Herta Muller was awarded Nobel Prize in literature in 2009. Vani Publications decided that her novels would be appropriate for translation into Hindi and approached my colleague in the German Studies center. Yesterday was the book release of the Hindi translation of her book Atemschaukel (English translation: The Hunger angel; Hindi translation: Bhookh ke Vyakaran). Her another book with a long title Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt (English translation: The Passport) has also been translated into Hindi as entitled "Kaanch ke Aansoo" by the same translators.
After the book was released, the translators read out small excerpts from the book The first book deals with a protagonist who is sent to the labor camp in Soviet Russia. The book was inspired by what happened to Herta Muller's mother (she too spent 5 years in a gulag) and by the experiences recounted by poet Oskar Pastior. The description of the gulag was just too vivid. They read out a section where a woman is killed in the labor camp and the violence that she describes was just horrific.
The second book, frankly, I could not understand. The excerpt was about an apple tree which starts eating its own apples. I could not make it out whether it was a parable or was it an allegory.
Later, my another German Center colleague told me that both the books are difficult to read and if the first book made sense then the credit should go to the translator.
Listening to Herta Muller's books made me realize that Maxim Gorky and Fyodor Dostoevsky were positively cheerful, jolly old fellows in comparison to her.
Will I read Herta Muller? I do not think so. Or maybe one day I will. After all I did manage to read Mother by Maxim Gorky and Crime and Punishment by Dosteovsky. On the other hand I could not read University Days by Gorky or The Brothers Karamazov by Dosteovsky. Though I think in all fairness it was the names in The Brothers Karamazov that did me in.
So I will wait and see whether I ever gather up enough courage to read Herta Muller.
After the book was released, the translators read out small excerpts from the book The first book deals with a protagonist who is sent to the labor camp in Soviet Russia. The book was inspired by what happened to Herta Muller's mother (she too spent 5 years in a gulag) and by the experiences recounted by poet Oskar Pastior. The description of the gulag was just too vivid. They read out a section where a woman is killed in the labor camp and the violence that she describes was just horrific.
The second book, frankly, I could not understand. The excerpt was about an apple tree which starts eating its own apples. I could not make it out whether it was a parable or was it an allegory.
Later, my another German Center colleague told me that both the books are difficult to read and if the first book made sense then the credit should go to the translator.
Listening to Herta Muller's books made me realize that Maxim Gorky and Fyodor Dostoevsky were positively cheerful, jolly old fellows in comparison to her.
Will I read Herta Muller? I do not think so. Or maybe one day I will. After all I did manage to read Mother by Maxim Gorky and Crime and Punishment by Dosteovsky. On the other hand I could not read University Days by Gorky or The Brothers Karamazov by Dosteovsky. Though I think in all fairness it was the names in The Brothers Karamazov that did me in.
So I will wait and see whether I ever gather up enough courage to read Herta Muller.
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