRIM’S Seagull Books tr. John NY, (London. Taylor. 64pp,Calcutta) 2015 on (meditation Swiss Giorgio Morandi). List. A CALM FIRE and Other TravelBooks Writings, (London, tr. John NY, Calcutta) Seagull Taylor. 312pp, 2018KRISTOF (essays). Swiss List. THE NOTEBOOK, tr. Alan Sheridan aft.(London) Slavoj 167pp, Zizek. 2014 CB (novel). Editions First publishedTHE 1989. ILLITERATE, tr. Nina Bogin, intro.Editions Gabriel (London) Josipovici. 44pp CB 2014 (brief prose2 memoir). NOVELS, tr. David Watson &(London) Marc 241pp, Romano. 2015. CB Editions COLLECTEDPLAYS,tr.BartSmet.OberonBooks(London)268pp,2018 MAILLART THE CRUEL WAY: Switzerland To Afghanistan Innot A named. Ford, University 1939, Of tr. Chicago Press217pp, (Chicago 2013 & (first London) published, Heinemann 1947MOURON Virago & 1986) THREE DROPS OF BLOOD AND A CLOUD OFDonald COCAINE, Wilson. tr. Bitter W. Lemon Press (London) 206pp, 2017 (novel). PINGET lived mostly in France)) GRAAL FLIBUSTE tr. Anna Fitzgerald. Dalkey(Champaign Archive IL, Press Dublin, London) 160pp, 2015Literature (novel). Series. French FABLE, tr. Barbara Wright. Red Dust Books(short novel/prose (NY) text). 63pp, (First 2016 published, John Calder 1980). UK) 22pp, 2016. MICHELOUD WORDS AND THE STONE, tr. AntonioEditions D’Alfonso. Ekstasis (Victoria BC) 206pp. 2014. RAHMY MOVEMENT THROUGH THEFIN, END/MOUVEMENT tr. PAR Rosemary LEPress Lloyd, (Fayetteville pref. NY) JacquesRAMUZ 95pp, Dupin. 2014. BitterRIVERSONG Oleander OF THERHÔNE), RHONE/(CHANT tr. DE PattiLondon, NOTRE M. NY) Marxsen. 79pp, OnesuchTAPPY 2015. Press Epic (Melbourne,SHEDS/HANGARS, prose tr. poem. John (Fayetteville Taylor. NY) Bitter 232pp, OleanderVALLOTTON 2014. PressWINGS FOLDED IND’Alfonso. CRACKS: Guernica Selected EditionsUK) Poems, (Toronto, 203pp, Buffalo tr. Antonio 2013. NY,VOÉLIN Lancaster Essential Translations SeriesTO EACH 14. UNFOLDING LEAF: Selected Poems 1976-2015,John tr. Bitter Taylor. Oleander Press NY) (Fayetteville 328pp, 2017. ACTE,tr.JACCOTTET, Ian Brinton. Oystercatcher Press (Hunstanton ervená Barva Press Č (livedmostlyoutofParis&became POETRY PROSE POETRY , Friedrich (1921-1990) , Jean-Luc (b.1941) , Isabelle (1877-1904) , Rainer (1917-1983) , Philippe (b.1925) , Philippe (b.1925) , Blaise (1887-1961) , Blaise (1887-1961) (Swiss-born, but naturalised , Bernard (b.1960) , Pierre (b.1930) , Erika (1922-2010) , Nicolas (1929-1998) (note earlier titles & editions, , Catherine(1893-1965) , Jacques (1934-2009) , Jürg (1947-2013) , Elisabeth (b.1955) , Roland (b.1964)

(Somerville MA) 83pp, 2016. NIGHTSHIFT/AN AREA OF SHADOWS, tr. Marc Vincenz.Spuyten Duyvil (NY) 146pp, 2013. (WithHalter poems (b.1938)). also by Ernst DÜRRENMATT NY, Calcutta) 150pp, 2014. Swiss List.BURKART A LATE RECOGNITION OF THE SIGNS,Vincenz. tr. Spuyten with Duyvil aft. Press Marc (NY) 105pp.interview (With between extensive tr. & Ernst HalterSECRET & LETTER, 4 tr. b/w Marc photos). Vincenz. GERMAN AMANN tr. Marc Vogelzug, BIRDLIFELONG MIGRATION/Lebenslang Vincenz, German & English texts. Spuyten Duyvil (NY) 132pp, 2017. BRAMBACH COLLECTED POEMS, tr. Esther Kinsky. Seagull Books(London, Dublin, London) 135pp, 2013 (novel). SwissJACCOTTET Literature Series. OBSCURITY, tr. Tess Lewis. Seagull Books (London,160pp, NY, Calcutta) 2015 (novel). Swiss List. Swiss Literature Series. EBERHARDT WRITINGS FROM THE SAND: Collected Works,Marie-Odile Vol. Delacour 1, & ed. Jean-René Huleu, tr.University Melissa Of Marcus. Nebraska Press (Lincoln NB)HOREM 570pp, 2012. THE RING, tr. Jane Kuntz. Dalkey Archive Press (Champaign IL, COLOMB THE SPIRITS OF THE EARTH, tr.(London, John NY, Seagull Taylor. Calcutta) Books 227pp, 2016 (novel).COMMENT Swiss List. THE SHADOW OF MEMORY, tr. BetsyPress Wing. (Champaign Dalkey Archive IL, Dublin & London) 205pp, 2012 (novel). CHESSEX A JEW MUST DIE, tr. W.(London) Donald 91pp, Wilson. 2010 Bitter (short Lemon novel). Press THE TYRANT, tr. Martin Sokolinsky. Bitter Lemon189pp, Press 2012 (London) (novel). tr.JACCOTTET, Ian Brinton. Oystercatcher Press (HunstantonUK) 22pp, 2016. Publishing (Tiverton UK) 148pp, 2017 (novel).CENDRARS Frenchcitizen)(note:manyearlierprosetitles&editionsstillinprint) THE BLOODY HAND, tr. Graham MacLachan, pref.Beaupré. Nicolas Vagamundo (Pont-Aven) 348pp, 2015 (warWith narrative). 50 illustrations by French soldiers of life in the trenches. BOUVIER mostly non-fiction prose). THE SCORPION FISH, tr. Robyn Marsack.150pp, Eland 2014 Books (novel/travel (London) writing). With b/w(1st illustrations published, Carcanet 1987). BUTI YEAR OF THE DROUGHT, tr. Charlotte Mandell. Old Street FRENCH BENOZIGLIO PRIVY PORTRAIT, tr. Tess Lewis. Seagull BooksCalcutta) (London, 264pp, NY, 2014 (novel). Swiss List. FRENCH nr.Jh alrCesaEiin N)42p 01(otyper) (NY) poetry). 2011 422pp, (mostly Editions Johnintro. Taylor.Chelsea SEEDTIME, Notebooks 1954-79, tr. Tess Lewis. Seagull(London, Books NY, Calcutta) 345pp, 2013 (proseentries notebooks as with poems many or prose poems).THESECONDSEEDTIME,Notebooks1980-1994,tr.TessLewis. Swiss List. SeagullBooks(London,NY,Calcutta)208pp,2017,clothonly.SwissList. CHAPPUIS LIKE BITS OF WIND: Selected Poetry2014, And tr. John Poetic Prose Seagull Taylor. Books 1974- (Calcutta,371pp, London, 2016. NY) Seagull Swiss List. JACCOTTET tr.with Prose & Selected 1990-2009, Poetry AND, NONETHELESS: DE FRANCE, tr. Timothy Young. Yale UniversityHaven Press CN (New & London) folded sheetFacsimile + of 25pp 1913 (note original 4pp), with 2010. Soniaillustrations Delaunay’s (limited colour edition 150 copies). TRANS-SIBERIAN PROSODY And Little Jean Fromtr. France, Dick Jones. Old Stile Pressprint-run (Llandogo with UK) drawings 41pp, by 2014. Natalie Small d’Arbellof. CENDRARS French citizen in 1916) (Note : many earlier translated poetryLA titles) PROSE DU TRANSSIBERIEN ET DE LA PETITE JEHANNE 114 115 PROSE GERMAN , Annemarie (1908-1942) , Wolfgang (1916-1991) (author lived in ,Jürg(b.1945) ,Monique(b.1972) ,Hugo(129-2009) eter (b.1963) (note: other earlier titles & editions) ,Jonas(b.1976) ,Robert(1878-1956) ,Eveline(b.1933) , P , Christoph (b.1972) ,Carl(1894-1962) ,Paul(b.1929) , Gerhard (1917-2008) , Hermann (1877-1962) (with very many titles & editions ,Klaus(b.1945) ,Pedro(b.1965) WA) 90pp, 2016. VOTIVES: Selected Poems From The Literary Remains,Friebert with tr. Stuart Christiane Wyrwa. Lost Horse110pp, Press 2017. (Sandpoint IN) WALSER THIRTY POEMS, tr. with intro. ChristopherBurgin Middleton. Gallery/New Christine Directions Publishing (NY) 62pp,OPPRESSIVE 2012. LIGHT: Selected Poems, ed. &intro. tr. Daniele Carolyn Pantano, Forché. Black Lawrence Press180pp, (Pittsburgh 2012. PA) BE QUIET: Selected Poems, tr. Stuart Friebert,intro.Bogen. Deborah Tiger Bark Press (Rochester NY)WATCH OUT: Selected 127pp, Poems, 2015. tr. Stuart Friebert.Press Lost Horse (Sandpoint ID)/ University Of Washington Press (Seattle STAMM IN STRANGE GARDENS and Other Stories,The tr. Other Michael Press Hofmann. (NY) 243pp, 2011WE’RE (short FLYING: Stories, stories). tr. Michael Hofmann. Granta(London) Books 370pp, 2013 ( reprs.) (shortOther stories). Press Also (NY). published by SEVEN YEARS, tr. Michael Hofmann. Granta Books 264pp, (London) 2013 (& reprs.) First (novel). by published Other Press (NY) same). MERZ STIGMATA OF BLISS, tr. Tess Lewis. SeagullCalcutta) Books 185pp, (London, 2016 NY, (3 novellas) (withdrawings/paintings by 12 Heinz b/w Egger). Swiss List.NIZON MY YEAR OF LOVE, tr. Jean(Champaign M. IL, Snook. Dublin, Dalkey Archive London) Press 172pp, 2013Literature (novel). Series. Swiss SCHWARZENBACH ALL THE ROADS ARE OPEN: Thetr. Afghan Isabel Journey Fargo 1939-1940, Cole. Seagull Books2010 (London, (travel NY, journal/essays). Calcutta) 140pp, LYRIC NOVELLA, tr. with intro. Lucy Renner(London, Jones. NY, Calcutta) Seagull 140pp, Books 2011 (novella).DEATH Swiss IN List. PERSIA, tr. Lucy RennerNY, Jones. Calcutta) Seagull 116pp, Books 2013 (London, (diary &SCHWITTER travel journal). Swiss List. GOLDFISH MEMORY, tr. Elunid Gramich. Parthian Books(Ceredigion UK) 161pp, 2015 (short stories).SEELIG WALKS WITH WALSER, tr. Anne Posten.Publishing New Co. Directions (NY) 138pp, 2017 (proseSIMON texts/memoir). ZBINDEN’S PROGRESS, tr. Donal McLaughlin, intro.Trapido. Barbara And Other Stories (High Wycombe(novel). UK) Series: 172pp, Book 2012 07. SINGAPORE DREAM, tr. Sherab Chödzin Kohn.(Boulder Shambala CO) Books 224pp, 2018 (travel writings).HILDESHEIMER Switzerland from 1957-1991) TYNSET, tr. Jeffrey Castle.Archive Dalkey Press (Champaign IL, Dublin, London)(novel/extended monologue). 170pp, Swiss 2016 Literature Series. HOHL,Ludwig(1904-1980)ASCENT, tr. Donna Stonecipher. Black Square Editions88pp, (NY) 2012 (novella). LAEDERACH THE WHOLE OF LIFE, tr. GeoffreyPress C. (Champaign Howes. IL Dalkey & Archive London) 300pp,Literature 2013 Series. (novel). Swiss LENZ NAWMUCHOFATALKER,tr.DonalMcLaughlin.FreightBooks (Glasgow)155pp.2013(shortnovel)(translatedintoGlaswegianScots). LOETSCHER NOAH: a Novel of the Boom Times, tr.Books Samuel (London, P.Willcocks. NY, Calcutta) Seagull 183pp, 2012 (novel). Swiss List.LÜSCHER BARBARIAN SPRING, tr. Peter Lewis. Haus132pp, Publishing 2014 (London) (novel). MEIER ISLE OF THE DEAD, tr. Burton(Champaign Pike. IL, Dalkey Archive Dublin Press & London) 102pp,tetralogy). 2011 Swiss (novel: Literature 1st Series. of VOLATILE TEXTS: US TWO, tr. Chenxin Jiang.Press Dalkey (Champaign Archive IL, Dublin, London) 100pp,Swiss 2016 Literature (prose Series. texts). HASLER ANNA GOELDIN: THE LAST WITCH, ed.Meierhofer, with tr. Mary aft. Bryant. Waltraud Lighthouse Christian(Savage Publishing MN) 271pp, 2013 (novel). HESSE published before 2010) STEPPENWOLF, tr. David Horrocks. Penguin Books (London)258pp, 2012 (novel). New translation. AlsoSociety published in by cloth Folio edition in 2018. , Friedrich (1921-1990) (note: many earlier titles ,Arno(b.1978) ,Urs(b.1948) ,Monica(b.1965) ,Lukas(b.1971) ,Dorothee(b.1985) ,Kuno(1922-1992) ,Andreas(b.1964) ,MelindaNadj(b.1968) , Max (1911-1991) (note : many earlier translated novels , Zsuszanna (b.1946) (author lives in Switzerland) , Alex, (b.1961) (note: earlier titles) , Klaus (b.1945) ,Werner(1930-2016) , Hugo (1886-1927) (lived in Switzerland from 1915-1927) 2014 (with 5 White Pine Press b/w Vincenz. illustrations DEVELOPMENT,tr.Marc byUNEXPECTED Heinz Egger). For The Series. NY) Journey 2018. Companions 140pp, (Buffalo NEESER GRASS GROWS INWARD, tr. Marc Vincenz.126pp, Spuyten 2014 Duyvil (with (NY) illustrations by HugoRAEBER Suter). Harvey. North Atlantic Books (Berkeley CA)LUTZ 113pp, 2011. KISSING NESTS, tr. Marc Vincenz. Spuyten2013 Duyvil (paper (NY) only). 110pp, MERZ OUT OF THE DUST, tr. Marc Vincenz. Spuyten Duyvil(NY) 77pp, SEASONS OF THE SOUL, tr. Ludwig Max Fischer, fore. Andrew (prose sketches, diary entries etc.). SwissFROM List. THE BERLIN JOURNAL, ed. ThomasUnser, tr. Strässle Wieland & Hoban. Margit Seagull Books220pp, (Calcutta, 2017 London, NY) (diaries/journals). Swiss List. GAHSE BIOGRAPHY: A GAME, tr. Birgit Schreyer(London, Duarte. NY, Seagull Calcutta) Books 121pp, 2010 (play).AN German ANSWER List. FROM THE SILENCE: Atr. Mike Story Mitchell. from Seagull the Books Mountains, (Calcutta (short & novel). London) 118pp, 2011 DRAFTS FOR A THIRD SKETCHBOOK, ed.tr. Peter Mike von Mitchell. Matt, Seagull Books (Calcutta & London) 194pp, 2013 NIAINTO THEINVITATION BOLD OF Katy HEART,tr. Seagull Derbyshire. Books (NY,London, 152pp, Calcutta) 2011 Swiss (novel). Series. FRISCH & plays) ZURICH Birgit TRANSIT,tr. Duarte. Schreyer Seagull Books (London & 84pp, Calcutta) 2010 from (screenplay a novel). German List. THE JUDGE AND HIS HANGMAN, ,(London) tr. 124pp, Joel 2017 Agee. (novel). Pushkin PressTHE PLEDGE: Requiem For The DetectivePushkin Novel, Press tr. (London) Joel 155pp, Agee. 2017 (novel).THE EXECUTION OF JUSTICE, tr. John(London) E. 224pp, Woods. 2018 Pushkin (novel). Press ELMIGER CORRESPONDENCE, tr. Birgit Schreyer Duarte. Seagull(Calcutta, Books London, NY) 290pp, 2011 (correspondenceFrisch). with Swiss Max List. SELECTED ESSAYS, tr. Isabel Fargo Cole.(Calcutta, Seagull London, Books NY) (novel). 202pp 2013 (essays).SUSPICION,tr.JoelAgee.PushkinPress(London)96pp,2017 Swiss List. A PRICE TO tr. PAY, John Brownjohn.233pp, Haus 2014 Publishing (novel). (London) LIFE IS GOOD, tr. John Brownjohn.220pp, Haus 2018 Publishing (novel). (London) DÜRRENMATT & editions) (London) 203pp 2011 (novel). LEON AND LOUISE, tr. John Brownjohn.(London) Haus 265pp, Publishing 2012 (novel). ALMOST LIKEBrownjohn. SPRING, Haus tr. Publishing John (London) 149pp, 2013SKIDOO: (novel). A Journey through the GhostWest, Towns tr. of John the Brownjohn. American Haus Publishing/Armchair(London) Traveller 84pp, 2013 (travel writings). H NYLPEI FGO ESN,t.oa cogln OF tr.Donal McLoughlin. GOOD REASONS, THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA NY) Swiss List. 2014 London, 184pp, (novel). Books (Calcutta, Seagull CAPUS SAILING BY STARLIGHT: In Search OfBrownjohn. Treasure Island, Haus tr. Publishing John (London) 136pp, 2010A (novel). MATTER OF TIME, tr. John Brownjohn. Haus Publishing CAMENISCH THEALP,tr.DonalMcLaughlin.DalkeyArchivePress(ChampaignIL& (shortnovel:1stoftrilogy).SwissLiteratureSeries. London)82pp,2014 BEHIND THE STATION, tr. Donal McLaughlin. DalkeyPress Archive (Champaign IL & London) 86pp,trilogy). 2014 Swiss (novel: Literature 2nd Series. of CANTIENI BALL intro. orFLAMETTI of The Schelbert, Dandyism the Poor,tr.Catherine MA) 2014 200pp, (novel). (Cambridge Press Marc Dachy.Wakefield BÄRFUSS ONE HUNDRED DAYS, tr. Tess Lewis. Granta180pp, Books 2012 (London) (novel) Calcutta) 210pp, 2014 (novel). Swiss List.ALLEMANN Les Place. tr.with aft. Smith, Peter intro. Vanessa BABYFUCKER, text). CA) Press (LosFigues Angeles 2010 136pp, (novel/experimental THE OLD MAN AND THE BENCH,Archive tr. Press Patrick (Champaign Greaney. IL, Dalkey Dublin, London)(novel). 114pp, Swiss 2015 Literature Series. ABONJI FLY PIGEON, AWAY, tr. Tess Lewis. Seagull Books (London, NY, ALL DAYS ARE NIGHT,tr.Michael Hofmann. Other Press (NY) 185pp,(short stories/prose pieces). NYRB Classics Series. ri

2014 (novel). Also published by Granta Books (London), same. A SCHOOLBOY’S DIARY AND OTHER STORIES, tr. Damian v

TO THE BACK OF BEYOND, tr. Michael Hofmann. Other Press Searls, intro. Ben Lerner. NYRB/New York Review Books (NY) writing eting (NY) 139pp, 2017 (novel). Also published by Granta Books 179pp, 2013 (stories/prose pieces) (with b/w drawings by Karl (London), same. Walser. NYRB Classics Series. STEINBECK,Michelle(b.1990) EAIRY TALES: DRAMOLETTES, tr. Daniele Pantano & James Reidel. MY FATHER WAS A MAN ON LAND AND A WHALE IN THE New Directions (NY) 128pp, 2015 (short plays/theatre pieces). WATER, tr.Jen Calleja. Darf Publishers (London) 160pp, 2018 (novel). GIRLFRIENDS, GHOSTS, AND OTHER STORIES, tr. with aft. STERCHI,Beat(b.1949) Tom Whalen with Nicole Kongeter & Annette Wiesner. THE COW, tr. Michael Hoffman. Head Of Zeus Books (London) NYRB/New York Review Books (NY) 181pp, 2016 paper only 378pp, 2018 (novel) (first published by Faber in 1988). (brief prose texts). NYRB Classics. SUTER, Martin (b.1948) COMEDIES, tr. Daniele Pantano & James Reidel. Seagull Books THE CHEF, tr. Jamie Bulloch. Atlantic Books (London) 297pp, (Calcutta, NY, London) 224pp, 2018 (short plays). 2013 (novel). WEIHE,Richard(b.1961)

MONTECRISTO, tr. Jamie Bulloch. No Exit Press (Harpenden SEA OF INK, tr. Jamie Bulloch. Peirene Press (London) 118pp, switzerland from UK) 287pp, 2016 (novel). 2012 (short novel/lyric prose) (with reproductions of 11 THE LAST WEYNFELDT, tr. Steph Morris. No Exit Press paintings by the C17th Chinese artist, Bada Shanren). (Harpenden UK) 208pp, 2017 (novel). WERNER, Markus (b.1944) ELEFANT, tr. Jamie Bullough. 4th Estate/HarperCollins ON THE EDGE: a Novel, tr. Robert F. Goodwin. Haus Publishing Publishers (London) 344pp, 2018 (novel). (London) 120pp, 2012 (novel). ULLMANN,Regina(1884-1961) ZÜNDEL’S EXIT, tr. Michael Hofmann. Dalkey Archive Press THE COUNTRY ROAD, tr. Kurt Beals. New Directions Publishing (Champaign IL, Dublin & London) 124pp, 2013 (short novel). Co. (NY) 147pp, 2015 (short stories). Swiss Literature Series. VETERANYI, Aglaja (1962-2002) COLDSHOULDER,tr.MichaelHofmann.DalkeyArchivePress WHY THE CHILD IS COOKING IN THE POLENTA, tr. with aft. (ChampaignIL,Dublin)117pp,2016(shortnovel).SwissLiteratureSeries. Vincent Kling. Dalkey Archive Press (Champaign IL, Dublin & WIDMER, Urs (1938-2014) London) 200pp, 2011 (novel). Swiss Literature Series. MY MOTHER’S LOVER, tr. Donal McLaughlin. Seagull Books (NY, WALSER, Robert (1878-1956) (note: many earlier titles & London, Calcutta) 127pp, 2011 (& 2018) (novel). Swiss Series. editions) MY FATHER’S BOOK, tr. Donal McLaughlin. Seagull Books (NY, ANSWER TOAN INQUIRY,tr.Paul North. Ugly Duckling Presse (NY) London, Calcutta) 173pp, 2011 (& 2018) (novel). Swiss Series. 64pp, 2010 (prose/theatre piece) (with drawings by Friese Undine). ON LIFE, DEATH, AND THIS AND THAT OF THE REST, tr. Donal THE WALK, tr. Christopher Middleton with Susan Bernofsky. McLaughlin. Seagull Books (London, NY, Calcutta) 119pp, 2013 New Directions Publishing Co. (NY) 96pp, 2012 (short (essays). Swiss List. novel/prose). New edition. THE BLUE SODA SYPHON, tr. Donal McLaughlin. Seagull Books MICROSCRIPTS, tr. Susan Bernofsky, aft. Walter Benjamin. (London, NY, Calcutta) 108pp, 2014 (short novel). Swiss List. Christine Burgin Gallery/New Directions Publishing Co. (NY) MR. ADAMSON, tr. Donal McLaughlin. Seagull Books (London, 160pp, 2012 (with reprs.) (short prose pieces). NY, Calcutta) 176pp, 2015 (novel). Swiss List. BERLIN STORIES, ed. Jochen Greven, tr. with intro. Susan IN THE CONGO, tr. Donal McLaughlin. Seagull Books (London, Bernofsky. NYRB/New York Review Books (NY) 139pp, 2012 NY, Calcutta) 229pp, 2016 (novel). Swiss List. ITALlAN POETRY ALBORGHETTI, Fabiano (b.1970) Guernica Editions (Toronto, Buffalo NY & Lancaster UK) 149pp, DIRECTORY OF THE VULNERABLE, tr. Marco 2011. Essential Poets Series 187. Sonzogni. Guernica Editions (Toronto, Buffalo NY, Lancaster UK) ORELLI, Giorgio (1921-2013) 135pp, 2014. Essential Translations Series 25. PONDERING THE WEIGHT OF BEING: Selected Poems 1944- PORTRAITS OF ABSENCE, tr. Marco Sonzogni & Ross Woods. 2013, tr. Marco Sonzogni & Ross Woods. Guernica Editions Guernica Editions (Toronto, NY etc.) 144pp, 2017. (Toronto, NY, Lancaster UK) 170pp, 2015. Essential Translations DE MARCHI, Pietro (b.1958) Series 33. HERE AND NOT ELSEWHERE: Selected Poems 1990-2010, PUSTERLA, Fabio (b.1957) tr. Marco Sonzogni. Guernica Editions (Toronto, Buffalo NY & DAYSFULLOFCAVESANDTIGERS/GiorniPienidiCaverneediTigri, Lancaster UK) 117pp, 2012. Essential Translations Series 7. tr.withpref.SimonKnight,intro.AlanBrownjohn.ArcPublications LEPORI, Pierre (b.1968) (TodmordenUK)132pp,2012.VisiblePoetsSeriesVol.32. WHATEVER THE NAME, tr. Peter Valente pref. Fabio Pusterla. SCHARPF, Oliver (b.1977) Spuyten Duyvil Press (NY) 130pp, 2017 A CHOICE OF UPPERCUTS, tr. Marco Sonzogni. Guernica NESSI, Alberto (b.1940) Editions (Toronto, Buffalo NY, Lancaster UK) 103pp, 2010. TRIVIA THIEF: Selected Poems 1969-2009, tr. Marco Sonzogni. Essential Poets Series: 180. ITALlAN PROSE JAEGGY, Fleur (b.1940) (Sheffield UK) 102pp, 2018 (novel). This translation first I AM THE BROTHER OF XX, tr. Gini Alhadeff. And Other Stories published 1991. (Sheffield UK) 133pp, 2017 (short prose pieces/stories). ORRELLI, Giovanni (1928-2016) THESE POSSIBLE LIVES, tr. Minna Zallman Proctor. New WALASCHEK’S DREAM, tr. Jamie Richards, intro. Daniel Directions Publishing Co. (NY) 64pp, 2017 (essays). Rothenbuhler. Dalkey Archive Press (Champaign IL, Dublin, SWEET DAYS OF DISCIPLINE, tr. Tim Parks. And Other Stories London) 175pp, 2012 (novel). Swiss Series. ROMANSH (& ASSOCIATED DIALECTS) PROSE BIERT, Clà (1920-1981) ANTHOLOGIES ONLY A GAME and Other Stories, tr. Alan Brown. Peter Owen THE CURLY-HORNED COW, ed. Reto R. Bezzola, tr. Elizabeth Publishers (London) 94pp, 1969 (short stories). Translated from Maxfield Miller (from Ladino) & W. W. Kibler (from Surselvan) German versions of the Romansch originals. Council Of Europe: with others. Peter Owen Publishers (London) 215pp, 1971 Translations Series. (poetry & prose). 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