: Mitja ?ander
: Blind Man
: Istros Books
: 9781912545940
: 1
: CHF 3.00
:
: Erzählende Literatur
: English
: 260
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
The main character and narrator of Blind Man is a successful book editor and critic with severely impaired vison, although he has never had much to do with the visually impaired community and doesn't really feel like he is one of them. But when he is offered a chance to enter the world of politics, he is 'blinded' by the lure of power, and this easy-going, level-headed husband and soon-to-be father gradually turns into a self-absorbed careerist. Author Mitja ?ander, without pontificating and with a measured dose of humour, paints a critical, unsparing portrait of a small European country and through it a convincing satire on the psychological state of contemporary European society. What, or who, do we still believe in today, and who should we trust? Politicians, apparatchiks, the media? Speeches laden with buzzwords and grandiose promises break down the flimsy façade, as the protagonist's own insecurity suggests that things are not always what they seem. In the end, social blindness is worse than any physical impairment, and worst of all is to be blinded by your own ego.

For decades, Mitja ?anderhas been one of the most influential figures in Slovenia's literary and publishing world -an editor and literary critic, the co-founder and director of Beletrina Academic Press, essayist, screenwriter, dramaturge, columnist, and candidate for national chess master, Since 1992, he has published articles and essays on Slovenian and world literature and received numerous awards for his work. Blind Man is his first novel.

In Lieu of Footnotes

Mitja Čander’sBlind Man, originally published in 2019, is set in Slovenia’s recent (pre-pandemic) past, and Slovenia itself – its past and, quite explicitly, its future – is one of the novel’s themes. Or we could say, perhaps more accurately, that Slovenia provides the specific backdrop and material for an exploration of more general themes, plotted along the axes of the personal, cultural and political, as the visually impaired narrator, outwardly confident yet inwardly unsure of himself, feels his way through life. At the start of the novel, he is a successful book editor (as Čander himself is), but soon, despite his own misgivings, he finds himself drafted into politics. As he tells us his story, he often reflects on his past – his school days, his time as a semi-professional chess player, his university years and so on – which spans Slovenia’s transition from a constituent republic in socialist Yugoslavia to independence in 1991 and full membership in the European Union in 2004.

Consequently, the reader encounters a number of incidental references to historical and cultural phenomena that, while very familiar to Slovenes, may be a little puzzling to readers of this translation. Of course, the discovery of the unfamiliar is one of the challenges and delights of reading translated works. Rather than employ footnotes, which could be distracting, I have chosen to provide this preliminary explanatory note so readers may feel somewhat better informed as they step into the narrator’s world. Alternatively, they may prefer to skip this note altogether and take the more obscure references in stride. These fall into three basic categories: Slovene political history, Slovene culture (broadly understood) and literary references.

The first group appears as the narrator’s recounts his life in socialist Yugoslavia. He recalls, for example, how as a schoolboy he was interviewed by the president of the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired, who asked him if he was active in thePioneer Youth Group. Founded in 1942 and modelled on a similar organization in the Soviet Union, the Union of Pioneers of Yugoslavia sought to instil socialist civic values in schoolchildren (ages seven to fifteen), particularly values associated with the Communist-led Partisan movement during the Second World War and, first and foremost, love and admiration for Marshal Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), the leader of Yugoslavia. The boy proudly responds that he and his fellow Pioneers are putting together a project to commemorate theNational Liberation Struggle – the term used in Yugoslavia for the Partisans’ antifascist campaign to overthrow the occupying forces and their domestic collaborators.

Much later in the novel, the narrator relates his first ‘political’ involvement: in his eighth year of school he served as the president of the school’s ‘cell’ of theLeague of Socialist Youth, the youth wing of the Yugoslav Communist Party. This would have been in the late 1980s, when the Slovene branch of the League took positions that radically departed from those of the national organization, including support for civil society movements and alternative culture (notably, women’s rights, LGBT rights, the peace movement and punk culture), freedom of the press, the right of workers to strike and greater democratization. The magazine published by the Slovene League of Socialist Youth,Mladina (Youth), stepped up its criticism of both local and fed