|
| Muharem
Bazdulj |
| NATIONAL
LITERATURES AT THE END OF MILLENNIUM
1.
I think that the title of this topic should be read as "Small national
literatures at the end of millennium". Here I am alluding to Milan
Kundera's famous statement that small nations are the ones that
are afraid of their disappearing, unlike grand nations that are
sure in their almost eternal existence. The situation is similar
with national literatures. English, French or Spanish literatures
are not apt to discuss their future: they take it for granted. However,
Czech, Polish, Slovenian, Serbian, Croatian or Bosnian literatures
are always afraid for their future.
2.
Nevertheless, one should know that grand nation and grand literature
are not one and the same. Even grand language and grand literature
are not always identical. Basically, one often thinks that national
literature is the literature written in a particular national language.
It is not true. I will mention here just the most prominent examples.
Kafka wrote in German, however he is at the same time German, Czech
and Jewish author. Above-mentioned Kundera, after twenty years of
exile which he had spent writing in Czech, started to write in French.
Nevertheless, he is known as a Czech writer. Romanian philosopher
Emil Cioran wrote both in Romanian and French. Samuel Beckett wrote
in English and French; he is, however, primarily an Irish writer.
Polish-born Joseph Conrad is one of the key figures of English modernism.
Remarkable is the fact that he did not know a word of English before
he was about twenty years old. Vladimir Nabokov is master of both
Russian and American literature in the twentieth century. Some of
his works were also written in French.
3.
These examples affirm the fact that not only language determinates
a particular national literature. (Nota bene: there can be more
national different literatures in just one language: English and
American, Spanish and Argentinean, Portuguese and Brazilian.) Literature
is one entity: inseparable world literature. Of course, that does
not mean that there are no particular national literatures. But
their best examples enter the imaginary museum of world literature,
as Andre Malraux put it.
4.
It is not wrong to say that some of the best modern writers were
bilingual or even multilingual. Borges wrote almost all of his work
in Spanish, but he knew English perfectly. Nabokov was, as mentioned
above, master in both English and Russian, just like Beckett in
English and French. Brodski also wrote in both Russian and English.
5.
Today's writer in his or her small native language who is able to
write in a grand one (usually English) is in a great dilemma. Should
he abandon his natural idiom, the one he knows masterfully, for
an adopted one with which he is able to meet much wider public?
Or he should persevere in using his one and only language? It is
a dilemma without answer, dilemma that can be compared with the
famous Bosnian folk fable Tamni Vilajet (The Dark Country). In a
few words it goes like this. A group of people discovered the Dark
Country. It was so dark that they were like blind. Under their feet
they could feel some strange stones. Suddenly, they heard a voice
saying: "You entered here once and nevermore. You must exit. You
may take some of these stones. Who takes them will repent, who does
not will also repent." Some of the people took a few stones, some
of them did not take any. When they got back into the world and
light they saw the stones were diamonds. Those people who did not
take any stones repented for not taking them, those who did take
some for not taking more. The moral of this fable applies for the
above-mentioned dilemma. One who writes in a small language shall
repent whether or not he adopts a grand one.
6.
There are famous examples of both of these solutions. Despite their
long exile, Czeslaw Milosz and Danilo Kiš stayed faithful to their
native languages. Milosz even put this relation upside down: he
wrote a poem O, My Faithful Language. However, writers like Cioran
or Ionesco were different. Nevertheless Milosz and Kiš as well as
Cioran and Ionesco are well known world-wide. But the first two
primarily owe it to translations.
7.
A significant difference between literatures written in small and
the ones written in grand languages is the importance of translations.
Writers who write in small languages consider translations almost
the most important part in their world-wide recognition. In contrast,
writers in grand languages often think that their national reputation
alone will be enough for global approval.
8.
Borges once wrote that no question is so inseparable from literature
and its modest mysteriousness as the question of translating. A
writer who speaks the language into which the translator translates
his work is often unsatisfied. Kundera and Kiš corrected translations
in languages they could speak. Nabokov himself translated his Russian
novels into English after the work of other translators disappointed
him. Translating literature is an ungrateful job. An Italian saying
in form of word play goes: Translator-Betrayer (Traduttore-Traditore).
There is also a comparison between a translated poem and a woman
that says: If she is beautiful she is not faithful, if she is faithful
she is not beautiful.
9.
It is indeed very much harder to translate poetry than prose or
play. However, where is the person whose favourite authors, including
poets, belong only to his native language even if he is able to
read in it only? From the practical point of view, for small literatures
at the end of millennium the question of translations is essential
for their global significance. Yet, if one wants to write in English,
although it is not his native language, who can forbid him.
10.
Some writers from ex-Yugoslavia like Aleksandar Hemon (from Bosnia)
or Slavenka Drakulić (from Croatia) wrote some of their works in
English, published them in America and were praised by American
critics. It would have been much harder for them if they had had
to look for a translator. But now when their names had become familiar
in American literary world, their new works would probably be immediately
translated even if they wrote them in Bosnian or Croatian.
11.
Whether one likes it or not English is the Latin of our time, it
is the modern lingua franca. Writers like Salman Rushdie or V.S.
Naipaul remind one of some ancient writers who wrote in Latin though
they were born far away from Rome and though they first spoke in
some other language. However, political power and powerful literature
are not one and the same. In the time of Roman Empire, the most
enduring work was not written in Latin but in Hebrew and Aramaic.
It is the Bible, of course. But one should remember that the Bible
became globally known through its translations to Greek and Latin.
12.
At the end of the millennium there are many rumours about the uncertain
future of literature. Still, it is nothing new. Such rumours were
spread from the beginning of literature but literature is immortal
as long as humanity exists. Literature is an essential part of human
experience. Octavio Pas and Salman Rushdie agree among others that
there were never more readers of literature. One just has to find
them.
|