Reading Europe goes Global (in The Guardian)

Sign in Prague yesterday saying "Take Away our President" positioned in the eye line of the visiting Chinese president

Find below, a shameless cut and paste job from yesterday's piece in The Guardian by Alison Flood. The tour mentioned at the end is likely to begin at the end of May and go on till the Brexit Polling Day, 23 June.

Read on...

Earlier this month, Axel Scheffler warned us that the Gruffalo couldn’t have existed without the EU. Last week, we heard from authors including Kerry Hudson and Geoff Dyer about what leaving Europe might mean for the arts. “You’ll have this enormous drain on creative talent,” said Hudson.

Now, independent publisher Dedalus Books is making its own small case for remaining in the EU, with its “Reading Europe” promotion, a selection of novels from EU countries intended to “let the reader know the literature, history and culture of each country better”. They are all from UK independent publishers, and all translated into English.

There are names I know – Stefan Zweig from Austria, with Beware of Pity. Eça de Queirós from Portugal, with The Crime of Father Amaro. Diego Marani from Finland, with New Finnish Grammar. But there are also lots of names I don’t: Farewell, Cowboy by Olja Savičević, translated from Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth, about a character going back to her hometown on the Adriatic coast to unravel the mystery of her brother’s death. Apothecary Melchior and the Mystery of St Olaf’s Church by Indrek Hargla, translated from the Estonian by Adam Cullen and set in 15th-century Tallinn, “the last foothold before the east”.

Dedalus publisher Eric Lane has worked to put the list together, asking publishers to suggest suitable titles with the main criterion that “they tell you something new or informative about a country”.
“It was nice to discover books I’d never heard of,” says Lane. “I wanted the list to make a cultural case for Europe, without getting involved in what’s happening at the moment. It’s an opportunity to learn something about our neighbours, before we lose them.”

There are 49 titles in total, from a fantastic list of publishers: And Other Stories, Arcadia, Atlas, Bitter Lemon, Comma, Dedalus, Faber & Faber, Garnett Press, Istros, Jantar, Marion Boyars, Norvik Press, Parthian, Peter Owen, Portobello and Pushkin.

And the list itself is like a chocolate box of treasures waiting to be discovered. I’m particularly keen to check out Hungarian Miklós Bánffy’s Transylvanian Trilogy; Lane says Bánffy “is an author who should have the stature of Tolstoy”.

Eagle-eyed Europhiles might spot that Cyprus, Malta and Ireland are missing from the list. The omission, says Lane, is “Because they are in the Commonwealth so we will remain linked to them whether or not we are in the EU, and Ireland is excluded because it’s geographically in the British Isles and our links to them will remain whatever happens.”

He is planning a virtual literary festival to celebrate the writers, and is in talks with bookshops about running promotions over the months in the run up to the referendum. I hope it pans out, and in the meantime, perhaps we can help him out with something. Despite their best efforts, the publishers have not managed to find any book from Luxembourg translated into English – they’ve compensated by giving Belgium two extra titles. I was born in Luxembourg, but shamefully, I don’t think I’ve read anything by a Luxembourg writer. Any suggestions?

The full Reading Europe from The Guardian with extra links