One of the biggest downsizes of my many literary intersts is that I often ignore the literary realms that used to mean so much to me long time ago. Authors from the Balkans is one of them, alongside with Hungarian authors.
But, step by step, this year I am trying to correct these omissions, aware nevertheless of the amount of literary information I have to catch up - while nurturning my relatively easy interests.
My latest read - that happened earlier this July - was a short read by David Albahari, Heute ist Mittwoch - Today is Wednesday in my unrelated English translation - translated into German by the duo Mirjana and Klaus Wittman, who are translating from Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian into German.
Wednesday is the day when the son is taking his ailing father to the checkup for Parkinson´s disease. Once an influencial member of the Yugoslav local administration, a dictator at home, the father is facing his mortality. It is a nostalgic and slow read, with a human perspective, and a philosophical take. It is nothing to like or don´t about this book, it has such a relatable human touch.
I´ve read somewhere that for Albahari, who died three years ago, the family was the starting and ending point of understanding a society. I haven´t read anything by him - but would love to - and this take is clear in this short book as well. I may agree with it, especially when it comes to social and political interferences, although in other realms, this may not be necessarily true.
I am having for a very long time a high interest in understanding at what extent we cannot escape the social and political causality, in democratic and non-democratic societies and I am not ready yet to provide a straightforward answer. Books like Heute ist Mittwoch helped me to advance my thoughts about it though.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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