Context
Letter from Macedonia
by Goce Smilevski
One of the negative consequences of the
so-called “period of transition” in Macedonia which started, as in most
Eastern European countries, at the beginning of the 1990s, and which is
still going on in the Balkans, was the closing of a large number of
bookstores. The privatization of the publishing industry during the
transition period as well as the desire of the new owners to get rid of
large unprofitable spaces—a result of the significant drop in book
demand which in turn was the result of the dramatically decreased
purchasing power of the population— were the reasons why a large number
of bookstores had to close down. Today, a decade and a half later,
things are moving in a different direction: new bookshops are being
opened and most of them function as cafés/bookshops. A few of them,
like the bookshop at the “Tochka” (Dot) Cultural Center, are only one
part of a much wider concept of exhibition spaces which host debates
and symposiums dedicated to the work of artists from Macedonia and
around the world. Dubravka Ugresic and Guyatri Chakravorty Spivak, the
world-famous writer and theoretician, have been among the participants
at these symposiums. These are sure signs that the previously frozen
Macedonian cultural life is experiencing a thaw of revival. The
above-mentioned bookstore initiatives have coincided with the
initiatives of several funding agencies interested in investing in arts
and culture. Included among their beneficiaries have been the weekly
teenage magazine Tea, the first to start the “cultural
development” campaign when it included a free CD with each purchased
copy of the magazine. This initiative was carried out in three cycles:
the first was dedicated to classical music, the second to jazz, and the
third to Macedonian folk music. Soon to follow was the “Best of World
Literature” series of books that you could buy at a very reasonable
price with a copy of Dnevnik and Utrinski vesnik,
Macedonian dailies. A different title would accompany the daily every
Thursday. Similar editions came out in Croatia, where the books were
sold with copies of Jutarnji list, and also in Serbia, where they came with copies of the daily Politika (similar editions of these books were sold with the daily Vecernje novosti as well). “The Best of World Literature” series was comprised of a
couple dozen books written by world-famous authors and of five books
written by Macedonian authors. In Croatia and Serbia, the same series
also included books written by local authors. As with most
other countries that went through a transition period during the 1990s,
Macedonia saw a change of theme selection in its novels. If, in the
past, the Macedonian historical novel typically had World War II and
the period of Ottoman rule as its background, the present era is
witnessing a change of chronotopes: nowadays, the action of historical
novels is taking place during the Middle Ages, or Byzantine rule, or
elsewhere in Europe during different historical periods. In addition,
the past obsession with rural themes has given way to urban topics. These
changes are visible in the literary works that have recently received
some of the most important prizes for prose writing in Macedonia. The
recent recipients of “Racin’s Recognition” (part of “Racin’s Meetings,”
a conference dedicated to the promotion of Balkan authors and
literature) for the best novel published in Macedonia in the Macedonian
language were the following novels: Zaharij i drugi raskazi (Zacharij and Other Stories) by Mihail Rendzov, Kamenot od Tvojot den (The Stone of Your Day) by Jagoda Mihajlovska-Georgieva, Drugata (The Other Woman) by Liljana Eftimova, and Ubavicata i maroderot (The Beauty and the Marauder) by Bozin Pavlovski. The “Stale Popov”
award, given by the Macedonian Writers’ Association for the best prose
novel published by a member of the Association, has honored the
following works in recent years: Opishuvach (Describer) by Ermis Lafazanovski, Smrtta na dijakot (The Death of the Diac) by Dragi Mihajlovski, Spleteni raskazi (Plaited Stories) by Olivera Korverziroska, Skriena kamera (Hidden Camera) by Lidija Dimkovska (whose poetry collection Don’t Awaken Them with Hammers was published by Ugly Duckling Press in the U.S. this year) and Ervehe
(Ervehe) by Luan Starova. Seven years ago, the Macedonian daily
newspaper Utrinski vestnik, at the initiative of its Arts and
Culture editor, Zvezdan Georgievski, created the award for the
Macedonian Novel of the Year. A fair amount of publicity always
surrounds this event, and it is not uncommon for the awarded novel to
achieve three or more editions. The recipients of this award so far
have been: Slobodan Mickovic for his Kukata na mazarena (Mazarena’s House), Venko Andonovski for Papokot na svetot (The Navel of the World), Dimitar Bashevski for Bunar (A Well), Goce Smilevski for Razgovori so Spinoza (Conversations with Spinoza), Milovan Stefanovski for Izgubeniot Zhegol (Lost Zhegol), Olivera Nikolova for Kuklite na Rosica (Rositsa’s Dolls), and Pajo Avirovic for Dzahiz i istrebuvachite na kuchinja (Dzahiz and the Dog Euthanizers). Many
of these novels explore in close detail what it means to live during a
turbulent period in a particular place. The past is reflected through
the prism of the present, and it frequently happens that the period of
transition becomes a point where the hopes of the revolution,
disappointments of the post-revolutionary period, and living and
surviving during the Socialist era combine and intersect. One
of the main problems of Macedonian publishers in a country of two
million people is how to come up with the money to cover printing
costs, the author’s royalties, and also bring profit to the publisher
so that they can continue to exist. The yearly subsidies of the
Publishing Sector of the Macedonian Ministry of Culture support thirty
percent of all titles applied for each year. The rest of the
publications are published with the publishers’ own funds, through
various grants and sponsorships, or with the help of organizations such
as Soros Open Society, Pro Helvetia, and the Next Page Foundation. The
result of this is that three groups of publishers have differentiated
themselves in Macedonia: the first group depends largely on Ministry of
Culture subventions, and its catalogues typically include a significant
number of books written by Macedonian writers. The second group relies
on foreign donations and grants with which they develop their Science
and Literature in Translation Series, and the third, for the most part,
is a self-supporting group which has to sell high print runs in order
to stay in business. In an attempt to “play it safe” and have their own
solid financial base, the publishers are turning more and more to
publishing bestsellers—and not only those from the American Top 150,
but also books that have sold many copies in neighboring countries. So,
at kiosk stands, you can buy daily newspapers, cigarettes, condoms, and
the translations of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, and the novel Eragon written by American teenage author Christopher Paolini. But another
trend is visible too: a publisher might announce a book as an American
bestseller, while the book was never on any bestseller list, a
marketing trick that still manages to significantly increase the sales
of the book. In this context, the following question imposes
itself: how much of Macedonian literature is translated into other
languages? To be translated into a foreign language means to exist on
the world literature map. One of the biggest problems of Macedonian
literature has always been that it is almost invisible on this map,
with only a few books translated per decade. One of the reasons for
this is that the government has never really built a strategy for
support and training of quality translators from the Macedonian
language and the result is that there is not even one translator who
translates from Macedonian into any other major language. Another
reason is that, unlike many other countries that have their own funds,
organizations and strategies for promoting their own literature and
creating interest in translating domestic writers into foreign
languages, Macedonia has never had any fund that would support the
translation of Macedonian books into foreign languages or that would
build a strategy for presenting Macedonian literature to foreign
publishers. Given the current state of the economy, we cannot, of
course, afford to establish a fund similar to those that exist in
Slovenia and Denmark (Denmark has recently allocated a budget of more
than $1.5 million for artistic—including literary—collaborative
exchanges between artists in Denmark and New York City), but even with
a more modest budget, certain improvements could be made and several
important books could be translated into two or three major languages,
then later offered to foreign publishers specializing in foreign
literature. The current situation will probably see some
improvement with a new initiative started by the recently formed Forum
for Slavic Cultures. Pen Centers from eleven Slavic countries selected
110 novels from these countries written from 1989 to the present (ten
novels from each country), in October 2006. Each country will publish
one novel from each of the other ten countries and, in that way, each
of the selected 110 novels will come out in one Slavic language. If all
goes according to plan, the whole action should be carried out through
2007 and all of these novels will later be translated into English and
offered to publishers in the United States and Great Britain. This will
be a significant step in opening up the possibilities for more
intensive circulation of literary works that are important and valuable
in different languages and cultures. It will also be a chance for
Macedonian literature to make its way onto the world literature map. Translated by Ana Lucic
