Varujan Vosganian, The Book of Whispers

February 9, 2014

By samuel

A few weeks ago the Romanian Writers’ Union announced its list of Nobel Prize for Literature nominees, and one of the four names was Varujan Vosganian. This is not very surprising, nor even meaningful; pretty nearly anybody can nominate for the Nobel, the trick of course lies in actually winning it, and V.V. is a rather high-up mucky-muck in the Writers’ Union as well as having served twice as Minister of Finance.

More interesting is that his novel is shortlisted in the translation section for the Leipzig book fair this year. This nomination involves some serious jury work sifting through novels from all around the world to choose a final five, and the German translation is by Ernst Wichert, a deeply committed lover of literature.

The novel itself is perhaps a little old-fashioned – it’s a generational-historical novel taking us from the Armenian Genocide through WWII and life under Romanian Communism – but its sweep and seriousness remind me of le Clézio. I really, really want to translate this one. Publishers! Get in touch.

http://www.willcocks.eu/?p=20