Book Review: Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent by Mircea Eliade (Romania)

Translated by Christopher Monocrieff

I didn’t realise until after I had read it, but the “Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent” was written in the 1920s when Mircea Eliade was just 17, although it was not published in Romania until 1989, three years after the author’s death. The English translation folllowed much later, in 2016.

It’s a witty book that retains a contemporary feel, even though you might assume the always-connected adolescent experience of today, dominated by phones and social media, would scarcely be comparable with that of a century ago. But the protagonist here leaves his revision till the last minute, just like my teenager, dreams of being a literary genius and struggles to speak to girls, reminiscent of a modern-day Adrian Mole (himself something of an antique character nowadays I suppose). It’s not clear how much of this short book is diary and how much is fictionalised, but it seems safe to assume that it is at least this semi-autobiographical, and very entertaining it is too.

Estonian Artist Konrad Mägi

“I am a Son of the North, and Everything that I am is but a Fraction of its Population and Wilderness”

I visited Dulwich Picture Gallery in South-East London to catch a show collecting the work of respected Estonian modernist painter Konrad Mägi (1878-1925), who is little-known in the UK.

Mostly comprising landscapes, this exhibition of more than 60 pictures also contained quite a few portraits (far more lucrative during his lifetime).

Mägi grew up in rural Estonia, so wasn’t an obvious part of the European art scene, although he eventually travelled to study art in the Russian city of St Petersburg in his twenties. Subsequently he visited Norway, France, Italy, Belgium and Finland, though he remained proudly Estonian and a proponent of independence from Russia.

His landscapes are interesting in the context of his interest in ‘theosophy’, which the gallery defines as ‘a mystical belief system that seeks to understand the nature of divinity and spiritual enlightenment’, though I do have a weakness for his portraits. This one is so lovely, I bought a print for a friend’s birthday (hoping she likes it as much as I do!).

After visiting the exhibition though, I did notice that The Guardian newspaper gave it a miserable 1-star review, describing the work of Estonia’s artistic hero as both “bland” and “blobby” – which seemed a bit … reductive.

Book Review: The Crossing by Pajtim Statovci (Albania)

Translated from Finnish by David Hackston

Back to Albania for a depressing little book written by Pajtim Statovci, who lives in Finland, but was born in Kosovo. The novel was published in Finnish in 2016 as ‘Tiranan Sydan‘ (‘Heart of Tirana’), and first appeared in English translation in 2019. It’s a beautifully written odyssey though, which follows a young Albanian man, Bujar, from his childhood in a desolate early post-communist Albania “we lived in a place that time could not reach … Europe’s rubbish dump … Europe’s largest open prison” to Western Europe.

Bujar’s father dies when he is a child, and life become ever more grim from there, with his mother consumed by grief and the disappearance of his neglected teenage sister, until eventually Bujar flees Albania with his best friend Agim, who has been beaten by his father for wearing his mother’s red dress. The two seek a new life abroad, but experience a multitude of challenges and tribulations as they make that journey, and the rich Western countries in which they try to make a life for themselves are characterised by entitlement and a careless brutality. This is a moving and vivid novel, despite the sense of desperation that runs through it.

Recipe from the Ivory Coast

I recently cooked a vegerarian stew based on maafe, a meal popular in the West African state of the Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) and throughout the region. Maafe is a comforting, thick peanut or groundnut stew with a vegetable base, that nearly always contains sweet potato, but would often also include a meat such as chicken. Peanuts are a key crop in Ivory Coast, and the sauce is thickened up with generous amount of peanut butter.

I roasted sweet potato, then fried some garlic, pre-prepared West African paste and peanut butter in a pan, before adding coconut milk, vegetable stock and water, and bringing to the boil. Then I added chickpeas, spinach and lime juice, put in the sweet potato chunks and topped with some crushed peanuts. Really easy! I ate it with crusty bread, though it might have been even better with some basmati rice or couscous.

The warming stew that resulted from my efforts was tasty, and the flavours in the West African paste were something entirely different to those on my usual menu. On the negative side, I found the coconut milk made the stew a bit sweet and creamy for my taste, and I might have preferred a bit more heat. Next time I’d be tempted to lean more towards tomatoes for the sauce, and make a perhaps even more authentic sauce d’arachide, which retains the focus on peanuts as a staple ingredient, with West Africa seasoning, but simmered with tomatoes, onions and peppers.

Closely Watched Trains by Bohumil Hrabal (Czechia)

First published in 1965, Closely Watched Trains (which was also adapted into an Oscar-winning film) follows events in the life of apprentice Milos Hrma, who works at a small railway station in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during the Second World War, and has had time away from work after a severe depressive episode. Back at work, and working for an eccentric station-master, he is pretty preoccupied with his failure to consummate his relationship with Masha, his girlfriend. However, the real focus of the novella is the events of a single day, and a plan to sabotage a German train that is due to pass through the station. Balancing humour with humanity, and slapstick with tragedy, Hrabal succeeds in communicating the nuance of those on both sides who are caught up in war.

Book Review: Astonishing the Gods by Ben Okri (Nigeria)

This is a 1995 book by the writer of more well-known Booker-winning The Famished Road (which I haven’t read). It’s been praised as a philosophical fable of deep profundity. Unfortunately I found it turgid and hackneyed, albeit blessedly short. I’m willing to accept that I may have missed the point.

“He was eating of the grapes, breathing deeply of the rose-flavoured wind, when a woman came to him out of the moonlight. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but he felt her to be of extreme beauty, full in body, rich in sensuality, but obscure. He didn’t know what was obscure about her.”

Evidence that I have failed to recognize its qualities is suggested by the fact that a few years ago the novel was selected by the BBC of one the “100 novels that shaped the world” (in the category of “life, death and other worlds”). It is punishingly abstract though.

The narrator enters a mysterious and mythic world full of beings he can’t see, and is challenged to come to understanding of his experience, and of life itself. The BBC says the main character is “in discussion with wise and challenging beings” but the problem for me is that he isn’t and they aren’t. Apologies for the picture at the top of the post, it’s the closest I could get to a badly rendered immortal being, and it amused me, which I guess is the point of blogging.

Onto the next.

Book Review: The Successor by Ismail Kadare (Albania)

Translated by David Bellos

Following its publication in 2003, The Successor won the first International Booker prize. Set among government circles in the Albanian capital Tirana during the long communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, its events partly mirror the mystery surrounding the real life 1981 death of Albanian Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu. Officially said to have committed suicide, Shehu has always been widely suspected of having been murdered by the state.

Albania was one of the most closed and enigmatic societies in the world, with levels of secrecy and dissimulation not dissimilar to the situation in North Korea now.

In the course of the novel we see the intense paranoia of various characters (or is it paranoia when their fears are so justified?), as they anxiously evaluate whether they have endangered themselves through their associations with the dead premier, ‘The Successor’ of the book’s title. These include his daughter Suzana, whose rapidly terminated engagement to a man with reputed links with the previous regime may have imperilled her family; the architect who inadvertently built a more swishy home for the Successor than that inhabited by the uncompromising President (creepily known throughout only as ‘The Guide’); and the doctor carrying out the Successor’s long-delayed autopsy, who fears he is signing his own death warrant in doing so. Meanwhile, foreign intelligence services are so ignorant of the country that their half-hearted investigations get tangled in knots or stall before the get started.

This was my third book by Kadare, and unambiguous in its criticism of totalitarianism, but lightened (just) by elements of dark humour. Albania is a very different country now of course, but reading the book in 2026 it sounds something of a warning.

Film Review, Katanga: Dance of the Scorpions (Burkina Faso)

In late November last year I went to London’s BFI to watch a 2024 movie, Katanga: Dance of the Scorpions, shot in Burkina Faso, and directed by Dani Kouyaté.

The coup-beleaguered, West African state of Burkina Faso might seems an unlikely hub for the film industry, but for many years it has hosted the Panafrican Film and Television Festival in the capital Ouagadougou, where the movie won the festival’s main prize, the Yennenga Stallion.

Katanga: Dance of the Scorpions is a loose adaptation of Macbeth, with its timeless themes of political ambition, intrigue and the corrupting nature of power enhanced by the decision to film it in entirely black and white. The movie is largely faithful to the arc of Shakespeare’s play, but has a strong African identity, set in a fictional kingdom known as Ganzurgu, with the cast in traditional costume.

Burkina Faso also dropped French, the language of its former colonial power, as its official language in 2023, and the movie was filmed in one of the principal national languages, Mooré, with English subtitles.

The director himself had been expected to be present for a Q&A but unfortunately visa difficulties meant this couldn’t happen. Nevertheless I’m glad I was able to seize the opportunity to see the film in the UK, as showings in the West have been few and far between.

Book Review: The Trial by Franz Kafka (Czech Republic)

Translated by Idris Parry

“Somebody must have made a false accusation against Josef K., for he was arrested one morning without having done anything wrong.”

I’m catching up this month on books read late last year. I’d never read any Kafka before picking up The Trial (secondhand from a book sale at my daughter’s riding centre). But since its publication in 1925 (a year after Kafka’s death) its themes have become so familiar that I felt I knew it well – to describe something as “Kafkaesque” has become part of everyday vocabulary.

In fact, earlier in the year two city traders, who had received long jail sentences after being found guilty of rigging interest rates around the time of the big financial crash, had their convictions overturned at the Supreme Court. The BBC reported one of the men as describing his life since his prosecution as: “a ‘Kafka nightmare’ where he could barely understand the accusations made against him, with no sense of having done anything even vaguely wrong”.

The Trial fascinated me at first, as its protagonist Josef K tries to discover what he has been charged with, and why. His struggles with an opaque system of inefficient and meaningless bureaucracy even resonated with various soul-sapping experiences in my own life. But the unhinged narrative, constantly shifting sands and weird sexual undertones unsettled and ultimately frustrated me – no doubt the point, but it was perhaps over-made – and though it’s not a long novel as it moved towards the inevitable conclusion I couldn’t help wishing it had been a short story.

Book Review: Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga (Albania)

I read Misinterpretation, longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2025, in December. It is a tense novel that examines issues of identity, culture and connectedness. Set in the USA, in New York, at the heart of the story is a young Albanian interpreter, who is married to Billy, an academic, and is negotiating the complexities of her professional and personal life. As an interpreter, her role is to bridge gaps in communication, but this does not prevent her from feeling misunderstood both by her husband and in her working relationships. A trip back to Albania to visit her mother further adds to the tensions: her mother embodies traditional views, and their interactions are loaded with cultural and generational misunderstandings.

Tasked with interpreting for Alfred, a Kosovan who has survived torture, in therapy sessions, our protagonist risks over-identifying with his situation and becoming enmeshed in his life. Moreover, an ill-conceived attempt to intervene directly in the life of a Kurdish poet who is a victim of domestic abuse puts both the protagonist (unnamed, but I really want to call her Ana for some reason), Billy and the victim at risk.

Her unbridled altruism brings her into conflict with her husband, who is (sometimes violently) irritated by her failure to instil and maintain professional boundaries, and ultimately she risks destroying her marriage and her mental health.

I was attracted to the novel by its subject matter, which seemed reminiscent of Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies. However, although great on atmosphere, I found the book rather patchy, and not always coherent, and Billy’s temper was pretty repellent.