Best European Fiction 2014

by Drago Jančar (Preface), Edward Gauvin (Translator), Vladimir Kozlov (Contributor)

From Belarus to Wales! Translated from more than 25 languages and highlighting the future luminaries and revolutionaries of international literature. Fans of the series will find everything they've grown to love, while new readers will discover what they've been missing!

[Belarus] VLADIMIR KOZLOV Politics
[Belgium: French] THIERRY HORGUELIN The Man in the Yellow Parka
[Bosnia and Herzegovina] ELVIS HADZIC The Curious Case of Benjamin Zec
[Bulgaria] KATYA ATANASOVA Fear of Ankles
[Croatia] OLJA SAVICEVIC IVANCEVIC Adios Cowboy
[Estonia] EMIL TODE Interpretation
[Finland] MOX MAKELA Night Shift
[France] ERIC CHEVILLARD Hippopotamus
[Georgia] GURAM DOCHANASHVILI A Fellow Traveler
[Iceland] ÓSKAR MAGNUSSON Dr. Amplatz
[Latvia] INGA ZHOLUDE Dirty Laundry
[Liechtenstein] JENS DITTMAR His Cryptologists
[Lithuania] HERKUS KUNCIUS Belovezh
[Macedonia] VLADA UROSEVIC The Seventh Side of the Dice
[Moldova] IOAN MANASCURTA How I Was Going to Die on the Battlefield
[Montenegro] LENA RUTH STEFANOVIC The New Testament
[Norway] KJELL ASKILDSEN My Sister’s Face
[Poland] KRYSTIAN PIWOWARSKI Homo Polonicus
[Portugal] RUI MANUEL AMARAL Almost Ten Stories
[Russia] NINA GABRIELYAN Quiet Feasts
[Slovakia] VLADIMíR HAVRILLA The Teacher and the Parchment
[Slovenia] VESNA LEMAIC The Pool
[Spain: Castilian] SUSANA MEDINA Oestrogen
[Spain: Galician] XURXO BORRAZAS Pena de Ancares
[Switzerland: German] CHRISTOPH SIMON Fairy Tales from the World of Publishing
[Ukraine] YURIY TARNAWSKY Dead Darling
[United Kingdom: England] TOM MCCARTHY On Dodgem Jockeys
[United Kingdom: Wales] ROBERT MINHINNICK Scavenger

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

342 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2013

About the author

Drago Jančar je končal Višjo pravno šolo v Mariboru. Med študijem je bil kulturni, glavni in odgovorni urednik študentskega lista Katedra. Po študiju je bil najprej zaposlen kot novinar pri dnevniku Večer, nato je bil svobodni pisatelj, za tem dramaturg pri Viba filmu in nazadnje tajnik in urednik pri založbi Slovenska matica v Ljubljani. Študijsko je večkrat bival v tujini, v ZDA, Veliki Britaniji, Nemčiji. Od leta 2001 je redni član SAZU. Je največkrat prevajani sodobni slovenski pisatelj.
Jančar je najprej začel s pisanjem pripovednih del v modernistični pripovedni tehniki in pod vplivom francoskega novega romana. V pripovednih delih obravnava spore posameznika z aktualnim družbenim okoljem (roman Petintrideset stopinj, novele O bledem hudodelcu) in pripoveduje o tragičnem spopadu med individualno človeško eksistenco in kaosom objektivnega sveta (romana Galjot, Severni sij, novele Smrt pri Mariji Snežni).
V Jančarjevih pripovednih delih v osemdesetih letih dvajsetega stoletja so opazne postmodernistične prvine, pozneje pa se tem pridruži še tematski premik k intimnim eksistencialno odločilnim problemom (novele Pogled angela, roman Posmehljivo poželenje). Pisatelj je v svojih delih uporabil tudi zgodovinsko tematiko (romana Galjot, Katarina, pav in jezuit).
Jančar v svojem dramskem opusu upodablja posameznika, ki v sporu s posplošujočim in neobčutljivim sistemom praviloma propade. Pri tem izbira predvsem zgodovinsko snov in jo alegorično povzdigne (Disident Arnož in njegovi, Veliki briljantni valček, Dedalus, Klementov padec, Halštat). Groteska Zalezujoč Godota je variacija besedila S. Becketta. Pomembna je tudi Jančarjeva esejistika, ki se ukvarja z eksistencialnimi in političnimi vprašanji intelektualcev v sodobnem, posebej socialističnem svetu.
Drago Jančar je za svoj književni opus prejel številne nagrade: leta 1982, 1985, 1989, 1995 Grumovo narado, leta 1979 nagrado Prešernovega sklada, leta 1993, 1995 Rožančevo nagrado, leta 1993 Prešernovo nagrado, leta 1999, 2001 nagrado kresnik, leta 1994 evropsko nagrado za kratko prozo in leta 2003 Herderjevo nagrado.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls]

One would be mistaken for assuming the European fictions collected herein are works slated to be published in 2014—the stories here are choice selections from European authors in the last decade (and beyond), selected by various arts councils in the various European nations (not all of whom are represented in this edition—where is Sweden? Denmark? Germany?) and translated here for your perusal. Focusing on Eastern European nations, who are widely represented, the stories are largely darkly comedic, such as the Croatian piece ‘Adios Cowboy,’ where the Balkan war still looms high in the fiction agenda (ditto the Moldovan entry). Personal highlights in this include the Swiss ‘Fairy Tales From the World of Publishing,’ Belgium’s ‘The Man in the Yellow Parka,’ Finland’s ‘Night Shift,’ Portugal’s ‘Almost Ten Stories,’ Spain: Galician’s ‘Pena de Ancares,’ and Lithuania’s ‘Belovezh.’ Tom McCarthy represents the UK with a shaving from his writer’s table, and the Welsh story is one of the least interesting in the collection. The most interesting experimental work isn’t coming from the UK—the rest of Europe has already leapfrogged us, as the last four anthologies also attest.

[Lauren Stoolfire]

I picked Best European Fiction 2014by Drago Jančar specifically for the Slovenia story "The Pool" by Vesna Lemaic which was translated from Slovenian by Spela Bibic for my Read the Around the World: Europe Challenge. I really enjoyed this 21 page short story. It's a slow build (as much as a short story can be anyway), but it's absolutely creepy and unsettling. I have questions and I want to know more. For example: what kind of pool is that, what did Martin's brother do, will anyone get away, what happens if the pool gets drained? Also, as a redhead, I've experienced quite a few bad sunburns, but I didn't know one could have a smell? Or, maybe that person was already dead and were just extra crispy?

[Lillian]

My three favorite stories from this collection were all at the front: Thierry Horguelin's (Belgium) "The Man in the Yellow Parka", Katya Atanasova's (Bulgaria) "Fear of Ankles", and Elvis Hadzic's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Zec" ... which keeps coming back to haunt me.

Stuff I marked in the preface by Drago Jančar because it helped me get a grip on the wild variety of stories to follow:

"... What's wrong with optimism? I didn't want to start lecturing about Marx in a creative writing class, so I tried to explain that in Central Europe literature often contains a kind of anxious laughter that's neither funny nor entertaining, but rather the expression of a sense of humor that's by turns ironic, sarcastic, or just plain hard to figure out, which writers from Kafka on have recorded in darkly comedic tones, because they know that great optimistic ideas often culminate in the crowning idea of a concentration camp filled with political minorities and sometimes entire nations. We weren't getting through to each other. I see your point, one student said, but optimism is part of the spirit of individualism itself, it's at the heart of American democracy. I see your point, I said, but it's also at the heart of the collective spirit of Soviet communism, including its literature, in which writers were referred to as 'engineers of human souls' and they all knew that their job was to write interesting, entertaining books to make people optimistic. Although our conversation was polite, and it was all very entertaining, the gulf in understanding between us remained unbridged.

and also this:

But literature carries within it the memory and experience of Europe's insane century as it was lived by fragile, frightened, and vulnerable human beings, who often had to salvage their dignity and sanity not just with the balm of melancholy, but also with laughter, skepticism, irony, and black humor.

[Isabel]

I’d like to say that this was an all round great compilation of short stories but I would be lying. I would only be able to count the good ones on one hand. However The curious case of Benjamin Zec was an intriguing read, based on the Serbian genocide which was cleverly done.

[Kerry Booth]

Kind of disappointing. It was interesting reading different world views, but there is a lot of disjointed, incomplete, and poor examples passing as fiction out there.

[Aljoša Toplak]

A careful selection of European short stories, written in the 21st century, translated from 28 languages to highlight the literary developments of some contemporary writers. It's a diverse and stimulating set of short stories that I sometimes took great delight in, sometimes none at all. I'd like to specially mention Thierry Horguelin for his captivating story "The Man in the Yellow Parka", Rui Manuel Amaral for their very endearing stamp of magical realism, and Vesna Lemaič for her intensely mesmerising short story "The Pool". It took me exactly one month to finish this anthology.

[Ilana]

If this is the best, what didn't make the cut?

I feel like I'm never huge on short fiction, but I also kept going, oh, it's all different authors, gonna give them the benefit of the doubt and keep reading. Was not a fan.

[Wally]

I found a lot to love here, including a haunting story from Bosnia-Herzegovina, in which a boy makes a wish on a ladybug and finds himself magically grown up and playing Hamlet before an adoring audience. The Polish entry seems more like a fable, with a disaffected prince bemoaning the peasantry’s idleness and a Jewish merchant’s business acumen while his own teeth fall out. In the Latvian story, a single woman seems to have someone living in her apartment, although she can never see or communicate with this man, who suddenly addresses the reader at the very end. The Estonian story is narrated by a man who once assisted with the interpretation duties of an older, retired singer – his idol – and learned what it is to really have money when her producer almost offhandedly paid him for his time. In the Slovenian story, a man’s father gets a new swimming pool which has a strange attraction on everyone in the neighborhood, including the narrator, who can do nothing to save the lives of people who just want to spend their time at the pool. The Lithuanian story depicts a forest ranger who leaves his badgering wife to run deep into the forest, where his communion with nature takes on an aura that is at once mythical and deeply disturbing.

[Chris]

The excellent introduction by Drago Jančar prepared me for a collection weighted heavily with Eastern Europeans, and writing that explored new ways of telling a story or capturing a mood, zeitgeist, or existence. Of course, some styles worked better than others. Nevertheless, this is an engaging collection.

[Alistair]

The only story that stuck with me is the hauntingly memorable Bosnian story, The Curious Case of Benjamin Zec by Elvis Hadzic (11 pages). Skip the rest. Considering the collection is 315 pages, this is pretty poor signal to noise ratio!