Category: Quote

Podcast interview by Jennifer Eremeeva

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn book, Book review, interview, Like Water, QuoteLeave a comment

Here’s a podcast interview I gave about LIKE WATER AND OTHER STORIES to Jennifer Eremeeva for the New Books Network. Listen to the audio below or go to Jennifer’s website or download the interview through searching for New Books Network on your favorite podcasting app!

A new generation of Russian emigres is blessed — or cursed — with the ease of long-haul flights and frequent flyer miles, Skype and FaceTime, Google translate, and regulations that seem anyway to be more forgiving about former citizens traveling to and fro. For them, the border has become far more porous than it ever was, and the choices are now more nuanced. However, there are still plenty of cultural minefields to navigate. To this generation that includes writers as disparate as Gary Shteyngart and Irina Reyn comes Olga Zilberbourg with a new collection of short stories, “Like Water and Other Stories.”

https://jennifereremeeva.com/like-water/

Футбол в джунглях

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Publication, Quote, short story, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Мой рассказ “Футбол в джунглях” напечатан в июльском номере журнала “Нева”.  Рассказ целиком можно прочитать тут. Спасибо редактору Александру Мелихову за эту публикацию, и отдельная благодарность Сергею Князеву за вдохновение и помощь в публикации этого рассказа, а также за публикацию отрывка из рассказа на сайте NevaSport.ru.

Рассказ начинается примерно так:

Гида по Амазонке звали Луисвальдо, не самое сложное из попавшихся нам в Бразилии имен, но в голове все время вертелось и чуть не срывалось с губ: Леонкавалло. Было в этом смуглом, упитанном молодом человеке что-то от оперного певца. Казалось, его звонкий, раскатистый голос и преувеличенные жесты предназначены для галерки: их охват явно превышал размах одной моторной лодки на восемь человек. Луисвальдо передал управление лодкой своему помощнику Родриго, мальчику лет тринадцати, сидевшему сзади на руле, а сам глушил пиво и на приличном английском скармливал нам байки о жизни в джунглях и о своей сложной судьбе. Одновременно c не меньшим энтузиазмом он разглагольствовал о проходившем в эти дни по всей Бразилии чемпионате мира по футболу. Мне вспоминался трагический клоун из «Паяцев».

— У меня была возможность попасть на первый матч в Манаусе, — хвастался Луисвальдо. Но я не мог оставить работу. Я тут сейчас вроде как за главного. Босс поехал на чемпионат. Он страшный фанат. — Видите ту корову, да вот же, спустилась попить? — вдруг перебил себя Луисвальдо. — Смотрите, а вон там, левее, из воды торчат два глаза. Это кайман ее подстерегает.

Улли повернулся поглядеть, куда указал Луисвальдо. Кайман выскочил из воды и попытался схватить неосторожную корову за ногу. Улли аж подпрыгнул на месте. Я засмеялась, а корова невозмутимо махнула хвостом и отбежала на несколько шагов.

— Зря старается, коровы быстрее кайманов и сильнее. Напрасно только пасть разевает, — объяснил Луисвальдо.

Продолжение на стр. 148 вот в этом PDF файле!

 

Janine Kovac’s Spinning

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Book review, Quote, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Janine Kovac weaves the stories about premature birth of her twin boys with experiences from her professional ballet-dancing career with the difficult path of learning to write about these experiences — and the result is a very effective and moving narrative, and a kind of a writers’ guide that might do more good than lots of more technical craft manuals.

Leaning against the bathroom door, I’m trying to breathe and at the same time I’m trying not to breathe. I watch myself from above–a woman with dark hair in a light green hospital gown and an enormous belly stretched taut. I can’t see my face; I can only see my back. There’s a tug–as if gravity is pulling me to the ground, reaching inside, and sucking life out.

Everyone thinks that an out-of-body experience means watching yourself from the rafters. That’s just the visual perspective. There’s also the feeling of being deeply rooted inside your vital organs, as if your heart were the center of the universe. In the same breath you observe from the outside and feel from within.

Check out Janine’s website and buy the book.

Annie Ernaux’s Shame

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Quote, Translation, Uncategorized, Wonderful BooksLeave a comment

A powerful little book that begins with an analysis of a single episode from the writer’s past, an incident that happened when she was twelve. This book breaks so many writerly rules — in such a satisfying, rewarding way. The translation is by Tanya Leslie.

The quote is from the end of the first section.

Naturally I shall not opt for narrative, which would mean inventing reality instead of searching for it. Neither shall I content myself with merely picking out and transcribing the images I remember; I shall process them  like documents, examining them from different angles to give them meaning. In other words, I shall carry out an ethnological study of myself.

(It may not be necessary to commit such observations to paper, but I won’t be able to start writing properly until I have some idea of the shape this writing will take.)

–

I may have chosen to be impartial because I thought the indescribable events I witness in my twelfth year would fate away, lost in the universal context of laws and language. Or maybe I succumbed  to a mad and deadly impulse suggested by the words of a missal which I now find impossible to read, a ritual which my mind associates with some Voodoo ceremony–take this, all of you, and read it, this is my body, this is the cup of my blood, it will be shed for you and for all men.

Karolina Ramqvist’s The White City

On By Olga ZilberbourgIn Quote, Readings, Translation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I heard this author read during Litquake and bought the book. Part heist novel, part a novel about becoming a mother, it blends the genres so effortlessly that, having finished the book, I’m convinced that motherhood is a kind of a heist. Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel. A beautiful edition by the Black Cat imprint of Grove Atlantic.

The baby’s named Dream. (What a cool name!)

 She put one arm over the baby, who had gone back to nursing, and rested her head on the other, trying to unwind and sink into the sofa. She focused on her body, one part at a time; she noticed her teeth clenching and opened her mouth all the way. Opening and shutting it and working her jaw from side to side to relieve the tension.  …

Dream downed the milk, swallowing while nuzzled into her white breast. Round as the baby’s cheeks and head, round as the areola that peeked out because Dream hadn’t gotten a proper grip on her nipple again. Round and round, rounds and rounds. The milk dribbled out of the baby’s mouth and ran down her breast, leaving a sticky trail on her skin and a wet stain on her robe.

Does the body keep producing breast milk after death? If something were to happen to her, if she choked or a blood vessel burst in her brain or if someone were to break in and take her out for good, it would probably be a while before anyone would miss her. But if she had enough milk in her breasts, then Dream might have a chance of surviving until someone showed up.

She tried to concentrate on the softness.