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Transcript, the European internet review of books and writing, recently published a special issue dedicated to contemporary Slovenian writers, translated into English. The section Seven Urban Tongues has poetry by: Primoz Cucnik, Taja Kramberger, Brane Mozetic, Peter Semolic, Tone Skrjanec, Natasa Velikonja and Maja Vidmar. (I’ve followed their lead and left out any diacritics.)
There’s also some fiction: A Thin Red Line by Andrej Blatnik, Berlin-Metelkova by Suzana Tratnik, Under the Surface by Mojca Kumerdej (currently unreadable) and The Jump Off the Liburnia by local literary heavyweight Drago Jancar.
It’s a bit difficult to find Slovenian writers translated into English, so this collection is something of a novelty.
(via CESLIT)
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I guess the reason for few English translations is that Slovenian writers don’t really write potential international bestsellers.
Literature standards in Slovenija are very high if you consider the total polulation, maybe in the past years these standards were lowered & commercialized, bu still. Primary interest of all publishing houses is profit.
You can find much more contemporary Slovene literature translated into German. Check
www.wieser-verlag.com/
I’m somewhat excatic by the fact that Taja Kramberger is included.
peng, extatic?
Try searching for Miha Mazzini at amazon.com. He’s had a couple of novels published in the States in the past years. Plus, his writing is superb.
She’s the daughter of my mentor at the University. I met her a couple of times and she’s extremelly intelegent. And good looking
Miha Mazzini is quite possible one of the best middle-age authors in Slovenia. His Bodyguard is excellent, as is his movie Sweet Dreams.
BTW: did you know that Mazzini is still considered to belong ot the “young generation of authors”? It seems that in Slovenian culture anything below 65+ age group is considered “young”. As if this weren’t a country but a geriatrics’ convention….
mojca and pengovsky: thanks for the recommendation! I’ll order some Mazzini stuff right away.
pengovsky: are you sure that’s not just the general naming of the pigeon-hole he’s being filed into? i read a lot of “young generation” japanese writers, and they’re all middle aged by now. the term “young” is just something they got labeled with in the sixties and seventies, and it stuck.
michael:i love it how you manage to unearth and post these not-so-obvious pearls. it’s the reason i keep coming back. keep it up! (hm, i can’t seem to be able to convince the browser to post the response to michael in a new line…
I stick to dead or at least old(er) authors: JanÄ?ar, Smole, Snoj, … From the younger ones, I had the chance to read some extracts from AleÅ¡ Äar’s prose. It seemed extremely intreaguing.
Michael,
Another great link! Thanks. You probably have been going to Words Without Borders for years, one of my favorite sites for non-USA writing. They’ve featured Croatian, Czech, and Albanian writers in the past. Not sure about Slovenian..unless they grouped them in with Great Pens of Slovakia.
@Cornelius: Of course it is… that’s the point of my post. Might have been some bad wording on my part. I’m having a hell of a day.
Cornelius: Carniolan engineers are hard-at-work trying to fix the line-break problem. Right now you can do it manually with the “br” tag, but I’m hoping it will be repaired soon.
And thanks for the link, Darko! I hadn’t seen it before.
It should be fixed now. Yay for JavaScript RTEs!
Miha Mazzini has a few short stories in English on his website.
cool! slovenian literature.
I think i’ve read A Thin Red Line before…
Alojz Ihan should be mentioned here, too, don’t you think? (I don’t know whether he has been translated into English yet.)
your right, it is hard finding slovenian stuff online!
Darkov, there is a bit of Slovenian stuff at Words Without Borders:See HereEven more interesting (translated from Italian):See HereExcerpt:ITALIAN SOLDIERS! The Communist Party of Slovenia appeals to you: Do not carry out your superiors’ orders, do not fire on the Slovenians, do not persecute the partisans, but surrender to them, do not stand in the way of our liberation struggle! Attack and disarm the fascist militia, the agents of OVRA and all those who are forcing you to fight against the Slovenian people.
I read a book by Ivan Potrc I found at a library at the University of Toronto several years ago. It was about a tale of women totally ruining some poor guy’s life. A big eye opener. :p I think it was this one!
@Pu: Alojz Ihan should be mentioned here, too, don’t you think? (I don’t know whether he has been translated into English yet.) Of course, I agree with you 100%. And yes, he’s been translated to English.