Tag: literature in translation

Book Review – Where the Wind Calls Home by Samar Yazbek, translated by Leri Price @WorldEdBooks

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About the Book

Book cover of Where the Wind Calls Home by Samar Yazbek

Ali, a nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian army, lies on the ground beneath a tree. He sees a body being lowered into a hole – is this his funeral? There was that sudden explosion, wasn’t there … While trying to understand the extent of the damage, Ali works his way closer to the tree. His ultimate desire is to fly up to one of its branches, to safety.

Through rich vignettes of Ali’s memories, we uncover the hardships of his traditional Syrian Alawite village, but also the richness and beauty of its cultural and religious heritage. 

Format: ebook (150 pages) Publisher: World Editions
Publication date: 6th February 2024 Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Translated Literature

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My Review

In my review of Planet of Clay, Samar Yazbek’s previous novel set in war-torn Damascus, I noted that the book’s narrator, a young girl called Rima, has a very different view of the world from those around her. She senses things in colours, expressing the things she experiences through drawings rather than in words. Ali, the protagonist of Where the Wind Calls Home, also sees the world differently having formed from early in his life an intense relationship with nature, particularly trees. ‘Trees were simple, unlike people.’

As a boy, one particular oak tree became his sanctuary, a place from which he observed the clouds, and the mountains that surrounded his village. As he lingers between life and death, injured – probably fatally – by a bomb dropped in error on its own soldiers, his sole objective becomes to reach a nearby tree in search of that familiar sanctuary. He sees the tree’s presence as a sign that it will take care of him, that it is no coincidence he finds himself close to it.

Hallucinating because of his injuries, he relives moments from his life: the death of his brother, an arduous trek to a shrine with his mother Nahla, a visit to the palace of a local chief whose lavish lifestyle demonstrates how power and wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a few. These episodes give an insight into life in a rural village whose peaceful, albeit harsh, existence has been transformed by war: its menfolk killed leaving grieving families without fathers, sons, brothers.

Although any loss of life in war is devastating, it seems particularly tragic that a gentle soul like Ali, who harboured ambitions to follow a religious life, should be caught up in a violent conflict – ‘one of the many wars that humans are so busy inventing’. In fact, as we learn, his involvement results from an act of sacrifice. Ali recalls his mother’s anguish at not being able to view the body of Ali’s brother, so devastating were his injuries, and is determined she not should not suffer in the same way again. ‘Ali reflected that even if he didn’t survive, at the very least, he had to keep this promise to himself: to make sure his body stayed whole, so Nahla could see it and say goodbye to him…’

Where the Winds Calls Home has a dreamlike quality as Ali’s thoughts move, often imperceptibly, between past and present. There is striking imagery, particularly the presence of a mysterious ‘Other’ whose movements seem to mirror Ali’s own struggles to achieve his objective. It’s a heartbreaking story of the destructive impact of war and a reminder that seemingly intractable conflicts persist in many parts of the world.

My thanks to Christine at World Editions for my digital review copy via NetGalley.

In three words: Lyrical, moving, powerful
Try something similar: Held by Anne Michaels

About the Author

Samar Yazbek is a Syrian writer, novelist, and journalist. She was born in Jableh in 1970 and studied literature before beginning her career as a journalist and a scriptwriter for Syrian television and film. Her novel Planet of Clay, also published by World Editions, was a finalist for the National Book Award and longlisted for the Warwick Women in Translation Prize. Her accounts of the Syrian conflict include A Woman in the Crossfire: Diaries of the Syrian Revolution and The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria. Yazbek’s work has been translated into multiple languages and has been recognized with numerous awards – notably, the French Best Foreign Book Award and the PEN-Oxfam Novib, PEN Tucholsky, and PEN Pinter awards. She was recently selected to be part of the International Writers Program with the Royal Society of Literature.

About the Translator

Leri Price is an award-winning literary translator of contemporary Arabic fiction. She has twice been a Finalist for the National Book Award for Translated Literature, in 2021 for her translations of Samar Yazbek’s Planet of Clay, and in 2019 for Khaled Khalifa’s Death is Hard Work. Her translation of Khalifa’s Death is Hard Work also won the 2020 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation.

#BookReview Where Roses Never Die by Gunnar Staalesen, trans. by Don Bartlett @OrendaBooks

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Where Roses Never DieAbout the Book

September 1977. Mette Misvær, a three-year-old girl disappears without trace from the sandpit outside her home. Her tiny, close middle-class community in the tranquil suburb of Nordas is devastated, but their enquiries and the police produce nothing. Curtains twitch, suspicions are raised, but Mette is never found.

Almost 25 years later, as the expiry date for the statute of limitations draws near, Mette’s mother approaches PI Varg Veum, in a last, desperate attempt to find out what happened to her daughter. As Veum starts to dig, he uncovers an intricate web of secrets, lies and shocking events that have been methodically concealed. When another brutal incident takes place, a pattern begins to emerge…

Format: Paperback (272 pages)  Publisher: Orenda Books
Publication date: 1st June 2016 Genre: Crime, Thriller

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My Review

Where Roses Never Die is the eighteenth in the author’s crime series featuring private investigator, Varg Veum. It precedes the only other book in the series I’ve read, Wolves in the Dark. (Not all the books in the series have been translated into English.) But don’t worry if you haven’t read all, or even any, of the previous books in the series because Where Roses Never Die works perfectly well as a standalone.

The book finds Varg in a state that will be familiar to those who’ve read earlier books in the series. He’s recovering from a tragic event in his personal life and the three years since then have disappeared in a haze of booze. He feels he’s ‘wandering restlessly through life’s back streets’. His bank account is all but empty, the new cases have dried up and it’s a struggle to keep off the bottle. Recalling when he was at his worst, he observes, ‘I was the emperor of the empties, and I had hundreds of vassals, empty, silent and glassy-eyed’.

He needs something to rescue him from his ‘daily demons’ and what has become ‘the longest and darkest marathon’ of his life. The unsolved case of Mette Misvær, a three-year-old girl who disappeared without trace nearly 25 years ago, may be just that. It might even give him the willpower, and an excuse, to remain sober.

Varg sets about investigating the case with his customary dogged determination, even going so far as to pick the brains of an old adversary, the now retired Inspector Dankert Muus who handled the case originally. He interviews the residents and former residents of Solstølen Co-Op, a community of five houses. Some of them are extremely reluctant to talk to him. What is it they have to hide? Varg discovers a complex web of connections but one which for a long time seems just to confuse the situation not make it clearer.  It’s a seemingly random, unconnected event that brings about a breakthrough but not before Varg has found himself in a series of sticky situations and uncovered some pretty dark stuff.

Is Mette still alive? If so, who was responsible for her disappearance and how has she remained undiscovered all these years? You’ll have to read the book to discover the answers to those questions and I’ll be very surprised if you find them before Varg.

Varg Veum
Life-sized statue of Varg Veum in the centre of Bergen

Varg Veum is a wonderful character. He’s quick-witted and not easily dissuaded from a course of action. Yes, he’s flawed, a little world-weary and often consumed by dark thoughts but he always remains likeable because of his strong sense of justice, wry sense of humour and the fact he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I was pleased that the end of the book holds out the possibility of a little light coming into Varg’s life once again.

Where Roses Never Die is a skilfully-crafted, compelling crime mystery with plenty of twists and turns.

In three words: Gripping, intriguing, unsettling

Try something similar: End of Summer by Anders de la Motte

Gunnar Staalesen

About the Author

One of the fathers of Nordic Noir, Gunnar Staalesen was born in Bergen, Norway, in 1947. He made his debut at the age of twenty-two with Seasons of Innocence and in 1977 he published the first book in the Varg Veum series. He is the author of over twenty titles, which have been published in twenty-four countries and sold over four million copies. Twelve film adaptations of his Varg Veum crime novels have appeared since 2007, starring the popular Norwegian actor Trond Espen Seim. Staalesen has won three Golden Pistols (including the Prize of Honour). Where Roses Never Die won the 2017 Petrona Award for Nordic Crime Fiction, and Big Sister was shortlisted for the award in 2019. He lives with his wife in Bergen. (Photo/bio: Publisher website)

About the Translator

Don Bartlett lives with his family in a village in Norfolk. He completed an MA in Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia in 2000 and has since worked with a wide variety of Danish and Norwegian authors, including Jo Nesbø and Karl Ove Knausgaard.