Sample translation Uwe Timm: Halbschatten (“Penumbra”) Novel Translated by Anthea Bell Publication: August 2008 Hardcover 272 pages ISBN: 978-3-462-04043-2 Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch GmbH & Co. KG Iris Brandt
[email protected] Aleksandra Erakovic
[email protected] [pp. 7–32 of Uwe Timm’s Halbschatten (Penumbra)] A towering mountain range, sheer blue-grey rocks, a pale brown path carving its way through them as it rises to the peaks; there is a buffalo on the path and a man riding it, his legs dangling down. The man is old, with a long grey beard. Both of them, man and buffalo, are looking at the valley below. Halfway up the slope trees grow, pines, their crowns standing out against the red sunset sky. Up above, soft clouds veil the heavens. It is a picture of peace, with light from outside breathing a little life into it. How dense the white vapours look from here, how they fray and turn translucent the closer you come to them. There’s always a sense of uneasiness as you dive into the drifting grey where all sense of height and depth, up and down, is swiftly lost. Cool, moist air, no visibility. Then, slowly, the grey lightens, and you suddenly see the blue of the depths. The canal, the stony embankment, trodden grass, an asphalt path, and beyond it a small domain tended like a garden; old gravestones, many of them damaged by bullets and shell splinters, beyond them more wilderness, weeds, tall grass, thistles. This cemetery was once a restricted military area.