Nine books finished this month, six by women/POC, six in German for #GermanLitMonth, and one in Portuguese.
- Vista Chinesa — Tatiana Salem Levy tr. Alison Entrekin
- Os da Minha Rua — Ondjaki
- Echtzeitalter — Tonio Schachinger
- Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger! — Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi tr. Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann
- Gebrauchsanweisung für Potsdam und Brandenburg — Antje Rávik Strubel
- Die Inkommensurablen — Raphaela Edelbauer
- The Sandman Vol. 8: World’s End — Neil Gaiman
- Sieben Jahre — Peter Stamm
- Knochenlieder — Martina Clavadetscher
I’ve covered the German books in a little more depth than usual in separate posts, so just to summarise:
Austria
Echtzeitalter, by Tonio Schachinger. A very Viennese coming of age novel, packed with literary references.
Die Inkommensurablen, by Raphaela Edelbauer portrays the collision of psychoanalysis, the paranormal (maybe), and war fever in 1914’s Vienna.
Germany
Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger!, by Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi. A memoir of experiences as a Black child/youth in Nazi Germany.
Gebrauchsanweisung für Potsdam und Brandenburg, by Antje Rávik Strubel. An affectionately critical guide to Brandenburg and its treasures.
Switzerland
Sieben Jahre, by Peter Stamm. A meticulous, slow-burn dissection of a loveless love-life.
Knochenlieder, by Martina Clavadetscher. A short, but wild poem/novel/fairytale/dystopia.
The other non-English book was Ondjaki’s Os da Minha Rua, which I found less engaging than A Bicicleta que Tinha Bigodes: it’s also set in the world of his childhood in Luanda, but without the magical element which made the other book so attractive. This volume is made up of a series of stories (I think non-fictional) about his childhood and the people in his environment, but they tend not to really go anywhere. It doesn’t help that killing the local wildlife was one of his favourite pastimes. The exotic element (what was 1980s Luanda like?) adds interest, but it’s not enough to carry the whole work. Towards the end, as the narrator reaches adolescence, it takes on a more elegiac note, which adds some form, but seemed rather heavy-handed to me. Palavras para o velho abacateiro — written almost in one sentence — was very impressive, though.
Translated from Portuguese, Vista Chinesa by Tatiana Salem Levy was much more rewarding (and the basis of another enjoyable session of the Portuguese in Translation online discussion group). It tells the story of a rape survivor — based on the experiences of one of Levy’s friends — focusing on the effects on her ability to process the events of the police investigation and subsequently having children. The ending, linking the protagonist to the city as a whole, is particularly impressive.
Finally, after last month’s failure, I got back to a graphic novel of the month with The Sandman Vol. 8: World’s End, by Neil Gaiman. It’s another excellent volume, drawn by several different artists in contrasting styles. The story focuses less on the character of Morpheus himself — I think a tendency of the later volumes? — but is none the less enjoyable for that.