JOHN K. COX, 2012
1. “Night and Fog,” trans. John K. Cox, Absinthe: New European Writing 12 (2009): 94–133.
2. “Seeking a Place under the Sun for Doubt,” in Homo Poeticus: Essays and Interviews, ed. Susan Sontag (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1995), 186.
3. “Life, Literature,” in Sontag, Homo Poeticus, 249.
4. “Seeking a Place under the Sun for Doubt,” in Sontag, Homo Poeticus, 186.
5. “Life, Literature,” in Sontag, Homo Poeticus, 249.
TRANSLATOR’S NOTES
Ja, ja, ich verstehe: “Yes, yes, I understand. . But I don’t think she’s it. Too small. Her pelvis is like a child’s. But insofar as my esteemed colleague considers her sufficiently attractive. .”
Du, Abschaum!: “You, scum!”
mutan gemišt, mongrel: Kiš uses a highly unusual pejorative, which might be translated as “muddy mixture.”
Let us pray: Russian in the originaclass="underline" “Pomolimsja!”
Lama, lama: “Why, why” in Hebrew and Aramaic. Probably a reference to the phrase uttered by Jesus on the cross, as recorded in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
some five hundred kilometers from Berlin: the Serbian text actually locates Marija and Žana a rather unlikely five hundred kilometers “northwest of Berlin.”
on top of a hayrick: Kiš has “on top / at the summit of [the] Hainkorn,” leaving his translator and editors to puzzle over whether this is meant to be a (misspelled or fictional) German mountain or else a pile of wheat hay (German Einkorn = “single-grain,” wild wheat).
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
DANILO KIŠ was one of Serbia’s most influential writers and the author of several novels and short-story collections, including A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, Hourglass, and Garden, Ashes. He died in 1989 at the age of 54.
JOHN K. COX is professor of history and department head at North Dakota State University. His translations include books The Attic and The Lute and the Scars by Danilo Kiš, as well as short fiction by Kiš, Ismail Kadare, Ivan Ivanji, Ivo Andrić, and Meša Selimović.