20 February 2020
Travelling through the British Library’s Dutch-Surinamese Collections via Johan Fretz’s ‘Onder de Paramariboom’
“Mummy comes from the Paramaribo-tree – that’s a tree on the other side of the ocean, and black people like mummy and Ruud Gullit grow on it.” – Johan Fretz, Onder de Paramariboom
Paramari-what? Sometimes it takes a child’s perspective to make you realise how little you really know about something; when you find you’re unable to correct what they’re saying with any degree of accuracy. Of course, when my coursemates and I were given the opportunity to work with the Dutch-Surinamese author Johan Fretz and translate part of his semi-autobiographical novel Onder de Paramariboom, I could have told you that Surinamese people don’t grow on a big tree named after the country’s capital, Pamaribo, but I couldn’t have told you much else about Suriname or its people.
Cover of Johan Fretz, Onder de Paramariboom (Amsterdam, 2018) YF.2019.a.5725.
The British Library’s vast collection of maps, texts and images from and related to the former Dutch colony provides a pretty good impression of Suriname, but nowhere could I find mention of the ‘Paramaribo-tree’. The reason, of course, is that it has been invented by Johannes, the narrator of Fretz’s novel (the wordplay in the original title with the Dutch word ‘boom’ (‘tree’) is lost in English) who, despite having a Surinamese mother, has never really felt in touch with his Surinamese roots. It’s not until he visits Suriname that he realises how much he has been shaped by this part of his identity. As a fellow lover of a good pun, I adopted Johannes as my guide through the British Library’s collection.
Suriname, once known as Dutch Guiana, is located on the north-east coast of South America and is just over twice the size of Scotland. Although British planters were the first Europeans to permanently settle there, Suriname was largely under Dutch rule from 1667 until its independence in 1975.
Johannes’ mother, Virginia, was born and raised in Paramaribo, where Fretz’s novel is mainly set. The historical inner city, on the left bank of the Suriname River, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002.
The oldest and most important street in Paramaribo is Waterkant (‘waterside’). Many of its buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1821, including the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Housing, which was rebuilt and now looks, according to Johannes, “like it has been blown up and then put back together again, all higgeldy-piggeldy.” (Fretz, p.29)
The photograph below is taken from a collection of wonderful pictures taken by Dutch photographer Willem van de Poll during the 1955 state visit of the Dutch Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard.
‘The Waterkant, Paramaribo’. From Willem van de Poll, Suriname (Paramaribo, [1959]) X.709/26675.
A map in King George III’s Topographical Collection lying on the desk before me tells me that Virginia’s favourite district in Fretz’s novel is Commewijne, named after the river that flows through it. Commewijne lies on the opposite side of the Suriname river to Paramaribo and is a former plantation district: the map shows plantations tightly packed along the rivers Commewijne and Suriname.
Algemeene Kaart van de Colonie of Provintie van Suriname, met de rivieren, districten, ontdekkingen... (Amsterdam, [after 1758]) K.Top.124.47.1.
Many Dutch families owned plantations in Suriname, and family members would sometimes visit them. A journal by Gaspar van Breugel records one such visit in 1823 to inspect two plantations partially owned by his family. In his journal he calls these plantations ‘Carolinenburg’ and ‘Schoonwoud’, but a little bit of research provided me with their real names and details: the 500-acre Cliffort Kokshoven a coffee and cotton plantation in Commewijne, and Kocqswoud was a 163-acre coffee plantation in the Marrowijne district.
“It was one of those subjects – just like slavery – that was not to be talked about, which of course meant that it was talked about as often as possible”. (Fretz, p.53). The picture shows the title-page of G. P. C. van Breugel, Dagverhaal van eene reis naar Paramaribo en verdere omstreken in de Kolonie Suriname (Amsterdam, 1842) 10055.cc.6
Slaves were shipped to Suriname from the west coast of Africa. While the majority worked the plantations, some were domestic slaves. A major and unique publication in Dutch colonial history was Wij Slaven van Suriname (‘We Slaves of Suriname)’, by Anton de Kom. Born in Suriname to a former slave and having received an education which neglected to tell the narrative of the slaves who had been forced to work there, De Kom wrote his book to draw attention to the history of slavery in Suriname. The British Library houses a copy of the first edition of this important text.
Title page of Anton de Kom, Wij Slaven van Suriname (Amsterdam, [1934]) X.529/73312
“Uncle Jimmy. He’s black, much darker than the rest of my family.
‘That’s because uncle Jimmy is a maroon,’ says my mother. ‘But of course, you should never say that.’
He came from the inland to Paramaribo when he was fifteen years old. (Fretz, p.54)
Slaves that managed to flee their masters tended to make their way into the rainforests of the Surinamese interior. Here, they formed groups with other runaway slaves, known as maroons, and established communities which still exist today. Johannes’ uncle Jimmy is a descendant of one such community. Often maroons would return to their former plantations and attack them, “both from a Spirit of revenge for the barbarous and inhuman treatment … they had received … & from a view of carrying away plunder … in order to provide for their subsistence and defense.” This quote is taken from John Gabriel Stedman’s Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Suriname. Stedman was a British-Dutch colonial soldier who volunteered to assist local troops fighting maroons in Suriname.
View of the Estate Alkmaar, on the River Commewine. From J.G. Stedman, Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Suriname (London, 1796) 145.f.15
Stedman began writing his Narrative once back in Holland in 1778, based on the diaries he kept during his time in Suriname between 1773 and 1777. The book details the Dutch colony at the time as seen by an ‘outsider’ – Stedman documented most of what he witnessed, from military campaigns to flora and fauna to relationships between slaves and their masters. His editor, however, made significant alterations (unbeknownst to Stedman) to remove the text’s anti-slavery undertones. Indeed, extracts from later uncensored versions of the text proved valuable to those involved in anti-slavery efforts. The Narrative contains 80 etchings based on Stedman’s drawings, some made by William Blake, a close friend of Stedman during the mid-1700’s.
Slavery was not abolished in Suriname until 1863, although the slave trade had been illegal since 1814. To help prevent illegal slave trading, Dutch navy ships patrolled routes between Freetown in Sierra Leone and Paramaribo. Sierra Leone was then a British colony and, following the British Abolition of the Slave Trade Act (1807), there was a one-sided ban on the slave trade between Africa and Suriname. The British pressured other countries to ban the trade out of ‘economic necessity’, since while others continued to import plantation workers, they themselves faced labour shortages. After the British threatened not to return confiscated Dutch colonies, the Netherlands banned the slave trade in 1814. In a treaty of 1818 the British and Dutch agreed to work together to prevent illegal slave trading between their colonies. Both could search each other’s vessels, and two mixed commission courts, in Freetown and Paramaribo, were established with the power to sentence slavers.
Gerard Van Lennep Coster was a Dutch naval officer who served on one such ship from 1819 to 1821. I discovered this in his travel memoir Herinneringen mijner reizen naar onderscheidene Werelddeelen (‘Memories of my travels to different continents’), which I also find on my reading room desk alongside his Aanteekeningen, gehouden gedurende mijn verblijf in de West-Indiën... (‘Annotations kept during my stay in the West-Indies...’), a journal documenting his time in Suriname.
Above: Title page of Gerard van Lennep Coster, Herinneringen mijner reizen naar onderscheidene Werelddeelen (Amsterdam, 1836) 10027.e.7. Below: Title page from Gerard van Lennep Coster, Aanteekeningen, gehouden gedurende mijn verblijf in de West-Indiën, in dejaren 1837-1840 …(Amsterdam, 1842) 10470.d.3.
In Fretz’s novel, Johannes’ trip to Suriname took him on a journey of self-discovery which also led me through the collections of the British Library. I may not have covered the distance that he did, but Fretz’s narrative certainly made me feel closer to Suriname. Suddenly, Suriname’s history doesn’t seem so distant, and I’m pretty sure that I could hold a conversation about the country that stretches a little further than quashing a child’s notion of the roots of the Surinamese.
Megan Strutt, University of Sheffield
Written as part of the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) scheme, working in collaboration with Marja Kingma (Curator Germanic Collections BL) and Filip De Ceuster (University of Sheffield).
13 February 2020
The return of Miloš Crnjanski to London
Miloš Crnjanski (1893-1977) was a major Serbian avant-garde poet and writer, who lived as an exile in London from 1941 to 1965. Almost 55 years later, Crnjanski’s life and work will be re-examined at a literary event at The British Library on 9 March.
Crnjanski in 1936. Image from the collected edition of his works, Sabrana dela Miloša Crnjanskog, ed. Roksanda Njeguš and Stevan Raičković (Belgrade, 1966) X.989/5721.
The panel of academics, translators and artists will discuss Crnjanski’s life in London as an exile versus his subsequent life and reception in Belgrade as well as the contemporary relevance of his writing. The panel will also be looking at how we approach Crnjanski today.
Title page of Crnjanski’s Maska: Poetična komedija (Zagreb, 1918; 012265.aaa.50/50) with the roundel logo ‘DHK’ of Društvo hrvatskih književnika (‘Croatian Writers’ Society’) and a photograph of Crnjanski as a young man with his signature in facsimile.
Human migrations and human destiny in an ever-changing world are the universal topics which occupy the central place in Crnjanski’s prose and poetry. In all of his acclaimed works – Maska (‘Mask’, 1918), Lirika Itake (‘Lyrics of Ithaca’, 1919), Dnevnik o Čarnojeviću (‘Journal of Čarnojević’, 1921), Seobe (‘Migrations’, 1929), Seobe druga knjiga (‘Migrations: part two’, 1962) – Crnjanski’s protagonists are constantly moving to new places in search of a better and more humane world.
Title page of Lirika Itake. (Belgrade, 1919). 011586.c.42., with an inscription on the cover by S[vetislav] B. Cvijanović, a well-known Belgrade publisher of Crnjanski’s early works.
In addition to literature, Crnjanski was also involved in journalism as a columnist and editor. His political engagement and confrontation with the Left at home subsequently made him persona non grata in communist Yugoslavia and led to his life in exile. In a 1918 letter to the Croatian Writers’ Society, Crnjanski says that while he was at war he learned about the war and the desire to die. That can be said about his life in exile from 1941, which was a deeply unhappy life for Crnjanski as a man, husband and writer.
Front page of the 20 October 1934 issue of Ideje: za književnost, politička i društvena pitanja (‘Ideas: literary, political and social journal’; awaiting shelfmark). Crnjanski edited and published this weekly journal in both Cyrillic and Roman scripts from 1934 to 1935. The photograph shows King Peter II of Yugoslavia (1923-1970) who ascended the throne aged 11 following the assassination of his father, King Alexander I, in 1934 and reigned until 1945.
Despite everything, while in London Crnjanski produced several great works of Serbian literature. In his poem Lament nad Beogradom (‘Lament for Belgrade’, 1962) he finally becomes reconciled with the fate of man whose life is nothing “but seadrift, transient, whisperings in China”.
Front cover of Lament nad Beogradom, a 2010 edition in seven languages. YF.2012.b.2123.
The last two verses of Lament for Belgrade, which Crnjanski penned on Cooden Beach in East Sussex in 1956. Translated by Geoffrey N. W. Locke. Illustrations by Momo Kapor.
Crnjanski’s own life finally had a happy ending. His work was re-evaluated and welcomed back into the canon of Serbian and Yugoslav literature. He was urged to return home and was at last persuaded to do so in 1965.
Crnjanski after his return to Belgrade in 1966. Image from Sabrana dela Miloša Crnjanskog.
In his last major novel Roman o Londonu (‘Novel of London’), published in Belgrade in 1971, Crnjanski deals with two chief protagonists. One is a Russian émigré through whom we learn about Crnjanski’s own experiences of a life in exile, and the other is the city of London, in whose suburbs and streets the émigré drama takes place.
After nearly fifty years since the publication in Serbian, Will Firth’s translation is the first translation of this great novel into English.
Front cover illustration by Bill Lavender for Miloš Crnjanski, A Novel of London, translated by Will Firth (New Orleans, 2020). Awaiting shelfmark.
Milan Grba, Lead Curator South-East European Collections
References:
Miloš Crnjanski, Dnevnik o Čarnojeviću (Belgrade, 1921) RB.23.a.35057
Miloš Crnjanski, Seobe; Druga knjiga Seoba (Belgrade, 1990) YA.1998.b.4001
Miloš Crnjanski, Roman o Londonu (Belgrade, 1996) YA.2001.a.5543
17 January 2020
‘How delightful to be a governess’ [not]: Anne Brontë in Translation
‘Parson’s lass ’ant nowt, an’ she weänt ’a nowt when ’e’s deäd,
Mun be a guvness, lad, or summut, and addle her breäd.’
Those hard-headed words of Tennyson’s ‘Northern Farmer: New Style’ rang bitterly true in a family where ‘parson’s lass’ was the youngest of four surviving children out of six. The Rev. Patrick Brontë’s daughter Anne, born on 17 January 1820, had no choice but to earn her own living, and a teaching position, whether as a governess or in a school, offered respectability and an income, albeit a modest one. In her first post Anne earned £25 per year. Meagre as the material rewards were, though, her months with the Ingham and Robinson families provided her with others – a fund of experience and a determination to expose the humiliation and exploitation suffered by other women in her situation.
Anne Brontë, drawn by her sister Charlotte
As the youngest of three sisters, plus a scapegrace elder brother, Anne might have been expected to be accustomed to deferring to others and displaying the submissiveness required by her employers. If we are to believe her sister Charlotte’s account of her, she had all these qualities; the picture which Charlotte paints of her in the most delicate pastel tones suggests a muted meekness and piety which nowadays seems dangerously close to mawkishness. Samantha Ellis, in Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life (London, 2017; DRT ELD.DS.181944), describes how the taxi driver taking her to Thorp Green, the site of Anne’s second post, was unaware that there was another sister besides Charlotte and Emily.
This state of affairs is reflected to some degree in the British Library’s holdings of translations of Anne Brontë’s two novels and her poetry. Their scantiness contrasts strongly with the numerous versions of Jane Eyre or Emily’s single novel Wuthering Heights, and the fact that the majority of them are 20th-century publications suggests the slow growth of international awareness of her significance. The earliest in the collections is a French translation of Agnes Grey dating from 1859 in which Anne is not even accorded the dignity of a book to herself but shares it with a translation of her elder sister’s Shirley – both novels being attributed to ‘Currer Bell’, Charlotte’s pen-name, while poor ‘Acton Bell’ is completely obscured.
Title-page of the translations of Shirley and Agnes Grey by Ch. Romey and A Rolet (Paris, 1859) 12602.d.3.
Another French translation, Agnès Grey, was published in 1949. It is easy to see the appeal of this work in a society where the governess was also a familiar figure in middle- and upper-class families, and where, indeed, French was, like music and drawing, one of the obligatory subjects in a curriculum designed to fit eligible young ladies for the marriage market. However, superficial accomplishments did little to enable them to choose wisely, as Agnes’ former pupil Rosalie Murray laments after becoming Lady Ashby, deploring her husband’s ‘carnet de paris, sa table de jeu, ses filles de l’Opéra, sa lady une telle, sa mistress une telle, ses bouteilles de vin et ses verres d’eau-de-vie et de gin!’ In contrast, Agnes, after two miserable experiences as a governess to charges who are spoilt, odious or uncontrollable, returns home to run a successful school with her widowed mother, and makes a happy marriage when independence has rendered her able to make a free choice.
Anne’s other novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, similarly highlights the importance of education in enabling a woman to make a life for herself, escape an abusive marriage and support herself and her children. Helen, its heroine, is at first dazzled by the handsome and wealthy Arthur Huntingdon, and convinces herself that the flaws in his character are due to neglect by his unsatisfactory mother. The marriage rapidly deteriorates through his drinking and mental and physical cruelty, and Helen finally leaves him, taking their child, and adopts a new identity under her late mother’s maiden name. She is able to make a living from painting because she treats it as a serious pursuit, taking lessons to develop her talent (one of the most painful scenes in the novel is that where Arthur burns her work), and becomes a well-regarded (and saleable) artist. Likewise, Agnes Grey’s elder sister Mary develops her artistic gifts and by doing so not only earns a decent living but lifts herself out of the depression which envelops her after the family’s decline into poverty. Nor does this preclude a happy marriage, as we learn when Agnes goes home to help with the preparations for Mary’s wedding to a young clergyman.
The title of this second novel provides some interesting challenges for the translator. In a French translation by Maurice Rancès (Paris, 1937; 12643.a.41) Helen becomes La Dame du Château de Wildfell, suggesting the banks of the Loire rather than rugged Yorkshire, while a 1985 Hungarian translation (YF.2006.a.11670) makes her simply Wildfell asszonya (‘The Lady of Wildfell’). A Russian translation which also includes Agnes Grey makes her Neznakomka iz Uaĭldfell-Kholla (‘The Unknown Lady of Wildfell Hall; wisely, translators have avoided attempts to tackle the name of her residence which produced some bizarre results in the case of Wuthering Heights). This translation appeared in 1990, and also contains her poetry.
Cover of a Russian translation of Anne Brontë’s novels and poems (Moscow, 1990); YA. 1995.a.15633.
The strangest ‘translation’, though, is one purporting to be a Spanish version of a joint production by Charlotte and Anne Brontë from a German translation of a text never published in English. Adversidad (Barcelona, [1946]; 012643.tt.74.) is the work of one Ricardo Boadella, who in his preface claims that the novel, set during the Napoleonic wars, bears the unmistakeable stamp of the sisters’ admiration for Nelson, their interest in education and their devotion to duty as illustrated by the hero, ‘Rockhingham’ [sic], who becomes a martyr to it. One would like to think that Anne – a far more courageous and spirited character than she is conventionally perceived – would have relished this preposterous pastiche.
Susan Halstead Subject Librarian (Social Sciences), Research Services
30 December 2019
Theodor Fontane’s British Wanderings
Theodor Fontane is one of those authors who gives hope to middle-aged would-be novelists who have yet to take up their pens: his first novel, Vor dem Sturm, was not published until he was 59. However, middle-aged would-be novelists should also be warned that, before embarking on the novels for which he is now most famous, Fontane had served a long literary apprenticeship as a poet, critic, journalist and travel writer. In these last capacities, he wrote in some detail about the three visits he made to Britain in the 1840s and 1850s.
Born in the town of Neuruppin in Brandenburg on 30 December 1819, Fontane initially followed his father’s career as a pharmacist, serving an apprenticeship in Berlin where he also began to develop his literary interests. It was during his year of compulsory military service that he was invited to join a friend on a two-week trip to England in the summer of 1844. Thanks to a sympathetic commanding officer, he was able to accept.
Theodor Fontane during his first stay in London in 1844. Sketch by J.W. Burford, reproduced in Josef Ettlinger, Theodor Fontane: ein Essai (Berlin, [1904]) 011852.ff.16/18.
On this first visit to England, Fontane was very much a tourist, making planned visits to the sights of London – a city which impressed him with its size compared with the still relatively provincial Berlin – and going on an excursion to Windsor. However, he also made some more independent trips, including a visit to fellow German pharmacist Hermann Schweitzer in Brighton. Schweitzer apparently promised to look for a possible job in England for Fontane, suggesting that Fontane was interested in settling here, although nothing came of this.
A side-effect of this first visit to England was Fontane’s increased interest in historical ballads, and ballads on English and Scottish themes were among the poems he published in 1851, by which time he had given up his pharmaceutical career to live by his pen. The following year, he returned to London as a correspondent for a Prussian newspaper, with a brief to write about conditions in England. This time he stayed for five months, writing articles on a range of subjects from the streets and sights of London to an election in Brentford, which were later collected into the book Ein Sommer in London. During this stay he again considered making a more permanent home in England, possibly by acquiring his own pharmacy business. However, the only work readily available appeared to be as a German tutor and, after some weeks of dithering about whether or not to seek employment in London, he returned to Berlin.
Cover of Theodor Fontane, Aus England (Stuttgart, 1860) 10348.d.3
Three years later he returned again on a longer-term basis with a mission from the Prussian Government to promote a more pro-Prussian line in the British press. He remained until 1859, and once again wrote about England for the German press. A selection of this journalism was also later published in book form as Aus England. Unlike the varied and shorter sketches of Ein Sommer in London, this collection focuses in three longer sections on the London theatre, British art and the British press. The second section was inspired by a visit to the 1857 Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester, and Fontane adds some impressions of Manchester, which he found ‘not quite so dreary a place as it had been described to me in London’, and Liverpool, where he was very impressed by the docks on the River Mersey’s ‘vast expanse of water’.
These excursions are rare exceptions to the usual focus on London and its surroundings in Fontane’s published accounts of Britain. However, in the summer of 1858 he and his friend Bernhard von Lepel set off on a 14-day tour of Scotland which Fontane described in his book Jenseits des Tweed, again compiled from articles originally written for newspapers. Although his anglophilia had become somewhat jaded by the realities of London life, Fontane described himself setting off for Scotland with much of the same excitement that he had felt on first leaving for England 14 years earlier. The travellers fitted a lot into a short time, starting in Edinburgh before travelling on to Inverness, their northernmost stop, via Stirling and Perth. They then travelled down the Caledonian Canal to the West Coast, taking in the Islands of Iona and Staffa before returning to Edinburgh.
Map of Fontane’s Scottish tour, from Theodor Fontane, Beyond the Tweed, translated by Brian Battershaw (London, 1998) YC.2001.a.8037
Like many Germans, Fontane’s idea of Scotland had been shaped by the works of Sir Walter Scott, by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, by romantic tales and legends, and by picturesque historical anecdotes, several of which he repeats in his descriptions of the places he and Lepel visited. However, a ‘pilgrimage’ to Scott’s old home at Abbotsford, the final visit on their tour, and perhaps saved until last as a particular treat, left Fontane somewhat underwhelmed. He found the house, preserved as a museum, something of a ‘waxwork show’ without the living writer’s spirit to animate it.
Despite this rather anticlimactic end to the trip, Fontane retained fond memories of Scotland, and his Scottish tour inspired him, on his return to Germany, to start writing similar travel pieces about his native Brandenburg. His Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg ran to five volumes and played a role in the development of his writing style towards that of a novelist.
Fontane in later life, reproduced in Josef Ettlinger, Theodor Fontane
After leaving London in early 1859 Fontane never returned to Britain, but he wrote at least one more piece about Scotland, a poem in response to the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. Harking back to his love of Shakespeare and Scott, he wrote it in the style of a ballad, framed by three Macbeth-style witches who plot and rejoice in the bridge’s destruction. Sadly, this is less well known in Britain than William McGonagall’s hilariously inept verses on the same theme, but in the year that marks the 140th anniversary of the disaster as well as the bicentenary of Fontane’s birth, it seems an appropriate note on which to end our look at Fontane in Britain.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
References/further reading:
Theodor Fontane, Ein Sommer in London (Berlin, 1854) 10350.c.1.
Theodor Fontane, Jenseits des Tweed: Bilder und Briefe aus Schottland (Berlin, 1860) 10370.c.26
Theodor Fontane, A Prussian in Victorian London, translated by John Lynch (London, 2014) YC.2016.a.11501
Petra E. Krüger, Fontane in London (Berlin, 2012) YF.2017.a.16769
Gordon A. Craig, Theodor Fontane: literature and history in the Bismarck Reich (New York, 1999) YC.1999.b.9426
20 December 2019
Travels with George Eliot: the Moulin/Moinho/Mühle on the Floss
Last month readers throughout the world were celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mary Ann Evans – or, as she would later become known, George Eliot. Before her bicentenary year passes, it may be fitting, in view of her cosmopolitan interests and fondness for travel, to see how her works have fared abroad.
George Eliot in 1865, engraving after the portrait by Sir Frederic William Burton, from The complete poetical works of George Eliot (New York, 1888) 11612.h.1
Not surprisingly, given Eliot’s lifelong interest in German literature and philosophy, it was not long before her writings were translated into German. Patricia Duncker’s novel Sophie and the Sibyl (London, 2015; Nov.2016/1979) offers a lively account of Eliot’s relations with the firm of Duncker & Humblot (founded by Franz Duncker, an ancestor of the author) which published the German versions of her novels. The first of these to appear was Die Mühle am Floss, translated by Julius Frese (Berlin, 1861; 12633.cc.4), followed by Emil Lehmann’s four-volume translation of Middlemarch (Berlin, 1872-73; 12637.aa.6.). German readers had to wait until after Eliot’s death for Scenes of Clerical Life to come out in their language as Bilder aus dem kirchlichen Leben Englands in a translation by G. Kuhr (Leipzig, 1885; 12604.h.10).
An edition of Silas Marner with notes in French (Paris, 1887) 12604.cc.10.
With the exceptions of Romola, Daniel Deronda and the novellas Brother Jacob and The Lifted Veil (the last partly set in Prague, a city which Eliot visited in 1858 and described, somewhat confusingly, as ‘the most splendid city in Germany’), Eliot’s work largely draws on the landscape and society of Warwickshire, the county of her birth. For French readers who wished to become acquainted with her writings in the original English, Hachette brought out, in 1887, an edition of Silas Marner with notes in French and an introduction, also in French, by A. Malfroy which rather disparagingly describes the author’s native landscape as having about it ‘rien de pittoresque ni de grandiose’. Those not deterred by this unenthusiastic appraisal but mystified by the dialect spoken by the people of Raveloe might turn to translations such as those of Scènes de la vie du clergé, made by A. F. d’Albert-Durade, also for Hachette (Paris, 1886; 012547.e.77), in which Janet’s Repentance is transformed into La conversion de Jeanne. The same translator produced a version of Romola the following year (Paris, 1887; 12603.ff.11), but it was not until 1890 that a translator identified only as ‘M.-J. M.’ ventured to tackle the monumental Middlemarch. Étude de la vie de province (Paris, 1890; 12603.f.16).
Title page of a Yiddish edition of Daniel Deronda (Warsaw, 1914) 012612.i.2.
At first sight it might appear that the limited geographical compass of such novels might discourage translators from opening them up to a wider audience, but this is far from being the case. The British Library’s holdings include translations of Eliot’s works into Japanese, Telugu, Estonian, Oriya and Irish, as well as more widely-spoken languages. It is interesting to consider the reasons for a translator to give preference to one particular title and select it as likely to appeal to potential readers within a different culture. A notable example of this is Daniel Deronda, which appeared in translations into Hebrew by David Frishmann (Warsaw, 1893; (B)615.7045) and Yiddish. This is not surprising, despite the unpopularity of the novel’s Jewish plot among Gentile readers, as Eliot’s partner G. H. Lewes writes in a letter of 24 December 1876 to the palaeontologist Richard Owen:
[T]he Jews themselves – from Germany, France, and America, as well as England – have been deeply moved, and have touchingly expressed their gratitude. Learned Rabbis, who alone can appreciate its learning, are most enthusiastic. Is it not psychologically a fact of singular interest that she was never in her life in a Jewish family, at least never in one where Judaism was still a living faith and Jewish customs kept up? Yet the Jews all fancy she must have been brought up among them; and in America it is positively asserted that I am of Jewish origin!
Cover of The Mill on the Floss in Fernando de Macedo’s translation, O moinho à beira do Floss (Lisbon, 1943) 012643.ppp.17
In this, perhaps, lies the key to Eliot’s world-wide popularity among translators. Her empathy with characters from many walks of life and ability to portray them with humanity and vividness enables her to transcend boundaries of language and geography. Moreover, the apparently humdrum nature of the landscapes of some of her novels became quite different when viewed from a different perspective. The Portuguese artist’s impression of the world of The Mill on the Floss in Fernando de Macedo’s translation is just one example of the inspiration which these distant and paradoxically ‘exotic’ scenes provided for illustrators. Similarly, a Dutch translation of Adam Bede by Anna Dorothee Busken Huet contains three plates by Jozef Israëls portraying the figures of Adam, Dinah and Hetty with deep psychological insight.
Plate from Dutch translation of Adam Bede (Sneek, [1891]) 11409.m.39, showing the eponymous hero
The fact that George Eliot’s writings so quickly found translators testifies to their universal appeal and relevance of the issues which they raise. Whether they are given a voice in Swedish, Hungarian, Czech or Greek, Adam Bede, Silas Marner and Dorothea Brooke are truly citizens of the world and witnesses to the greatness of their creator.
Susan Halstead, Subject Librarian (Social Sciences), Research Services
13 December 2019
De Bezige Bij – 75 years and still buzzing
One of the most successful literary publishers in the Netherlands of the 20th and 21st centuries is De Bezige Bij (‘The Busy Bee’). Currently, it has almost 600 authors on its list, among them many big international names, together good for 1344 titles by my count.
De Bezige Bij started during the Second World War as a clandestine publishing house, of which there were a great many. Not so many, though, continued after the war, or were as successful as De Bezige Bij. It was among the most outstanding publishing ventures during the war, both in terms of content and of appearance.
It all started with saving Jewish children from the Nazis. When the deportations started and Jewish citizens of Amsterdam had to assemble at the Hollandsche Schouwburg, some women managed to get children out of the building and into the adjacent school for teachers. Soon the group grew and established sub-groups elsewhere, for instance in Utrecht. This so-called ‘Children’s Fund’ needed large sums of money. That money came in part from the Utrecht Student Corps (USC), of which Geert Lubberhuizen was a member. He became involved in the Children’s Fund to such an extent that he was nicknamed ‘The Busy Bee’.
One of the women founders, Anne Maclaine Pont, gave him a typed copy of ‘De Achttien Dooden’ (‘The Eighteen Dead’), the most famous illegal poem produced in the occupied Netherlands. Written by Jan Campert, the poem is a homage to the eighteen men who were executed following the ‘February Strike’, a general strike in protest against the persecution of Jews, led by dock workers in Amsterdam on 24 February 1941. They were the first Dutch men to be executed for alleged anti-German acts.
Jan Campert, De Achttien Dooden, 2nd ed. (Utrecht, 1943) HS.74/325.(21.)
The poem was circulated in manuscript or typescript. A total of 15,000 copies were produced during the war, not all by De Bezige Bij. However, it was Geert Lubberhuizen who decided late 1942, or early 1943 to make an illustrated printed broadside of it to raise money for the Children’s Fund. It was published by Lubberhuizen and Ch.E. Blommestein, and printed by J. Hendriks in Utrecht. The illustration is signed as Coen ’t Hart, the pseudonym of Fedde Wiedema.
That is how ‘De Achttien Dooden’ became De Bezige Bij’s first publication, almost two years before its official establishment as a publishing house. ‘The Bee’ as it became known continued to issue clandestine publications to support the work of the Children’s Fund.
The Library holds three editions of this broadside. The earliest is from 1943 and, according to Anna Simoni’s bibliography Publish and be Free, is of the 2nd edition. It was donated in September 1969, by Jaap Romijn, who ran another clandestine publishing house in Utrecht. Richter Roegholt wrote a history of De Bezige Bij, published in 1972 and mentions Simoni’s letter to him in reply to his attempts to solve the mystery of spelling errors in the poem. That is a story in itself which is best saved for some other time
.Front cover of Richter Roegholt, De Geschiedenis van De Bezige Bij (Amsterdam, 1972) 2708.c.35.
A second copy is from 1946 (74/L.R.410.y.1.(5.)) and was purchased in February 1968. The third copy (85/Cup.600.d.(2)) is from 1955, and has the real name of the illustrator alongside the pseudonym. This is printed on ‘pancake paper’ and is much narrower than the two others.
Production was increased after ‘Crazy Tuesday’ on 5 September 1944, when the Dutch thought, mistakenly, that the war had ended. By December 1944 it was clear that the war truly would not last much longer. So on 12 December 1944 the co-operative publishing house ‘De Bezige Bij’ was established, on the basis of a ‘Plan voor de coöperatieve uitgeverij De Bezige Bij in hoofdlijnen’ (‘Main outlines of a Plan for the co-operative publishers The Busy Bee’).
Cover of Plan voor de coöperatieve uitgeverij De Bezige Bij in hoofdlijnen ([Utrecht, 1944]) Cup.406.b.19.
The first article outlines the publishers’ intention to continue the business after the war:
Encouraged by the success of its. publications and by the interest from many authors and illustrators who, from the beginning have enthusiastically contributed to ‘The Busy Bee’, which has as its aim to collect as much money as possible for the national cause, next to the continuation of the free Dutch literature, the management of this publishing house has decided to continue her work after the war with the aim to serve the cause of its authors.
The first article of Plan voor de coöperatieve uitgeverij De Bezige Bij
Its first ‘official’ publication was a printing (in English) of The Atlantic Charter, declared by President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill on 14 August 1941. 100 copies were printed by Fokke Tamminga, who personally delivered one to the British Museum in 1969. The colophon makes clear that this was a clandestinely produced booklet, but its execution is nonetheless exquisite.
Opening (left)and colophon (right) of The Atlantic Charter (Utrecht, 1944). Cup.406.a.9.
This blog’s limitations do not allow for a discussion of the post-war history of ‘The Bee’. For that I refer to Roegholt and to the publisher’s own website . But I make an exception for Geheid Deelder, a collection of six stories by Jules Deelder on the occasion of De Bezige Bij’s 50th anniversary. Jules Deelder is after all just a few weeks older than De Bezige Bij.
Cover of Jules Deelder Geheid Deelder’ (Amsterdam, 1994) YA.1994.a.14827.
It goes without saying that De Bezige Bij is positively buzzing with activity around its 75th anniversary. On the 10th of this month a new poem by Ramsey Nasr entitled, ‘De dag kan komen’ (‘The day may come’) was unveiled in the firm’s offices, where it now hangs opposite Campert’s ‘De Achttien Dooden’.
Long may this Busy Bee keep buzzing!
Marja Kingma, Curator Dutch Language Collections.
References
Anna Simoni, Publish and be free: a catalogue of clandestine books printed in the Netherlands, 1940-1945, in the British Library (The Hague; London, 1975.) 2725.aa.1
04 December 2019
From Bach to Jazz in Rotterdam
A belated ‘Happy Birthday’ to two giants of Dutch literature: Jules Deelder and Maarten ’t Hart. Born within one day of each other, Deelder on 24th and ’t Hart on 25th November 1944, they grew up in or near Rotterdam. Maarten is more of an outdoor man, whilst Deelder is a real city slicker, nicknamed the ‘Night Mayor of Rotterdam’.
At first glance there couldn’t be two more different Dutch authors, but a closer look shows they have a few things in common.
Both published their first work around 1969 and have published a title almost every year for decades.
Both authors are passionate about music: ’t Hart wrote about Johann Sebastian Bach and other classical composers. Deelder wrote about jazz and pop.
Neither of them shuns controversy. Deelder is a performer/poet, who calls himself an ‘aucteur’. His hard-hitting black humour is not for the faint-hearted. He has a totally unique view on day-to-day topics. Maarten ’t Hart has a nickname, too: ‘Maartje ’t Hart’, the feminine version of ‘Maarten’, which refers to his love of wearing dresses.
Maartje/Maarten studied biology and did his PhD on the stickleback, published in a commercial edition as De Stekelbaars (X.329/17493). His breakthrough came in 1978 with a book with a bird in its title: Een Vlucht Regenwulpen (‘A Flight of Curlews’). The book was made into a film, with the lead character played by Jeroen Krabbé.
Cover of Een Vlucht Regenwulpen 9th ed, (Amsterdam, 1979) X.908/88682
’t Hart writes mainly prose. As far as I am aware he has never published a poetry collection, just as Deelder has never published a novel.
Both are prolific writers as the list on the Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren (DBNL) website shows; there you can find more information on both authors. The British Library holds most titles by both authors, including translations into English.
Poem on De Lijnbaan. In: 60 jaar Lijnbaan, by Astrid Aarsen et al. (Rotterdam, 2013) YF.2015.b.2051
Deelder visited London in 2015 to read from the collection 100 Dutch-language poems, translated into English by Paul Vincent, to which he contributed.
Jules Deelder in London 2015 . Photo by author.
Deelder’s poetry collection Transeuropa, originally published in 1995 has been translated into English by Scott Emblen-Jarrett, a graduate from the Centre of Dutch Studies at UCL. It is out this year.
Deelder’s latest poetry collection is entitled Hard Gin. A distillery in Schiedam, another town under the smoke of Rotterdam and once the centre of gin distilling has developed a related ‘Hard gin.’
Long may both authors live and delight us with their writings.
Marja Kingma, Curator for Dutch Language Collections
References:
Jules Deelder
Hard Gin. (Amsterdam, 2019)
Jazz: verhalen en gedichten. (Amsterdam, 1992) YA.1993.a.21208
Transeuropa: poems translated by Scott Emblen-Jarrett. (London, 2019) Awaiting shelfmark
Maarten ‘t Hart
De Stekelbaars. (Utrecht, 1978). X.329/17493
Mozart en de anderen (Amsterdam, 2006.) YF.2006.a.26678
Johann Sebastian Bach. (Amsterdam, 2018). YF.2019.a.15081
100 Dutch-language poems: from the medieval period to the present day, selected and translated by Paul Vincent and John Irons. (London, 2015). YC.2017.a.3500
25 November 2019
Pippi and others: Astrid Lindgren’s young rebels
One of the ‘young rebels’ featured in our current exhibition Marvellous and Mischievous is Pippi Longstocking (Pippi Långstrump), probably the most famous character created by the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. Pippi’s adventures have been loved by generations of children in many countries. She is supernaturally strong, a gifted and irresistible teller of tall tales, and, at the age of nine, completely independent. She lives exactly as she pleases, confounding the adults who want to send her to a children’s home or make her conform to social and educational norms.
Cover illustration by Ingrid Vang Nyman for Pippi Långstrump (Stockholm, 1945) X.990/6375.
Although most of Lindgren’s books have been translated into English and published in the UK, only the Pippi stories are really well known here. This is a shame because, while none is as uniquely and fantastically anarchic as Pippi, Lindgren created many other strong, brave and mischievous characters in a variety of settings.
Cover illustration by Björn Berg for Emil i Lönneberga, 10th ed. (Stockholm, 1977) X.990/19403
Take Emil, for example, who appears in a series of books set in rural Sweden in the early 20th century. He is the son of a farming family and constantly in trouble. In most stories an initial prank, such as getting a soup tureen stuck on his head or hoisting his little sister up a flagpole, escalates into a series of comic escapades. Emil’s father regularly locks him in the toolshed as a punishment, although Emil is actually quite content in there and spends his time carving wooden figures; when we first meet him aged five he has already made 54, and by the last book this has gone up to 369! But Emil is basically kind-hearted, and some of his misdemeanours are the result of a well-meaning gesture gone wrong. In the last story, he puts his strong will and defiance of rules to noble use, making a dangerous journey through snowbound country to save the life of the farmhand Alfred.
Cover illustration by Ilon Wikland for Madicken, 6th ed. (Stockholm, 1980) X.990/19408
Milder forms of mischief appear in the tales of Madicken and of Lotta. Madicken is a tomboyish girl living in Sweden during the First World War. She is quick-tempered and fights with her rival Mia, and her imaginative games often lead her into trouble, most seriously when she tries to fly off the roof using an umbrella as a parachute. When she starts school, she blames her initial bad behaviour (breaking her slate, vandalising her books, pouring ink on her clothes) on an imaginary classmate.
Cover illustration by Ilon Wikland for Lotta på Bråkmakargatan, 8th ed. (Stockholm, 1980) X.990/20827
Four-year-old Lotta’s main characteristic is stubbornness: on a visit to the dentist she keeps her mouth so tightly shut that he cannot extract a bad tooth. She is also outspoken, asking an elderly neighbour if she was on Noah’s Ark and explaining that she can’t politely wait for an adult to finish talking before speaking herself because “they don’t stop.”
Cover illustration by Ilon Wikland for Ronja Rövardotter (Stockholm, 1981) X.990/20858
Lindgren’s fantasy novels for older readers also feature rebellious young characters. The heroine of Ronja Rövardotter (Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter) is the only child and heir of a robber chief. Her parents let her run wild in the forest, where she learns to understand the natural world and the creatures that live there, and grows brave, strong and confident. When she meets and befriends Birk, the son of a rival robber band, the two defy their feuding parents and run away to live in the forest rather than be kept apart. The children’s devotion to each other and determination to be together finally persuade the robber bands to reconcile.
Cover illustration by Ilon Wikland for Bröderna Lejonhjärta, 4th ed. (Stockholm, 1981) X.990/19149
When we first meet Jonatan in Bröderna Lejonhjärta (The Brothers Lionheart), he seems almost too good to be true, the very opposite of a rebel or mischief-maker. He is handsome, clever, brave and popular, and a devoted son and brother. He even gives his own life to save his ailing brother Karl. But in the afterlife-world of Nangijala, where the boys are reunited, Jonatan is a rebel in a very literal sense: he belongs to an underground movement fighting to free a neighbouring valley from the tyrant Tengil. His dangerous missions and daring escapes help inspire the timid Karl to confront his own fears and to play a part in the liberation struggle.
These characters, like many of Lindgren’s other young protagonists, may cause havoc on a small or large scale, but they are never ‘bad’ children. Emil’s mischief stems from adventurousness and curiosity rather than any malicious intent. Like Pippi, he has strong sense of justice and a desire to make the adults around him recognise and understand his perspective. Madicken and Lotta are lively and imaginative little girls learning the ways of the world and making mistakes as they do so. Ronja, Birk and the Lionheart brothers rebel at some personal cost, but also do so on their own terms: Ronja and Birk renounce their fathers’ profession and vow to live honestly, while Jonatan, although aware that he is fighting a war, refuses to kill.
All of Lindgren’s books reflect her belief that children should have the freedom to be themselves and that adults should treat them with respect and understanding, and never with violence. From mischievous pre-schoolers to teenaged freedom-fighters, her characters express and develop their personalities through their strength of character, independence and sense of adventure – even when these things are manifested as mischief!
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
Marvellous and Mischievous: Literature's Young Rebels is a free, family-friendly exhibition bringing together young rebels from children’s literature. It runs until 1 March 2020. Please note that on Tuesdays (9.30-16.00) and Wednesdays (9.30-13.30) during term time the exhibition is reserved for school groups and not open to the general public.
21 November 2019
‘The Man Who Lost His Homeland’*
“The War was not our War! Yet it somehow found us. It took us in its clutches and threw us where we are now!” Cengiz Dağcı said, and added, “Fifty years! Fifty years away from my homeland, it has become a wound that never heals…”
The Crimean Tatar writer Cengiz Dağcı is one of the most underestimated novelists of the Second World War, with over 22 books on his beloved Crimea and its long suffering through world wars and Soviet oppression. He, like all Crimean Tatars of the time, suffered greatly. He was forced to leave his home and family when he was only 22. Despite being interned by the Nazis he managed to survive and, after liberation, made the arduous journey to London through a war-ravaged Europe. He would never return to his homeland again. Although he made a life in London, his heart was in Crimea. When he died at the age of 92, his body was transferred to his homeland through the cooperation of the Turkish, Ukrainian and British states.
Photograph of Cengiz Dağcı by Zafer Karatay (reproduced with kind permission)
Dağcı was born, the fourth of eight children, on 9 March 1919 in Gurzuf, Crimea. His family moved to Kızıltaş from Gurzuf when he was a small boy. Located on the Simferopol - Yalta route, their house (which still stands today) has a beautiful, big, tranquil garden facing Ayi Dağı (Bear Mountain). Yalta has breathtaking landscapes and deep historical roots. Pushkin, Chekhov and Tolstoy were among many world-famous Russian authors, artists, and poets who lived in the city.
Photograph of Bear Mountain by Melek Maksudoglu
After the Bolshevik Revolution and establishment of the Soviet Union, private houses were confiscated. The Dağcı family house was seized and three Russian families were settled in it. In 1931, Cengiz Dağcı’s father, Seyt Omer Dagci, was arrested on account of complaints made by a neighbour that the family was not cooperating with Stalin’s collectivisation policy and had hidden goods from the Soviet. Seyt Omer Dagci was labelled an enemy of the state and sent to the Gulag. The policy of collectivisation and the mismanagement of resources led to one of the biggest famines in Ukraine from 1932 to 1933. The Dagci family somehow survived.
A year later, Dagci’s father was released from prison and decided to move his family to Akmescit (Simferopol) from Kiziltas to avoid subsequent humiliation. The family’s new squalid and miserable lodgings are mentioned in Dagci’s memoirs, Letters to my Mother where he writes: “I see, mother, how you are saddened. This move to a miserable place reflects on your face. But how brave you were there and how you turned to God even more”.
A.E. Krymskii, Literatura krymsʹkykh tatar = Kʺyrymtatarlarnynʺ edebiiaty = Literatura krymskikh tatar (Simferopolʹ, 2003). YF.2006.a.11536. A Ukrainian-Tatar-Russian anthology of Crimean Tatar literature from the 20th century
Dagci continued his schooling in Akmescit and started writing short stories. He loved poetry and his early poems were published in 1936 in Crimea’s youth journal Gençlik Mecmuası. His early writings include one poem praising Stalin and the Soviet regime, but in his memoirs he admits that he was asked to write in such a manner. Another poem he wrote about Hansaray (a palace of the Crimean Khanate, the Turkic state which existed from the mid 15th to the late 18th century) in Bakcesaray, which is entitled ‘Söyleyin Duvarlar’ (‘Walls! Talk to us’), was published in the literary journal Edebiyat Mecmuası in Crimea in 1939 and glorifies the Crimean Khanate.
In his second year at university, Dagci enlisted in the Soviet Army and fought shoulder to shoulder with Soviet citizens, consisting of ethnicities such as Ukrainian, Uzbek, Kirgyz, and Tajik. In 1941 he was captured and became a prisoner of war. Throughout his imprisonment, he refused to collaborate with the German troops. When the war ended he tried to return to his homeland but to his dismay the roads were closed. He wanted to go back to his home, finish his studies, and become a good school teacher.
Feyzi Rahman Yurter, XX. yüzyılda Kırım (Turkey, [1998?]). ITA.2000.a.6. This work, ‘20th-century Crimea’, examines the experience of Crimean Tatar POWs in the Second World War.
In 1945 he joined a Polish émigré group with his wife to seek refuge in the UK. It was a difficult and long journey to London where he built a life for himself and his family. He says in his memoirs; “I created a new home away from home. A home in which I and my wife could take sanctuary and feel safe.” He worked long hours in a restaurant during the day and wrote only at night. He kept writing about his beloved Crimea and the tragedies the Crimean Tatars faced.
All of Dagci’s novels were originally published in Turkish in Turkey. Coupled with the fact that he was living in the UK, this meant that he was able to write about the tragedies of the Crimean Tatar people. However, in the 1980s, Moscow sent a KGB agent to obtain copies of them, which were examined by the authorities and classified as foreign and restricted from the public.
A selection of Dagci’s books. Awaiting shelfmarks.
The most important theme running through all of his novels is the national identity of the Crimean Tatars. He evokes a clear picture of how they lived, their everyday life, customs, beliefs and the structure of their lives revolving around the seasons and their land. The Crimean Tatars lived a double life, having to outwardly demonstrate loyalty to the Soviet Regime that was actively trying assimilate and erase their identity, while keeping that identity alive among themselves, their families and communities, with hidden texts of resistance. They had been resisting Russian rule since 1774. Dagci, in his novels, also suggests that only after the Crimean Tatars become well educated could they ask for, and eventually receive, justice. The Soviet government’s ban on use of their language made it impossible to receive education in their mother tongue and this fact drove some Crimean Tatars to seek higher education in the Soviet system. Many of those educated in this system were subsequently involved in setting up the Crimean Tatar National Movement.
*‘The Man Who Lost His Homeland’ is the title of one of Cengiz Dağcı’s books
Melek Maksudoglu, independent researcher
This blog post is based on an article by the author published by OCA magazine in January 2017
References/Further reading
E. Allworth, ed., Muslim Communities Re-emerge: Historical Perspectives on Nationality, Politics, and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (Durham, 1994). YC.1995.b.3180
E. Allworth, ed., The Tatars of Crimea: Return to The Homeland (Durham; London, 1998). 98/11840
Alan Fisher, The Crimean Tatars (Stanford, 1978). 81/14726
Isa Kocakaplan, Kirim’dan Londra’ya Cengiz Dagci (Istanbul, 1998)
Brian Glyn Williams, The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation (Leiden, 2001). ZA.9.a.11852
Paul R. Magocsi, This Blessed Land: Crimea and the Crimean Tatars (Toronto, 2014). YD.2015.a.1261
Hüseyin Su, ed., Çağdaş Kırım Tatar Öyküsü (Ankara, 2014). YP.2017.a.5735
A.E. Krymskii, Literatura krymsʹkykh tatar = Kʺyrymtatarlarnynʺ edebiiaty = Literatura krymskikh tatar (Simferopolʹ, 2003). YF.2006.a.11536
Feyzi Rahman Yurter, XX. yüzyılda Kırım (Turkey [1998?]). ITA.2000.a.63
11 October 2019
The 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prizes in Literature
Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and Austrian writer Peter Handke have been awarded the 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prizes in Literature after the award was suspended last year due to a sexual assault scandal.
Born in Poland in 1962, Olga Tokarczuk, the winner of the 2018 Prize, is one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary Polish writers. Noted for the mythical tone of her writing, she is adored by her readers and highly praised by critics. Tokarczuk has won many prestigious literary awards for her works both in her native country and abroad. In 2018 she won the Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flights, translated into English by Jennifer Croft (London, 2017; ELD.DS.228759). The book was first published in Poland in 2007 as Bieguni (). The Polish title refers to runaways, a sect of Old Believers, who believe that being in constant motion is a trick to avoid evil. Flights is a fragmentary novel consisting of over 100 episodes, each exploring what it means to be a traveller through space as well as time. Set between the 17th and 21st centuries, the novel includes some fictional stories and some fact-based, narrated from the perspective of an anonymous female traveller.
Cover of Bieguni (Krakow, 2007) YF.2008.a.36755
A trained psychologist, Tokarczuk spent a few years practising as a therapist before devoting her working life to her literary career. She is the author of nine novels and a few short stories and essays, and her books have been published into 30 languages including English, Chinese and Japanese. The main translator of her books into English is Antonia Lloyd-Jones, whose most recent translation is Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (London, 2018; ELD.DS.325469), shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. The novel, regarded as an eco-crime story, explores the issues of the animal rights and vegan movements unveiling the hypocrisy of traditional beliefs and religion. The book and the film Spoor by Agnieszka Holland based on this novel caused a political uproar in Poland.
Cover of Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych (Krakow, 2009) YF.2010.a.22348
Olga Tokarczuk was a speaker at two recent British Library events: “A life of Crime? Crime writing from Poland”, in 2017, and “Olga Tokarczuk: An evening with Poland’s best”, in 2018. Recordings of both events are available to listen in our Reading Rooms via the online catalogue.
Magda Szkuta, Curator East European Collections
The 2019 prize has been awarded to the Austrian writer Peter Handke. The Nobel Foundation cites his “influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience.” He has won many of Austria’s and Germany’s major literary prizes over the course of a long career.
Born in 1942, Handke began to write while studying at the University of Graz. He became involved with the ‘Grazer Gruppe’, a group of writers (including another future Austrian Nobel Laureate, Elfriede Jelinek) associated with the literary magazine manuskripte (P.903/797).
Peter Handke (left) and magazine editor Alfred Kolleritsch at an event to mark the 50th anniversary of manuskripte, 2013. (Photograph by Dnalor_01 from Wikimedia Commons CC-BY-SA 3.0)
Handke became known in the 1960s for his experimental plays such as Publikumsbeschimpfung (Frankfurt am Main, 1967; X.907/8495. English translation by Michael Roloff, Insulting the Audience (London, 1971) 11663.l.2/42.). This begins with the words, “You will not see a play” and has the uncostumed actors address the audience from what is usually a bare stage. He has also written novels, poetry and essays. English-speaking audiences, although they may not realise it, are perhaps most likely to have come across his work as the screenwriter for Wim Wenders’ film Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin). Handke has also won awards as a film director.
From the start of his career Handke attracted controversy, although not necessarily for the experimental nature of his work. In an early public appearance at an event organised by the influential post-war writers group Gruppe 47, he gave an angry speech attacking the Group and the work of its members. More recently he has been criticised for his stance and his writing on the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. This has led to protests at the award of other literary prizes to Handke in recent years, and the Nobel award has attracted similar criticisms.
Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections
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