ELiT Literaturehouse Europe Literary trends 2017 B5.139 Ed. by Walter Grond and Beat Mazenauer Literary trends 2017 Ed. by Walter Grond and Beat Mazenauer All rights reserved by the Authors/ELiT c for all pictures by Sounds Right/Rosie Goldsmith The Literaturehouse Europe is funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. For copyright information and credits for funding organizations and sponsors please refer to the appendix of this book. Edition Rokfor Zürich/Berlin B5.139/04-12-2017 Konzeption: Rokfor Produktion: Gina Bucher Grafische Gestaltung: Rafael Koch Programmierung: Urs Hofer Gesamtherstellung: epubli, Berlin GET TO KNOW LITERATURE The Literaturhaus Europa’s annual programme inclu- des events which take place in Budapest, Hamburg, London, Ljubljana, Paris and Wachau, Austria. From readings to lectures, Q&A sessions with writers to debates, there are always two main considerations. Firstly, personally getting to know writers, readers and all those interested in literature. Secondly, the perspective on literature and society transcending linguistic and cultural borders. In 2017, the annual highlight was again the European Literature Days. The symposium from 16 to 19 November held in Spitz and Stein an der Donau was the rendezvous for writers and literary experts from seventeen different countries. Highlights from a series of readings, interactive dialogues and debates during the European Lite- rature Days 2017 were also produced as short films for OKTO.TV and now available online at www.literaturhauseuropa.eu. The current third editi- on of «Trends in European Contemporary Literature» presents material from the European Literature Days with lead articles by Sergej Lebedew and Adriaan van der Weel on the themes «Fear Everywhere» and «How Does Reading Work?». Also featured are Rasha Khayat’s blog bulletins that give insightful accounts of the daily agenda and atmosphere at the international literature festival. The main part of the third Yearbook, as in previous years, is a compilation of texts published from Janu- ary to December 2017 in the Observatory on topics such as Europe, Trends in Contemporary Literature and Publishing in the Digital-Media Context. A brand- new column is the ELit Book Tip published by the GET TO KNOW LITERATURE Literaturhaus Europa to raise awareness about si- gnificant new titles and books, which were rather unfairly underestimated, and transcend language and cultural borders: the aim is to promote new trans- lations of these titles. Of paramount importance is the independent choice of books under review by our panel of literary contributors, along with their verdict on the personal reader experience that may enrich the reading landscape. Warm regards – and wishing everyone a pleasurable reading experience. Walter Grond Artistic Director ELiT Literaturhaus Europa INHALT FEAR EVERYWHERE . 11 Fear Everywhere . 14 2. THE EUROPEAN LITERATURE DAYS 2017 . 19 Blog by Rasha Khayat . 19 In Honour of Elif Shafak . 28 This lack of art and this lack of humanity. 36 3. TRENDS IN EUROPEAN CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE . 42 The Third Reading Revolution. 42 The Centre and the Periphery in Literary Translation. 46 4. EUROPA . 50 5. POSTS FROM THE «OBSERVATORY» . 66 6. BOOK REVIEWS . 100 9 FEAR EVERYWHERE Fear is emerging everywhere. The growing rivalry among states, ethnicities and economic partners promotes a climate of tension. Cultivating fear is a fundamental impetus of libe- ralism, as the French philosopher Michel Foucault expressed it: the freedom to conquer is reflected in the desire to control everything. Fear, the thrill of fear and panic-making are basic mentalities like political strategies that influence our present experience. Fear of those who flee and fear of refugees; anxiety about po- verty and collapse; fear of fascism and war and globalization; fear of religious fundamentalism and the implosion of values; fear of technology and of technology making humans obsolete; fear of permanent communication and language loss; fear of disorientation as well as of total control – the list could go on endlessly. Our life seems to have become precarious. Writers and philosophers as diverse as Jürgen Habermas and Pankaj Mishra appeal for a new enlightenment for our modern world that seems to be falling apart. In our irrevocably diverse and extremely unequal societies, criticism must go hand in hand with empathy and unlimited self-knowledge. 11 Sergej Lebedev 13 FEAR EVERYWHERE By Sergey Lebedev I was born in a country where fearlessness was an unwa- vering ideological dogma, running like a red thread through every book, film, and newspaper article. The Red Army soldiers knew no fear in combat. Nor did underground agents under torture. Cosmonauts and polar explorers. Modest engineers faced with problems in producti- on. Pioneers and combine drivers, border guards and kolkhoz workers. The exalted vocabulary of fearlessness, the synonyms of epi- thets for glorifying exploits, was extremely rich. The language of fear was dull, repetitive, caricatured: pale face, trembling hands... Yet the temptation of fear and cowardice was a cornerstone of Soviet culture; overcoming fear and with it everything that was petty, personal, quotidian, was considered a rebirth, the acquisition of true communist consciousness. Even the body of the ideal Soviet man, described by writers with metaphors that replaced human flesh with steel, stone, or concrete, overcame and rejected physiological fear. But the real Soviet man lived differently. In the northern city of Inta, in the regions of the camps, I saw aging «Stalin» houses, with the plaster and cement peeling off. Instead of rebar—there probably wasn’t enough—the walls and balconies were reinforced with rods made of twisted barbed wire. Fear, barbed fear, was the «rebar» of the Soviet regime. All the stronger because later Soviet generations, who no longer had the threat of being shot hanging over them, did not perceive it as fear. The way silence becomes taciturnity, a phenomenon becomes a characteristic, so fear mutated, crept and permeated habits, character traits, life strategies, choices, consciousness and language. ˚ Twentieth-century Russian history has two moments, two months, illuminated by the special light of memory. They are February 1917 and August 1991. Memoirists describe those two historic instants, separated by 74 years, in the same 14 emotional range: as if the shackles had fallen, and people felt the spirit of brotherhood, goodness, and hope for the future. They were two moments, two historical epiphanies, when fear vanished and it seemed that Russia had found freedom. But after February 1917 came October and Bolshevik takeover, and after August 1991 came October 1993 when during a confrontation between President Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet, tanks fired on the parliament. Twice in a single century October in the Russian political calendar marked a turn from freedom to authoritarian rule, from joy back to fear. ˚ Today my country is sick with fear. Like a contagious patient, it is trying to sow fear among its neighbors. A fractured and weakened Europe, devoid of political and human solidarity, immersed in its own phobias is very useful for the Putin regime. Vladimir Putin is a political figure created by fear. In the late Soviet period, fear of the state was rationalized and predictable. Post-Soviet Russia, which faced economic collapse, an irrational fear of terrorist acts, new for former citizens of the USSR, and a totally unpredictable future, gladly embraced the new president promising protection, order, and stability. But Putin,formerly of the KGB,the repressive Soviet institution, probably knows no method of management but fear. Many analysts consider him a complex figure and seek a double or triple meaning in his actions and look to signs and signals for explanations. In fact, Putin is master in only one genre—the genre of fear. Like any person who does not know the value of trust and lacks positive, constructive emotions, he himself is susceptible to fear. When the authoritarian regime of Russian protégé Yanukovich was overthrown in Ukraine, political hysteria broke out in Russia. Soviet propaganda clichés were pulled out of the dustbin of history, and the rebellious Ukrainians were called fascists, the greatest evil of the past century. I think the Russian leadership was frightened. Frightened of the Ukrainians who could come out onto the square, Maidan, stand under bullets and not step back. It was scared that the Ukrainians were capable of overcoming their fear and 15 thereby depriving Russia and its president of the only method of influencing them. ˚ Today, Ukrainian political prisoners, for example film director Oleg Sentsov and activist Alexander Kolchenko, illegally de- tained in Russia, are getting sentences comparable to those in the Stalin period: 10, 20 years. The state media gloat over every failure in Ukraine. Crimea, which belongs to Ukraine, is occupied by Russian troops. A war is raging in eastern Ukraine, a war started by Russia and fought de facto by the Russian army, Russian mercenaries, and secret services. Russian society is unable to resist. The fear of calling aggres- sion aggression, war war, and turpitude turpitude, to be in the minority, is making even many opposition figures choose intermediate, devious positions, avoiding answers, refusing the moral responsibility born by citizens for the crimes of their state. But those who support Vladimir Putin’s policies are not free from fear, either. Russian soldiers who died in