Daša DrndićDoppelgänger

Abstract

Tom Lanoye Speechless Trans. Paul Vincent World Editions Flemish author Tom Lanoye’s tragicomic novel is imbued from the start with heartfelt humor and unflinching emotional honesty. A hybrid work of autobiography, testimonial, and fiction , Speechless allows Lanoye’s exquisite sensitivity to shine, capitalizing on his dexterous poetic instincts to colorfully depict the struggle of overcoming personal tragedy and reconciling oneself to the exploration and acceptance of sexuality. Claudio Magris Snapshots Trans. Anne Milano Appel Yale University Press A collection of brief political, societal, and cultural reflections by internationally acclaimed author Claudio Magris, this gathering spans from 1999 to 2013 and offers witty analysis and humorous interpretations of a full spectrum of subjects. Magris’s unique perspective blends the personal and the universal into a rich spectrum of intensely human experiences. Nota Bene God, Ilaiah Shepherd’s autobiography, From a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual closes the circle. It seems to me that his entire oeuvre coheres as a single piece, as they have developed and matured in every following work. Hence, My Memoirs serves as a culmination of his writings and is a must-read. His writings, heavily experiential, narrate the trauma of a lower-caste individual growing up in independent India, which is moving toward Hindu nationalism at each step. He sees danger in the hegemony of Brahmins and other twice-born upper castes that dominates the discourse on the nation. Though, as a political scientist , Ilaiah Shepherd’s observations are based in empirical fact, he still looks with agony and anger at the suffering of his fellow caste members, who are 80 percent of India’s population and ruled by the upper castes. His words hit hard while reading, for the lower castes as well for the upper castes. Ilaiah Shepherd underscores that none of the lower-caste leaders and intellectuals have ever written autobiographies, including Bhimrao Ambedkar and Mahatma Phule. With his memoir he intends to send a wider message of self-respect, emancipation , and dignity. Ilaiah Shepherd declares writing to be the only medium that can change the lower castes’ condition in India. Beginning the book with the question “Is Ilaiah an Unworthy Name?” he enables the reader to explore the epistemological violence visited upon the lower castes and presents a counternarrative to Gandhi’s vegetarian India. The book is a valuable political, social, and anthropological document for understanding the caste system in India. Ilaiah Shepherd participated in the UN conference against racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia in Durban in 2001, and a chapter in the book explains his observation of casteism among Indians abroad. His take on caste and class is worth reading, as the former takes preeminence in the South Asian context. For those who want to understand India from below and beyond Gandhi, yoga, and Bollywood, From a Shepherd Boy to an Intellectual is an indispensable resource. Subhas Yadav University of Hyderabad, India Daša Drndić Doppelgänger Trans. S. D. Curtis & Celia Hawkesworth. London. Istros Books. 2018. 159 pages. Comprising “Artur and Isabella” and “Pupi,” this slim volume distills Daša Drndić’s trademark themes into a bleak but haunting requiem for the soul’s death in the wake of postmodernity. In these subtly linked stories, memory bleeds past into present as three clear-eyed protagonists, distanced from their truest selves, approach the void. On New Year’s Eve in 1999, in a dull Croatian town, elderly strangers Artur and Isabella meet, talk, and have sex, evoking painful images of former lives. In Belgrade, Croat Printz, fifty, with an alter ego named Pupi (a detested childhood nickname), spirals downward after cremating his cancer-ridden mother. Strategically braided narrative strategies —stream of consciousness, dialogue, and a seemingly omniscient voice—produce a Kafkaesque humor that highlights the sterility of this brave new world. When WORLDLIT.ORG 95 the voice notes that the couple complement each other, Artur says, “We complement each other.” When it announces, “The rhinos are outside,” Printz thinks, “It’s good that the rhinos are outside.” The voice becomes their shadow. Twentieth-century history has marked these lives. Isabella talks to her thirty-six garden gnomes, one for each family member lost to the Holocaust. Printz’s mother’s silver was...