Hideaki Kimura
Studied Slovakian literature at Comenius University in Bratislava. Besides his activities as a translator of Slovakian literature, he teaches Slovakian and Russian language at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and cultural theory of Central Europe at Waseda University.
Following the transition of power in 1989, the so-called “post-socialist era” of the 1990s brought to public attention the work of writers who had been “unofficial” under the old regime. And yet, the literary scene continued to be dominated by those writers whose work had been officially published throughout the 70s and 80s. Against this backdrop, the Rivers of Babylon trilogy (1991-1999) by rock musician Peter Pišťanek (1960-2015) was welcomed as a sensational work that overturned the conventional themes and style of Slovakian literature. The protagonist was of a kind previously unseen, a vulgar inhabitant of society’s underbelly whose enterprising adventures placed violence and sex centre stage, and the writing style mixed slang and foreign tongues with parodies of the Slovakian literature that went before. In the sense that it broadened the creative horizons of contemporary Slovakian literature and had a profound impact on a new generation of 21st century writers, one could argue that this work is as relevant as ever.
Moving forward, the changes in Slovakian society that accompanied its membership of the EU in 2004, the proliferation of the internet, and globalization, also brought about significant change in the worldview and artistic outlook of the young writers who followed Pišťanek. Whereas, since the 19th century, Slovakian literature had been set against a backdrop of the mountainous region believed to be the birthplace of the Slovakian nation and its folklore, we begin to see reflected in the gaze of these new-century writers not only Slovakia in the context of broader European history, but the whole world, unfettered by national borders.
Pavol Rankov (1964-) won the European Union Prize for Literature with It Happened on the First of September (or Some Other Time) (2008). This is the simply-told story of three high school friends, one Czech, one Hungarian, and one Jewish, who are in love with the same Slovak girl, living ordinary lives against the historical backdrop of the dismantling of Czechoslovakia under the Munich Agreement of 1938, the Second World War and the establishment of the Communist administration in 1948, and the Prague Spring and Warsaw Pact invasion of 1968. Slovak life and history are seen from a Central European, or perhaps just European, angle. Rankov’s next books, Mothers (2014) and The Legend of the Tongue (2018) also feature elaborate structures that go back and forth between such historical events as the Soviet concentration camps and 1970s normalization, and the lives of ordinary people living in each era.
In Wilsonov (2015), alternate history writer Michal Hvorecký (1976-) envisions a fictional past for the Central-European city that is now the capital, Bratislava (Although Wilsonov is a fictional town on the banks of the Danube, after Czechoslovakia gained independence in 1918 there were calls in some quarters to rename Bratislava “Wilson City” after the US President). This story surrounding a series of depraved murders depicts a state of chaos among the multi-ethnic inhabitants, through which emerges the dim glow of the Central European past of the current capital. Incidentally, the title work of the author’s recent short story collection Black Lion (2020) focusses not on the Soviets or Warsaw Pact, but on Czechoslovakia under the umbrella of the US and NATO.
A writer who goes beyond the bounds of Central Europe, incorporating black humour as he contrasts global trends with the everyday sensibilities of ordinary people, is Márius Kopcsay (1968-). In Liberation (2015) he deals with Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Syrian war, whilst in The Wall (2018), the totalitarianism of the socialist era comes back to life in a fantasy that nonetheless ties in to aspects of the world today.
It is also worth mentioning those writers who explore the unavoidably changing shape of love and family in the face of the dissemination and diversification of values in our global 21st century society. Jana Beňová’s (1974-) European Prize for Literature-winning Café Hyena (2008), depicts contemporary love nurtured in enormous, unfeeling, housing estates and a giant supermarket symbolizing encroaching market fundamentalism. Monika Kompaníková’s (1979-) Boat Number Five (2011) is a vivid depiction of a neglected twelve-year-old girl and an eight-year-old boy forming a pseudo-family as they care for abandoned six-month-old twin babies. Between writers like Nicol Hochholczerová (1999-), who, in This Room Is Impossible to Eat (2021), writes in her unique style of an immoral relationship between a twelve-year-old girl and a teacher, and Dominika Moravčíková (1992-), whose A House for a Deer (2022) is a poetic expression of conflict and consensus between humanity and nature, I have high hopes for the future of young Slovak writers.
English Translation: Bethan Jones
