Perhaps one of the British Museum Library’s worst 19th-century acquisition decisions was not to  buy the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm when it appeared in 1812. Probably the title put the selectors off, fooling them into thinking that these ‘Children’s and Household Tales’ were intended purely as a domestic entertainment, a ‘mere’ children’s book, a genre we don’t generally buy from overseas. Even the second edition, the earliest that we hold, was not acquired on first publication in 1819 but later in the century; the first volume has a brief manuscript  dedication from Wilhelm Grimm to a previous owner.

While the Grimms did not necessarily want to exclude children from their audience, their primary goal was to collect and record German folklore for an academic readership, and both the first and second editions include a volume of scholarly notes on the stories and their origins. 

 

Frontispiece and engraved title-page by from the second edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Berlin, 1819)  Cup.403.tt.14.

However, as more and more editions were published, the tales were made more child- or family-friendly. Already in this second edition Wilhelm Grimm had started the process of sanitising and Christianising the stories. The frontispiece to the first volume hints at this process with its rather sentimental illustration of the story ‘Brüderchen und Schwesterchen’, which shows an angel watching over the eponymous brother (transformed into a deer) and sister as they sleep. (Like the portrait in the second volume of Dorothea Viehmann, the tailor’s wife named by the Grimms as a source of a number of stories, the picture is by a third Grimm brother, Ludwig.)

Title-page of the first English translation, by Edgar Taylor, illustrated by George Cruickshank (London, 1823) Cup.402.b.18.

The Grimms’ tales were soon translated into many languages, and the British Library’s holdings of the tales are overwhelmingly English translations published in Britain, the majority aimed at a young audience. These range from more or less direct translations, through re-tellings as picture books or ‘easy readers’, to reimaginings or ‘subversions’ of the tales. Some in this last category are in fact aimed at adults, like the stories in Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber. And plenty of works of modern German literature which we hold also play on the Grimms’ stories for an adult audience, for example Elfriede Jelinek’s Prinzessindramen and Günter Grass’s Der Butt – ‘translations’ of the stories in a different sense.

Another form of translation –in the sense of interpreting the stories in a different medium – is illustration. Again, most of our illustrated versions of the stories are English translations for children, featuring a roll-call of fine artists including George Cruickshank (the Grimms’ first English illustrator), Walter Crane, Arthur Rackham, Mervyn Peake and Maurice Sendak.

‘The Goose Girl’, illustration by Arthur Rackham to the Grimms’ story from Fairy Tales ... A new translation by Mrs. Edgar Lucas (London, 1900) 12411.eee.27.

To return to actual translations, despite our general policy of not buying foreign children’s literature, a search in our catalogue reveals children’s editions of the Grimms’ tales in many languages, acquired in various ways. Among European languages we have versions in Czech, Dutch, French, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian, as well as the auxiliary languages Esperanto and (more unusually) Volapük, all testifying to the international influence and reach of a collection intended to highlight and preserve a national tradition.

Susan Reed, Lead Curator Germanic Collections

This piece is based on the author’s contribution to a lunchtime talk given in the John Ritblat - Treasures of the British Library Gallery on 13 May, the second in a series organised with the British Academy as part of their Literature Week 2015 and to coincide with European Literature Night. The Library’s copy of the 1819 Kinder- und Hausmärchen is currently on display in the gallery with items related to the other talks. The final talk, on African Folklore and the Tales of Anansi, will take place on Friday 15 May.

In another guest post for this year’s European Literature Night, Gallic Books translator Emily Boyce introduces the French-based Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra

Yasmina Khadra, who will appear at European Literature Night at the British Library on Wednesday 13 May, is a novelist who has often been drawn to tackle controversial and current topics such as global conflict and extremism in his fiction.

Yasmina Khadra (photo © E. Robert-Espalieu from Gallic Books website)

Khadra began writing under his wife's name to avoid censorship while serving in the Algerian army, and revealed his identity after moving to France in 2001. Informed by his experience as a Muslim of North African origin living in the West, he is a leading voice on many of the defining issues of our time. He recently appeared on Al Jazeera to discuss his thoughts on literature and freedom of speech in light of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, while his contribution to BBC Radio 4’s Letters from Europe series warned of the growing threat of racism and intolerance in the continent.

Khadra confronted the rise of the Taliban in 2002’s Les hirondelles de Kaboul (The Swallows of Kabul, to be discussed in this month’s BBC World Book Club), and explored the motivations of suicide bombers in his Tel Aviv-set L’Attentat (The Attack). This book was adapted into a 2012 film which will be screened at the Institut Français on Tuesday 12 May, followed by a Q and A session with the author.

Khadra's latest novel, L’équation africaine, published in English as The African Equation by Gallic Books in February this year, takes the problem of East African piracy as its starting point, and goes on to portray one man’s ordeal as a hostage and his life-altering encounter with a fellow captive who holds a very different view of the continent and its people.

In all his fiction, Khadra brings empathy to characters in desperate situations. As The Literary Review put it, ‘Khadra is a passionately moral writer but he rarely sits in judgment.’

 To mark his forthcoming appearance at European Literature Night, Khadra has written a moving piece in reaction to the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, published on the Culturethèque blog of the Institut français UK.

 Emily Boyce, Gallic Books

Selected works by Yasmina Khadra in the British Library (for full holdings see our catalogue)

Les anges meurent de nos blessures: roman (Paris, 2013) YF.2014.a.12993

L’équation africaine: roman (Paris, 2011) YF.2013.a.25944; English translation by Howard Curtis, The African Equation (London, 2015) awaiting shelfmark.

Ce que le jour doit à la nuit : roman (Paris, 2008) YF.2009.a.3841; English translation by Frank Wynne, What the Day owes the Night (London, 2010) Nov.2011/207.

Les sirènes de Bagdad: roman (Paris, 2006) YF.2007.a.1939; English translation by John Cullen, The Sirens of Baghdad (London, 2007) Nov.2007/2364.

L’Attentat: roman (Paris, 2005) YF.2006.a.7205; English translation by John Cullen, The Attack (London, 2006) Nov.2006/2043.

Les hirondelles de Kaboul: roman (Paris, 2002) YA.2003.a.14765; English translation by John Cullen, The Swallows of Kabul (London, 2004)

A quoi rêvent les loups: roman (Paris, 1999) YA.2003.a.6391; Engish translation by Linda Black, Wolf Dreams (New Haven, Conn., 2003) Nov.2007/33.

Today’s guest post for European Literature Night 2015 considers how the original language of a work can influence its international success

In his 2007 New Yorker essay, ‘Die Weltliteratur: European novelists and modernism’, Milan Kundera poses the question - would anyone today know the work of Kafka if he had written his works in Czech and not German? For anyone writing in, or translating from, what is considered a ‘small’ or ‘lesser known’ language, this is the kind of question which could keep one awake at night and could easily induce a bitter sense of being neglected by history. For it does seem that nations such as the Czech Republic, not to mention the even smaller Macedonia or Montenegro, are left at the footnotes of history books; their writers excluded from the canon of European Literature. How many books written by Macedonian writers can you name?

Arguing for a ‘World Literature’ instead of a number of juxtaposed ‘literatures’, Kundera considers cultural diversity to be the greatest European value. His essay is a plea against ‘provincialism’ – either from the larger nations by ignoring the literary output or smaller nations, or from the writers of smaller nations themselves, who hide behind their obscurity, not daring to add their voice to the international dialogue. Brandishing the now infamous ‘4%’ statistic, publishers of literature in translation in the UK can often feel very frustrated by the constant reminder that the massive geographical reach of the English language makes many readers feel as if the world is writing in English. Insular as we are, the job of discovering writers from other nations, and then going through the lengthy process of having them translated, might seem to be pointless. But then we are reminded of how many works in translation have had so much influence in terms of literature as a whole – from Herta Müller  to Murakami, and even Kundera himself – and we have to admit that we would all be the poorer without it (with the added relevance that Herta Müller, like Kafka, lived in Romania – a ‘lesser-known’ country and a smaller language group, but wrote in the much ‘bigger’ language of German).

So if Herta Müller and Franz Kafka had written in the lesser-known languages of their native countries it is very possible – given the low rate of translated fiction here in the English-speaking world – that they would never have been able to achieve the international reputation they now enjoy. This in itself should be argument enough for the benefit and relevance of translated literature. It is why a number of dedicated publishers continue to seek out new writers – however small the nation they come from – and why cultural institutions like the EU Culture Fund and the Arts Council continue to encourage and finance literary translation. Like Kundera, we feel that cultural diversity is Europe’s greatest value, and one worth preserving.

Susan Curtis-Kojakovic 

Susan Curtis-Kojakovic is publisher of Istros Books, an independent publishing house dedicated to promoting the literature of South-East Europe. For this year’s European Literature Night she nominated and is supporting Slovenian author Evald Flisar

In another guest post for European Literature Night 2015, the Danish author Naja Marie Aidt, appearing at the writers’ event, reflects on grief  and literature.

Naja Marie Aidt

In late February I walked the streets of Manhattan and came across a small shop. A beautiful green jacket hanging in the window caught my eye. I went straight in and bought it even though the sleeves were way too long. Perfect for spring, I thought, and jumped on the subway, feeling uplifted and very happy. In March I suffered a terrible loss in my immediate family. Everything turned dark inside me and on the outside, the world seemed to disappear. In April the trees turned green, the cherry trees started blooming with a rich intensity, an almost vulgar pink prettiness. Nature had once again dug its way out of the long, cold, winter and transformed itself into a tempting scene of life: the sun was out, almost too bright, too clear, revealing my grief as a disgrace against the beauty of everything else. But grief is not a disgrace and it is not ugly. It’s heavy and it pulls the body towards the ground as if to bring you closer to the beloved missing person, burried deep in the wet cold soil. I walked the streets, blinded by the light, I dragged my mourning body onward even though it did not want to move. I tried to find my way back to the simplest activities: making coffee, showering, heating up a bowl of soup. I had forgotten about the before because this was the after and nothing would ever be the same again. I knew it when I looked up at the cherry trees and I know it now. Fortuna has played her sick game, just for the fun of it. The tragic coincidence that changed my life over night had no meaning, no purpose. I could almost hear the goddess laughing, and I hated her – hated the chaos of life, the unpreditable chaotic life that we usually believe we are in control of. But we are not. When we move through our lives, mostly uplifted and happy, we walk on invisible cracks and sometimes those cracks expand and make us stumble, sometimes they open up wide and swallow us. Simply by coincidence. I’ve written about those cracks in Baboon and in my forthcoming novel Rock, Paper, Scissors, but the difference between writing about getting hit by a car and actually getting hit by a car is obviously huger than huge.

One day in early May, grabbing a shirt from my closet, I came across the green jacket. I looked at it as if I had never seen it before and I realized that the pattern was almost identical to the image on Jordan Stump’s English translation of Marie NDiaye’s novel Self-Portrait in Green. There I stood, looking at the jacket,  thinking about Self-Portrait in Green, a remarkable mysterious story about repression and obsession where the dead mingle with the living and vice versa, and a certain type of woman – a victim, always unhappy, ghostly – is always dressed in green. I reached for the jacket and put it on. Perfect for spring, thanks to the too-long sleeves, as if in mourning seeking the ground.  I told Ms. Fortuna I didn’t give a shit for her spoiled, cruel games and went to the park with Self-Portrait in Green in my hand.

Maria NDiaye’s Self-Portrait in Green and the green jacket.

Naja Marie Aidt

Works by Naja Marie Aidt in the British Library

Vandmærket : noveller (Copenhagen, 1993) YA.2002.a.1404

Trilogi : digte (Copenhagen, 1995) YA.2003.a.30299

Huset overfor : digte (Copenhagen, 1996.) YA.2000.a.4948

Rejse for en fremmed (Copenhagen, 1999.) YA.2001.a.7331

Balladen om Bianca (Copenhagen, 2002). LF.31.a.1685

Rundt på gulvet (Gråsten, 2004.) YF.2006.a.7677

Bavian : noveller (Copenhagen, 2006.)

Åsted (Gråsten, 2008.) YF.2012.a.16708

Alting blinker : digte (Copenhagen, 2009.) YF.2011.a.14098

Sten saks papir (Copenhagen, 2012.) YF.2013.a.5872

In the 18th century Poland (a short term for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) was gradually falling into the sphere of influence of neighbouring countries: Russia, Prussia and Austria. The previous century’s conflicts with Sweden, Russia and Turkey, and the Cossack rebellions in the borderlands, had significantly weakened the Commonwealth. The strong position of the nobility with the infamous liberum veto (the free veto), paralysing any parliamentary proceedings, and the limited power of the king, gravely contributed to the political and economic decline of the state.  The phrase “Poland stands by anarchy” clearly defined the political system of the state at the time.

The election of Stanislaw August Poniatowski  to the throne in 1764 resulted in eager attempts by enlightened Poles to avert further deterioration of the state. However, the opposition of conservative magnates and gentry, supported vigorously by Russia, against a radical programme of reforms, brought about the First Partition of Poland by Russia, Austria and Prussia in 1772. The shock of the Partition mobilized patriotic circles to increase their efforts to restore the Commonwealth through a series of reforms.  As a result the Commission of National Education and the Corps of Cadets were established.  The Four-Year Diet held in Warsaw between 1788 and 1792 instituted reforms, of which the most important was the adoption of the Constitution of 3 May 1791.

Ustawa rządowa. Prawo uchwalone. Dnia 3. Maia, roku 1791. (Warsaw, [1791]). [Government Act. The law enacted on 3rd May, 1791]  British Library Cup.403.l.8

The Constitution was an act regulating the scope of state rule and a reorganisation of the system of power according to  Montesquieu’s theory, i.e. the division of powers into legislative, executive and judicial. It abolished the two pillars of the gentry’s “Golden Freedom”: free elections of individual kings and the liberum veto. It subsequently established constitutional monarchy as well as vested legislative power in the Diet.  The introduction of political equality between burghers and gentry was another significant provision of the Constitution. It also gave way for the gradual process of free development for the peasants who, for the first time in Polish history, were recognised as part of the nation. In addition it guaranteed freedom to all religious denominations, though Catholicism remained the state religion.  The crushing of the Constitution was inevitable as it made the state governable again and this was against the interests of the neighbouring powers, particularly Russia. Two subsequent partitions followed, and by 1795 Poland was wiped off the map of Europe.  

An allegory of the Constitution from: Goettinger Taschen Calender vom Jahr 1793 (Göttingen, 1793)  C.109.e.2

The Polish Constitution aroused great interest throughout the world. It was preceded only by the Constitution of the United States of 1787 and predated the French Constitution by a few months. The document was widely discussed in the press in Western Europe and North America, and was immediately translated into French and English. It reflected the spirit of the Enlightenment. Although the Constitution had its shortcomings, it was a milestone in the history of law.

Translation of the Constitution into French: Forme Constitutionelle de la Pologne (Paris, 1791) 114.i.11

It is considered the first modern constitution in Europe and one of the world’s greatest documents of freedom. The 3 May Constitution is as precious to the Polish people as Magna Carta is to the English.

Magda Szkuta, Curator East-Central European Collections

Further reading:

Konstytucja 3 Maja 1791. (Warsaw, 2001) OPK.2005.x.169

Constitution and Reform in Eighteenth-Century Poland. The Constitution of 3 May 1791. Edited by Samuel Fiszman.  (Bloomington, 1997)  98/09571

Henryk Kocój,  Dyplomacja Prus, Austrii i Rosji wobec Konstytucji 3 maja 1791. (Kraków, 1998)  YA.2003.a.583

In a new guest post for European Literature Night 2015 Rosie Goldsmith, presenter of the authors’ event and chair of the judging panel, casts her vote for European Literature.

It will hardly have escaped your notice that we are in the midst of an election campaign in the UK and that one of the key platforms is European literature: do we allow it in to the UK or do we keep it out? Is it taking over our home-grown English literature? Should there be a referendum on it? What are the business advantages to the UK of supporting it? And so on.

On May 13th there’ll be some key post-election analysis at our annual ‘European Literature Night’ at the British Library. However, as your host I feel obliged to warn you that I have already come out in favour of European Literature. Sorry, but The Lady’s Not For Turning.

We’ve enjoyed an impressive pre-election build-up. Our ELN manifesto was published in early autumn 2014; nominations closed in December; the jury met in January 2015; early results were published in March 2015. In the interests of transparency and full disclosure I reprint some sections of the official ‘ELN Call For Participation’, sent out to all ‘Cultural Institutes or Embassies, literary organisations, educational institutions, publishers, booksellers and professional literature practitioners’ stating that nominated writers,

* Must be reasonably established in their home country…..
* Must have had a book published in English after January 2012 or ….by May 2015;
should preferably speak English sufficiently well to be able to participate in readings and discussions.
* Must supply an extract of work (up to 15 pages of a novel or a small selection of poems).

As ELN party leader for the seventh year running (although my re-election seems to be based purely on my shoe choice), I take my responsibilities seriously. My New Year’s Eve was spent  reading through 44 literary extracts from all over Europe, including a high representation of what is officially termed lesser-known languages and minority cultures in UK-Eurolit politics: Croatia, Cyprus, Latvia, Macedonia, Slovakia and Slovenia. And if you are a keen pollster and trend-spotter you’ll be pleased to know there was a good spread between ‘East’ and ‘West’ (are we permitted to distinguish these days?), of publishers, of well-known and lesser-known writers; a broader spread of genres than other years – including our first e-book and Young Adult novel. But one trend remains constant: the presence of the big fat Spanish novel. (Discuss: do the Spanish write longer novels than other nationalities?).

Rosie Goldsmith interviewing French author Antoine Laurain at European Literature Night 2o14

The quality of translations was also excellent (an upward trend). And a first: nearly half of all submissions were written by women. Sadly though, by the time we judges convened, and I was forced to relinquish total control over the party, our final selection of 6 authors comprised 4 men and only 2 women (although one author masquerades as a woman – the French novelist Yasmina Khadra is a man).

However, reflecting the UK’s general election landscape, ELN boasts a high representation of women in leading positions, both running the campaign and the final show: Sarah Sanders and Sharmilla Beezmohun of ‘Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions’;  Janet Zmroczek, Head of European Studies at the British Library and the deputy Director of the Czech Centre Renata Clark. (And I hesitate to point this out, but I am also a woman.) Increasingly though ELN men are forging ahead and making up for decades of oppression. See the full list of events and participating male members here.

So what are we to make of our final list of candidates? Our Six Authors in Search of Fame and Fortune in the UK are supremely multi-cultural, a testament to the broadmindedness of the British voting public, a guaranteed boost to the publishing and bookselling economy (book sales at ELN in 2014 were, to quote one voter’ ‘bonkers’) – and quite frankly all six books are a joy to read.

The busy ELN bookstall

Naja Marie Aidt brings her crisp and clear short story collection Baboon from Denmark, although rather excitingly she is originally from Greenland (another ELN first); Yasmina Khadra, author of The African Equation is that superb male novelist from France, writing under his wife’s name (how times have changed, dear Reader); Andrea Bajani is a novelist, playwright and journalist from Italy and for once the book blurb is correct - Every Promise is ‘remarkable’; Wioletta Greg from Poland is this year’s perfect ELN poet, taking us on a moving literary journey through her family history with her collection Finite Formulae and Theories of Chance; Evald Flisar is from Slovenia and his novel My Father’s Dreams is, as promised, ‘controversial’, ‘shocking’ and ‘sensual’ (an erotic first for ELN!), whereas Jesús Carrasco from Spain has written the heart-breaking, visceral  novel Out In The Open – compared with Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and, bucking all Spanish trends, it is only 184 pages long.

So, there you have it: my vote in May is for European Literature. And as party leader I encourage you to vote ELN too. See you at the polling booths on May 13th.

Rosie Goldsmith

While we look forward to celebrating literature in translation at this year’s European Literature Night events, this post considers how we are not always as open to translations in the UK and wonders if attitudes have changed over the centuries...

When Yasmina Reza’s play Art came to the London stage, the posters  gave prominence to the three actors (largely well-known comedians) who starred in it on a rotating basis, but far less prominence was given to the of the author, and there was no mention of the fact that the play was translated from the French.

The New Horizons series of books, published by Thames & Hudson in the UK, are translations from the French Découvertes Gallimard.  However, the foreign author’s name doesn’t appear on the cover or spine, and isn’t revealed until the title page.

This authorial disguising of course has a long history, but I wonder if the motivation has changed.

When in 1589 the English publisher of Boccaccio’s Fiamettta gave him the name ‘John Boccace’ I don’t think he was hiding anything, any more than Gower was pulling the wool over his readers’ eyes when he cited ‘Dan Aristotle’ (CA, III, 86) or the Old Spanish Book of Alexander  when it similarly called the Stagirite ‘Don Aristatiles’ (stanza 33): these were authors of European stature, as much at home in England as in their countries of birth.

Giovanni Boccaccio, Amorous Fiammetta, translated by Bartholemew Young (London, 1587). British Library C.57.b.46. (Having anglicised Boccaccio’s name, in a curious reversal the translator italianises his own to  ‘B. Giovano’)

As a student I was struck by Spanish translations of the works of  ‘Carlos Dickens’.  So far as I can judge from the Spanish union catalogue, around the 1950s he started to appear under his own name.

Little Dorrit  translated as La Niña Dorrit by ‘Carlos Dickens’ (Barcelona, 1885). 12613.dd.7.

I wonder: do the first two examples above speak of internationalism or nationalism?  Do we think English is the world language because it’s perfect, or just because it’s practical?

Mind you, my name doesn’t have a Spanish translation, but I’ve never been asked to go undercover by my saint’s day, and  I could have chosen from: Augustine, bishop, confessor, Doctor of the Church; Clarus, confessor; Hermes, martyr; Julian, martyr; Pelagius, martyr; Secundus and Alexander (and Abundus), martyrs.

Barry Taylor, Curator Romance collections

In the first of a series of guest blog posts by translators, authors and others involved in this to European Literature Night 2015 on 13 May, Marek Kazmierski introduces us to his work as a publisher and translator and to the Polish poet Wioletta Grzegorzewska.

When I set up the publishing house OFF_PRESS a few years back, and started focusing on translations from Polish into English, I had zero experience, no qualifications and just enough time, money and stupidity to press on into publishing waters. I knew poetry didn't sell, though didn't yet no why. Nevertheless, I said to my editorial team – we don't want to lose any more money than is strictly necessary, hence – no poetry!

History, of course, runs its own course, regardless of our best-laid plans. I started translating and publishing dozens and dozens of Polish poets, both living at home and abroad, because I found it easy to contact and work with them, quickly put out books and anthologies and, most of all, I really enjoyed the challenge of confronting the problem poetry translations. Everyone I have ever met has always said “You translate poetry? That must be really hard!” and I always nod and smile and wonder to myself, in silence, at which point in evolutionary history it was we decided, as a species, that the easy way was the one to choose in life.

Truth is, when I started translating poetry, I had just stopped delivering creative writing in HMP Feltham in west London, and started working as a human rights governor in the same prison. Awful, complex, exciting work. Translating poetry, making hand-made books, organising events and festivals, was a great way to relieve work-place stress. Without training, without financial support, I went about reaching for the best the Polish poetry world had to offer – and, considering the history of Polish poetry, there is lots of greats to choose from, living and gone – Tuwim, Dehnel, Bargielska, Herbert, Amiel, Sosnowski, Fiedorczuk, Wojaczek – I have had a good go at most of them.

Wioletta Grzegorzewska. Picture by Sylwia Rogala from Wikimedia Commons

Of the hundred-plus poets I have worked with, Wioletta Grzegorzewska, based on the Isle of Wight, always held the greatest promise. Her poetry was always complex and linguistically rich, yet narratively accessible and easy to engage with. It was only much later, after I published her verse in several books, that she owned up to having also always written prose. This makes her an interesting proposition to translate. Her work tells a story, but the language is a work of art in itself. A quality now not only recognised by Arc Publications, who put out a selection of her poems and prose last year (Finite Formulae and Theories of Chance), but also by the European Literature Night team and most recently the jury of the Griffin Prize  in Canada, who have selected it for the four-strong shortlist of the best poetry published in the English language anywhere in the world last year.

Wioletta Grzegorzewska, Finite Formulae and Theories of Chance. (Todmorden, 2014) YKL.2016.a.1271

Wioletta’s book tells the story of her family, from 1914 to 2014, and covers two World Wars, several births and deaths, many loves and moves about the map of the world. Her debut novel, Guguly [‘Unripened fruit’] (Wołowiec, 2014; YF.2015.a.415) is going to be published next year by Portobello Books, and covers similar ground – the challenges of growing up a woman, of being an outsider, of seeing the world through “gypsy” eyes. The credit for the success of her poetry in English goes not just to me, but to the wonderful Stephen Watts, who edited my translations, Marcelina Amelia, the artist who designed the cover for Arc, and Dr Urszula Chowaniec and Dr Ros Green, who regularly featured Wioletta’s work at various conferences and festivals, in the UK and abroad.

Literature has always been a team effort, and it saddens me that people still think of writers and translators as solitary creatures. The best of us adventure with the best of them – something which should resonate in our words.

Marek Kazmierski  

Marek Kazmierski is a writer, publisher and translator. He escaped communist Poland as a child and settled in the UK. Joint winner of the Decibel Penguin Prize and sole recipient of the BIKE Magazine Philosopher of the Year award, Marek is also the managing editor of a prison literary magazine Not Shut Up and founder of OFF_PRESS, an independent publishing house which has worked with English PEN, the South Bank Centre, the Polish Cultural Institute, the Mayor of London and various universities across Europe. His work has been published in numerous journals and titles, including The Guardian, 3AM Magazine and Poetry Wales.

Type the word “Chernobyl” into our online catalogue, and a few thousand results will come for your attention. Unsurprisingly most of them will be scientific articles in academic journals and papers from international conferences as in the 29 years since the Chernobyl disaster a lot has been done by the world scientific community to assess the tragic event on 26 April 1986 and its consequences in all aspects. Articles and books have been published in many countries in various languages.  At the moment 13 theses about Chernobyl from universities in the United Kingdom are listed in our catalogue.

In addition our Belarusian and Ukrainian Collections offer researchers  ethnographical studies of the region of Polesia which was most severely affected by the catastrophe, as well as valuable albums of photographs by intrepid journalists who regularly visit the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. In the Zone they take pictures of the rich wildlife there and of people who refused to leave their ancestral land and continued living in the contaminated places (they are called samosely).

Albums from our Collections

For the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the catastrophe Ukrainian photographers published the album Imennia zori Chornobyl (‘The star is called Chornobyl’; Kyiv, 1996; YA.2001.b.4323) and five years later the bilingual album Chornobyl: chas podolannia = Chornobyl: time of overcoming (Kyiv, 2001; LB.31.a.9541). British independent photographer John Darwell  travelled to the Exclusion Zone and produced a memorable album entitled Legacy. Photographs inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (Stockport, 2001; LB.31.a.10507).

One of the most impressive albums was published in 2006 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the catastrophe by the well-known Belarusian photographer, ethnographer and publisher Dzianis Ramaniuk  with the title and text in three languages: Charnobyl / Chernobyl / Tschernobyl (Minsk, 2006; LF.37.b.78) It contains outstanding colour and black-and-white photographs by Ihar Byshniou, Anatol Kliashchuk and Dzianis Ramaniuk. The album gives a comprehensive overview of the nature and history of the region and its inhabitants. The German photographer Rüdiger Lubricht took pictures of abandoned villages and of samosely and of people who were involved in dealing with the immediate results of the catastrophe (Verlorene Orte. Gebrochene Biografien (Dortmund, 2012) LF.31.a.4052). The most recent photographic album by German photographer Gerd Ludwig (he visited the Chernobyl area nine times in recent 20 years), The long shadow of Chernobyl/Der lange Schatten von Tschernobyl/L'Ombre de Tchernobyl (Baden, 2014) LC.37.b.609) with an essay by Mikhail Gorbachev has already been acquired for the British Library.  

This great catastrophe on an apocalyptic scale inspired poets from various countries – from Belarus to Wales and Venezuela – to reflect about it and the future of the nuclear energy.

Books of poetry from our Collections

A poet from Venezuela, Lucila Velasquez (1928-2009), was one of the first to write a long poem El Arbol de Chernobyl = Tree of Chernobyl (Caracas, 1989; YA.1993.a.6858) based on her meditation about the catastrophe and the future of humankind. Poems by Belarusian authors were collected in the anthology Zorka Palyn (Minsk, 1993; YA.2000.a.14105). In Britain, poet and environmentalist Mario Petrucci published two poetry books: Half life: Poems for Chernobyl (Coventry, 2004; YK.2006.a.9836) dedicated to the prominent Belarusian writer and investigative journalist Svetlana Alexievich) and Heavy water: A poem for Chernobyl (London, 2004; YK.2005.a.16818). Some of these poems can be found here. Later two versions of a documentary film were made based on Petrucci’s poem: Heavy Water: A film for Chernobyl and a shorter version called Half Life: A journey to Chernobyl. They were shown at various festivals (one of reviews is available here).

The Ukrainian poet, translator and journalist Liubov Sirota, who is a native of Pripyat and witnessed the catastrophe with her own eyes, writes extensively on the subject. Some of her poems are accessible online. The title of my blog which just touches on our vast collection about Chernobyl derives from Sirota’s poem “To an Angel of Pripyat”. The poem is dedicated to the talented young pianist Olenka Chemezova, who died from cancer in the summer of 1995. It was published in a photo album of the same name.  The poet imagines that the ghost city of Pripyat is returning to life through the magic touch of the young pianist:

The darkened eye sockets of dead buildings
will once again be filled with the heat of human beings…
The city will hold its breath for a moment
while you descend into your house…

And again a thousand voices from the street
will begin to sound the former daily happenings…
as though everyone were alive, and all had returned,
as though the city were still alive….

(Translated from the Russian by Liubov Sirota and Debra Romanick Baldwin)

Liubov Sirota worked together with Rolland Sergienko to create the film Porog (‘Threshhold’) about Chernobyl. The British Library does not hold many DVDs from Eastern Europe, but it has a DVD of the Belarusian film-maker Viktor Korzun’s, Verytsʹ tolʹki vetru: Charnobylʹ 20 hadoŭ paslia (Minsk, 2007; EF.2013.x.26)

Music is another powerful vehicle to express the human pain and horror caused by the Chernobyl catastrophe. Some specimens of musical works about Chernobyl are available in our Sound collections: from Chernobyl by Blanck Mass and Chernobyl Rain by Hibbs (Gong) to orchestral music (Chernobyl by Nancy van de Vate, performed by the Polish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra). New musical works about Chernobyl are created every year. It is heart-warming to find out that on Sunday 26 April 2015 the London-based Ukrainian composer Alla Sirenko will present the premiere of her own work in London dedicated to the victims of Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Olga Kerziouk, Curator Belarusian and Ukrainian studies

References

Aleksievich, Svetlana. Voices from Chernobyl: chronicle of the future. Normall, Il., 2005. m05/30342

Medvedev, Zhores A. The legacy of Chernobyl.   Nottingham, 2011. YC.2012.a.15740

Mycio, Mary. Wormwood Forest: a natural history of Chernobyl. Washington, D.C., 2005. YC.2006.a.10733

Park, Chris C. Chernobyl. The Long Shadow. London, 1989. YC.1989.a.6423

Read, Piers Paul. Ablaze: the story of Chernobyl. London,1993. YK.1995.a.2707

Shcherbak, Iurii.  Chernobyl: a documentary story (translated from the Ukrainian by Ian Press; foreword by David R. Morples). Basingstoke,1989.  YC.1989.a.8562 and 89/12279.

For generations of governesses throughout Europe, seeking to impart to their pupils not only a knowledge of the French language but a sense of right and wrong, the fables of Jean de La Fontaine must have appeared as a godsend. Brief and entertaining, with their depiction of human foibles  wittily embodied in a cast of animals and birds, they neatly pointed out the consequences of vanity, idleness and extravagance and the rewards of honesty, kindness and hard work. Had they known a little more, however, about the author, his life and some his other works, the good ladies might have thought twice about selecting him as a moral exemplar for their young charges.

Title vignette with portrait of La Fontaine from The Fables of La Fontaine translated into English verse by Walter Thornbury (London, 1873). 12305.m.1.

Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) was born in Château-Thierry on the western border of the province of Champagne, a small town surrounded by the woods and fields which provide the setting for many of his fables in a landscape traversed by the River Marne. His father and   grandfather had  both held a minor government post involving the supervision of waterways and forests, and after a brief flirtation with the Church the young Jean also assumed this office. His attitude to his duties was somewhat lackadaisical; although he held his position until the 1670s, he was castigated, years after his appointment, for his ignorance of basic forestry terms. While trees provided the matter for many of his fables, he had small interest in them for practical purposes.

His pliability in his choice of career extended to his marriage, in which he once more followed his father’s directives. The bride whom he took in 1647, Marie Héricart, came of a wealthy and well-connected family, and the difference in age (she was 14 years old) was not uncommon at that time. However, the marriage, which produced a single child, Charles, was not entirely successful; as his literary career developed La Fontaine spent most of his time in Paris, returning so infrequently that when he expressed a warm liking for a young man whom he met at a social gathering, he was startled to learn that this was his son. Though there was never a direct break between the couple, in 1658 Marie petitioned successfully for a séparation des biens which allowed her control of her own fortune, perhaps at the instigation of her relatives, who were concerned about La Fontaine’s improvident nature, allegations of gambling, and failure to draw a regular salary. Throughout his life, indeed, he frequently had recourse to the generosity of friends, rather more successfully than the cicada in his fable La cigale et la fourmi, who, appealing to the ant for help after spending the summer singing rather than gathering stores for the harsh times ahead, is rebuffed with the terse brush-off Eh bien! Dansez maintenant.

An early edition of the fables (Amsterdam, 1687) 12304.cc.23.

The lasting popularity of the Fables could not have been gauged from their initial reception. The publishers were initially reluctant to accept verses full of archaic vocabulary in irregular metres far removed from Louis XIV’s favourite alexandrines and later dismissed by Lamartine as  ‘vers boîteux disloqués’. For La Fontaine, however, his use of old French words was not mere pedantry but the natural consequence of his love of a much earlier tradition of beast fables represented by the old French Le Roman de Renart in which animals (notably the fox hero) behave in all-too-human ways. The frequently bawdy quality of these stories appealed to La Fontaine as much as the Italian sources which he adapted for his Contes (1665), which he defended against the criticism of king and court by claiming that they could not represent a moral danger because of their gaiety. He had, however, enjoyed a classical education, and when in 1660 Nevelet’s edition of Aesop appeared, this stimulated him in a new direction.

Although not intended for children (whom La Fontaine is said to have disliked), the first volume was dedicated to the six-year-old Dauphin and won the author an invitation to court, where he was wined and dined by Louis XIV and presented with a well-filled purse which, with characteristic carelessness, he left in the cab which took him home.

The animal fable provided a useful means of expressing the poet’s views on human folly in a period which had seen the two Frondes causing devastation in France, causing him to reflect on the cruelties inflicted in the name of religion and the pursuit of power. A lion is brought low by a mosquito who in turn falls victim to a cunning spider; the death of a rabbit in the claws of an eagle leads to a train of calamities involving Jupiter himself; a mighty oak’s inflexibility literally proves his downfall while the humble reed survives by bowing to the wind. The universal quality of these fables soon won them many translators and illustrators, including Gustave Doré (1866-68; British Library 1870.a.3). They inspired numerous adaptations and imitations, including the much-loved Russian fables of Ivan Krylov (1769-1844), Ukrainian fables by Leonid Hlibov (1827-1893) and those by Antonín Jaroslav Puchmayer (1769-1820), one of the notable works of the Czech National Revival.

The Lion and the Gnat, illustration by Gustave Doré, from 12305.m.1.

The British Library holds translations of the Fables into many languages including Catalan, Esperanto, Hindi, Afrikaans and Welsh. Readers may also see an autograph manuscript of Le loup et le renard (Egerton MS 3780: 1690-1691) bearing La Fontaine’s signature, and another  manuscript of five poems in the Stefan Zweig collection  (Zweig MS 165: 1660). Recalling Louis XIV’s distaste for La Fontaine’s writings (not least for his criticism of the king’s love of la gloire and all things warlike), we may speculate on the pleasure that the poet who portrayed the least of his country-folk so sympathetically  would have derived from seeing his writings among the treasures of a library freely available to all.

Susan Halstead, Content Specialist Research Engagement