2020 – An Overview

Our book club, Readings from the Heart of Europe at The University of Washington managed to sustain our initial plans. Besides, due to technology advantages, we invited several translators and welcomed people from various states and countries to our discussions.  

Here is the overview of our reads for this year:

Olga Tokarczuk's   Primeval and Other Times   

Peter Handke's   A Sorrow Beyond Dreams   

Herta Müller's   The Land of Green Plums

Georgi Gospodinov's The Physics of Sorrow, joined by the book's translator Angela Rodel

Dubravka Ugrešić's  Fox, joined by the book's translator Ellen Elias-Bursać 

Mircea Cărtarescu's  Blinding, Book One, joined by the book's translator Sean Cotter

Lojze Kovačič's  Newcomers, Book One; Book Two, hosted by the book's translator Michael Biggins

Gregor von Rezzori's Memoires of an Anti-Semite

Magdalena Tulli's Dreams and Stones, joined by the book's translator Bill Johnston.

We closed virtually the door of 2020 with "The Door" by Magda Szabó. We are now ready to open the door to 2021 with the list of the reads for the first six months of the new year. Details are coming.

 

Happy New Year, dear colleagues and friends!

 

The Door by Magda Szabó - our December read

 

On the door to 2021:

The door by Magda Szabó (FB event)

Designed by Otilia Baraboi. 

DREAMS AND STONES by Magdalena Tulli - November 29

 

A reflection on GREGOR VON REZZORI -  the author of our October reading and an invitation to our November's read

Designed by Otilia Baraboi 

A link to the event on Facebook

October's read: MEMOIRES OF AN ANTI-SEMITE by Gregor von Rezzori

MEMOIRES OF AN ANTI-SEMITE by Gregor von Rezzori

Link to the   Facebook Event

Dear friends, don't forget to register.

Poster design by Otilia Baraboi.

 

Our discussion of Newcomers: Book Two is coming up next week! We encourage all interested participants to mark, if they wish, one or two passages or scenes in the book that especially appeal to them, and be prepared to share the scene(s) and a few words about why they find it (them) so effective, memorable, or significant.

If you haven't registered yet, don't forget to do so:

https://forms.gle/FYS95ms1KVJDhdc79

Text and poster by Otilia Baraboi

 

August Read

On August 30, at 11 a.m. PDT we’ll share our impressions of Blinding, by Mircea Cărtărescu, and joined by the book translator Sean Cotter.

Sean Cotter received The Best Translated Book Award in 2014 for his translation of Cărtărescu's Blinding.

https://messybooker.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/blinding-mircea-cartarescu-translated-by-sean-cotter-best-translated-book-award-2014/

The book is available as an e-book from the publisher directly:
https://archipelagobooks.org/book/blinding-book-one/

Or from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Blinding-Mircea-Cartarescu/dp/1935744844

An invitation and poster created by Otilia Baraboi.

Big thank you to Ellen Elias-Bursać!

Big thank you to Ellen Elias-Bursać, the translator of Ugrešić’s Fox.

Two pics from July 26 meeting (a PPP, prepared by Norman Wacker, Zorica Wacker, and Michael Biggins).

And a link for further readings:

https://www.dubravkaugresic.com/

July Reading: Fox, by Dubravka Ugrešić

Upcoming:

We are excited to discuss Fox, by Dubravka Ugrešić, with the book translator Ellen Elias-Bursać.

This book is available as an e-book from the publisher directly (Open Letter) https://www.openletterbooks.org/…/dubravka-ugr…/products/fox

Or from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fox-Dubravk…/…/1940953766/ref=sr_1_1…

For further details, please visit https://www.facebook.com/Readings-from-the-Heart-of-Europe-2100726800044258/

An invitation and poster created by Otilia Baraboi.

Summer Readings

What are we going to read in the summer?

For our July 26 meeting we’ll be reading best-selling Croatian author Dubravka Ugrešić’s highly acclaimed novel Fox, and joined by translator Ellen Elias-Bursać (Open Press Books, 2018). 

On August 30 we’ll be discussing Romanian author Mircea Cărtarescu’s novel Blinding, Book One, and joined by the book’s translator Sean Cotter (Archipelago Books, 2013). 

Then on September 27 we’ll explore Book Two of Slovenian author Lojze Kovačič’s wartime trilogy Newcomers, translated by Michael Biggins (Archipelago Books, 2020).

(A snapshot from zoom discussion on Lojze Kovačič’s Book One. May 3, 2020)

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Other books in the English translation that our group has recently discussed have included 

2018 Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk’s Primeval and Other Times (from Polish),
2019 Austrian Nobel Prize Winner Peter Handke’s A Sorrow beyond Dreams (from German),
2009 Nobelist Herta Müller’s (Romania/Germany) The Land of Green Plums,
a novel by Romanian author Max Blecher and, most recently, on June 28, Bulgarian prose writer Georgi Gospodinov’s Physics of Sorrow, for which the author’s American translator Angela Rodel was able to join us from Bulgaria as our featured discussant.

Our book club welcomes new members and even one-time participants. 

Please follow our group on Facebook and join us for the upcoming book discussions.

The Bulgarian Sadness

June 28 poster

And a New Yorker review of the book: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-bulgarian-sadness-of-georgi-gospodinov

Poster design: Otilia Baraboi.

June Zoom-Meeting

June 28

A discussion of Georgi Gospodinov's The Physics of Sorrow with his translator Angela Rodel as a special guest.

Link to the FB-event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/559016384759207/

Please sign up to receive a zoom invite from us:
https://forms.gle/jSoz1Rk5q4EdYr53A

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Previous Zoom-meeting:

Newcomers

by Lojze Kovačič

with translator Michael Biggins

The three-part autobiographical series begins in 1938 with the expulsion of the Kovačič family from their home in Switzerland and their settlement in the father’s home country of Slovenia, then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It is narrated by a ten-year-old boy, a perennial outsider, a boy who never fit in in either Switzerland or Slovenia and was viewed with suspicion by adults and his peers. The work includes haunting, deeply thought-provoking descriptions of this estrangement as seen through the eyes of the child – in many ways a naïve boy, yet one who was forced to become an adult at an early age.

Newcomers are Kovačič's central work on the vortex of World War II and the post-war period, covering all the political, ideological and social conflicts of the 20th century and standing as a tragic chronicle of the recent past. A canonical, extensive and difficult autobiographical work, Newcomers is considered a literary masterpiece of the 20th century and is oftentimes compared to the oeuvres of popular modern authors such as Elena Ferrante and Karl Ove Knausgård, as well as classic authors, among them Nabokov and Tolstoy.

Chosen as the best Slovenian novel of the 20th century by Slovenian literary critics in a 2000 survey.