Northern Lights

Fülszöveg

FICTION
T
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WRITINGS FROM AN UNBOUND EUROPE
Josef Erdman arrives in IVlaribor, Slovenia, on the eve of World War II. Though he claims to be a salesman, it soon becomes apparent that Josef has no purpose in the town— and that a newcomer can expect nothing but distrust from the townspeople. Trying to fit in, Josef befriends a group of engineers and begins an affair with Margerita, the wife of a friend. As he lingers without purpose, however, Josef attracts the attention of the local police chief, who believes him to be a Communist agitator. The longer Josef stays, the more incomprehensible the town becomes; surrounded by blazing passions he begins to fear for his sanity. Against this backdrop he witnesses the fiery shimmer of the aurora borealis and imagines the town set aflame—an omen of the coming war.
"Excellent descriptions of drunken nights, dizzying binges and feverish sexual escapades, nationalist and fascist passions, spiritualist escapism and societal... Tovább

Fülszöveg

FICTION
T
¦ ? ¦ ? ¦
WRITINGS FROM AN UNBOUND EUROPE
Josef Erdman arrives in IVlaribor, Slovenia, on the eve of World War II. Though he claims to be a salesman, it soon becomes apparent that Josef has no purpose in the town— and that a newcomer can expect nothing but distrust from the townspeople. Trying to fit in, Josef befriends a group of engineers and begins an affair with Margerita, the wife of a friend. As he lingers without purpose, however, Josef attracts the attention of the local police chief, who believes him to be a Communist agitator. The longer Josef stays, the more incomprehensible the town becomes; surrounded by blazing passions he begins to fear for his sanity. Against this backdrop he witnesses the fiery shimmer of the aurora borealis and imagines the town set aflame—an omen of the coming war.
"Excellent descriptions of drunken nights, dizzying binges and feverish sexual escapades, nationalist and fascist passions, spiritualist escapism and societal mannerisms, and failed love affairs that [animate] both the pretentious townsfolk [and the] murky lives of those on the margins; they all ultimately coalesce into a clear, if depressingly unforgiving [tableau]."
—Ales Debeljak, University of Ljubljana
"Both tragedies, the personal one and the historical one involving not only Austria but all of Central Europe, are preceded by a powerful description of the ominous aurora borealis or Northern lights." —World Literature Today
Drago Jancar was born in Maribor, Slovenia, in 1948. He is the 1993 winner of the European Short-Story Award in Germany. A former president of the Slovenian PEN Center and a winner of the Preseren Foundation Award, he is currently an editor of New Review, a cultural journal once at the forefront of the Slovene dissident movement. He is the author of Mocking Desire, published by Northwestern University Press in 1998.
Michael Biggins heads the Slavic and East European Section at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle. He is the translator of Mocking Desire. Vissza