Eksil by Jakob Ejersbo

Abstract

I, Certainly, Chris Andrews has done 1 a remarkable job translatingBolano i intoEnglish, and those of us who do 1 not read inSpanish are the richerfor i his translation. ' AndrewMartino i Southern New Hampshire University Ii Jakob Ejersbo. Eksil. Copenhagen. [ Gyldendal. 2009. 283 pages. 199 kr. 1 isbn978-87-03-03586-4 1 In 2002 Jakob Ejersbo became an i overnight sensation in Denmark [ with his gritty novel Nordkraft.A i best-seller and phenomenal success, , Nordkraft won both critical and pop 1 ular acclaim?not tomention one of i the country's most prestigious liter 1 aryprizes, De Gyldne Laurbaer. That i novel depicts the lives of a group [ of Danes struggling on the edge of i society in industrial ?lborg: drug , addicts, pushers, down and outs. 1 Thanks to translator Don Bartlett i and Canadian publisher McArthur 1 & Company, Nordkraft isnow avail i able inEnglish. ' Ejersbo's much-anticipated i new novel, Eksil, takes place far [ from Denmark?in hot, dry Afri i ca. Fifteen-year-old Samantha has , spent most of her life inTanzania. 1 Her parents own the Baobab Hotel, i The hotel ismanaged (poorly) by 1 her alcoholic mother, while her i oft-absent, oft-abusive father is a [ soldier for hire. At the outset of i the novel, her beloved big sister, , Alison, moves toEngland to study, 1 leaving Samantha without a single i person with whom she truly con 1 nects (and when Alison returns six i months later, even that connection [ is lost). Not surprisingly, Saman i tha is a problem child at school , in Moshi, six hours away: reck i less,disinterested. Like many of the , characters in Nordkraft, Samantha 1 always seems to be looking for The OK AT Rink ROBE R.T O B O L A N O Author of By Night in Chile and 2 666 the next fix. That, of course, only causes more trouble. Eksil could be described as a bildungsroman without the Bil dung. Isolated physically and emotionally fromher family,with nothing to anchor her, Samantha continually flirts with danger?alco hol, sex, drugs?and never seems to learn from her mistakes, the most costly ofwhich is her father'spart ner, Victor, a much older married man with whom she has a sexual affair. In the end, she pays a dear E price for her actions. E Ejersbo's thrusting, fast-paced E narrative pushes constantly forward E at breakneck speed, but it sacrifices E much of the sensuous detail that E gives readers who've never been E to Tanzania the opportunity tofeel E what it's like to be there. Still, that E Ejersbo himself lived therewith his E family when he was young, and E traveled there often since, is evident E in the balanced way he describes E H^^H January-February 2010163 ^^fl the contrast between European and African values, or in the way he describes the issues facing contem porary, postcolonized Africa. Sadly, Jakob Ejersbo died of cancer before the book's publica tion in 2009, an all too early death forawriter who was justhittinghis stride.Thankfully, two forthcoming titles?Revolution and Liberty?will be published later this year. Ejer sbo's vision in Eksil (and Nordkrafl) iswhat makes him one of themost important Danish writers of his generation: a stark, no-holds-barred vision of reality that is brutal and dark but also grimly realistic,unsen timental, and powerfully reflective of theworld we live in. K.E. Semmel Washington, D.C. Zoe Heller.The Believers. New York. HarperCollins. 2009 (?2008). 335 pages. $25.99. isbn978-0-06-143020-6 The irony of Zoe Heller's title is delectable because so many of her characters want so desperately to have a true calling or passion and yet miss themark pretty widely, while those who exhibit theirpas sionate beliefs before the cheering or jeeringmasses have feetof clay. But perhaps that is the way the world works?Heller's world, at least. Among the beliefs the novel examines are Orthodox Judaism, socialism, unionism, and, perhaps most perversely, cynicism. The last creates the harshest and simultane ouslymost interestingand dislikable character. It isno small feat to create a character like Audrey Litvinoff...