Vladimir Bartol Nothing is true, everything is permitted. SANJE PUBLISHING Dream Publishing SÁNJE - DREAM is a succession of images, sounds or emotions that the mind experiences during sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history. A selection of (Wikipedia) awards received by Sanje: ✮ Best Young Translator of 2012: Ana Barič Moder for the translation of Les fleurs bleues ✮ International award for Outstanding Merits in Investigative Journalism 2012 presented by CEI and SEEMO: Matej Šurc & Blaž Zgaga for the trilogy In the Name of the State ✮ Best Young Translator of 2011: Stana Anželj for the translation of Die Založba Sanje - Sanje Publishing Stadt der Träumenden T +386.1.5141628 Bücher by Walter Moers F +386.1.5141629 ✮ Alešovčeva ulica 37 Most Beautiful 1000 Ljubljana Original Slovenian Slovenia Children’s Book of 2010 www.sanje.si (Fran Milčinski – Ježek, www.sanjepublishing.com Tina Volarič: Zgodba o zamorčku Bambuleju in Festival Sanje vrtoglavi žirafi) festival of creativity and imagination ✮ Slovenian Publisher [email protected] of the Year 2010 festival.sanje.si 3 ✮ Sanje Special Prize for Best Illustrated Book of 2009 is a distinguished Slovenian publisher, publishing quality (Fran Milčinski - Ana fiction and nonfiction for both adults and children. It enjoys Razpotnik Donati: the reputation of being one of the best publishers in the field Laž in njen ženin) of literature in Slovenia, among readers as well as critics. A ✮ Best Young Translator of publisher with a clear vision and ability to act, Sanje is one of 2008: Katja Zakrajšek for the key promotors of reading in Slovenia. It clearly has a role the translation of The Book of not only publishing but also educating the reading audience of Salt by Monique Truong, towards added value. ✮ Sovre Award – the highest national prize Our rights list translation awarded to Nives Vidrih (the following includes many finest Slovene authors, including bestselling translation was mentioned Vladimir Bartol, Frane Milčinski Ježek and Alma Karlin. in the explanation of the For full list visit our international website jury: Sestra by Jachym www.sanjepublishing.com. Topol, Sanje, 2008) ✮ Praise for best bookcover Our list of translations includes at Brumen, Biennale of Visual Messages, 2007 works by Orhan Pamuk, Elif Shafak, Kurt Vonnegut, Haruki (Sestra, design by Matej Murakami, gerard Donovan, Colum McCann, Chimamanda Koren) Ngozi Adichie, Neil Gaiman and many other acclaimed authors. ✮ Best Debut Novel of For more visit our home site at www.sanje.si. 2006 (Ime tvoje zvezde je Bilhadi by Magda Reja) ✮ Best Design of 2006 (Marjana by Katarina Lavš) ✮ Best Design of 2005 (Faust by J.W.Goethe, the first complete translation in Slovenian) ✮ Best Design of the Year 2004 (Idiot by F. M. Dostoevsky) ✮ Best Design of 2001 (a series of audiobooks based on poetry by France Prešeren) 4 Vladimir Bartol (1903–1967) writer, playwright, essayist, and critic. Born in Trieste, Vladimir Bartol was one of Slovenia’s leading intellects and an author of plays, short stories and theater reviews. During the 1920s, he studied at the universities of Paris and Ljubljana, concentrating on philosophy, world religions, psychology (he was among the first to introduce Freud’s teachings in the former Yugoslavia) and biology. During World War II, he participated in the resistance movement against the Nazi occupation of former Yugoslavia. Alamut, the second of his two novels, represents the culminating point of his ideas and experiences of totalitarianism during the years before and after World War II. Vladimir Bartol did not live to experience the tremendous success of his novel Alamut, even though he had suspected and predicted it. Over the years, Alamut has been published more than 70 times. The success dreamt of by the author is thus becoming a reality. It is striking that in his diary, Bartol predicted his first international success with astonishing precision: “I will be understood by the public in 50 years” … 1938 – and the first success of Alamut in France in 1988. “I had a feeling I was writing for a public who was going to live 50 years later…” “I finished Alamut at 5.45 a.m. Pleased. These final days I kept trembling for someone not to steal it from me, for a fire not to start, or for something else not to happen. Towards the end I fancied that someone could even have killed me or I could have met with an accident, Alamut was chiefly completed. Yet it was not until I put down the last letter that I felt really at ease. Let someone kill me - in Alamut, I am going to be immortal.” – Vladimir Bartol, Diary, Sunday, 24 July 1938 5 Bartol died on 12 September 1967 in Ljubljana, 64 years old, with most of his work out of print and was at the time virtually unknown among his countrymen. Besides Alamut his major works are Lopez (1932, drama), Al Araf (1934, collection of short stories), Tržaške humoreske (1952), Mladost pri Svetem Ivanu (1955–56, autobiography). Most of his works are currently being rediscovered and republished by Sanje. About the translator of Bartol’s work into English: Michael Biggins has translated works by a number of Slovenia’s leading contemporary writers. He currently curates the library “Is it true that collections for Russian and East European studies and teaches in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, both Christians and at the University of Washington in Seattle. Jews eat little children?” Edition of Alamut from 1958 6 Alamut original title: Alamut novel 440 pages first published in 1938, present edition published in 2001 no 1 bestseller — over 55,000 copies sold in Slovenia alone translated into over 30 languages, including English, French, German, Italian Spanish, Portuguese, Croatian, Serbian, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Turkish, Greek, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian. rights sold: Libella (France), Koridor (Turkey), Castelvecchi (Italy), Matica makedonska (Macedonia), Kitos knygos (Lithuania) The best selling Slovenian novel ever, Alamut is a book about political and historical considerations of fanaticism as well English translation as a gripping adventure story based on the life and legend available (by Michael Biggins) of the original “assassin” and world’s first political terrorist, 11th century Ismaili leader Hasan ibn Sabbah. An oriental tapestry, rich with detail of the lives and rites of a lost world, Alamut is ultimately a reflection on all forms of despotism. In magnificent prose reminiscent of Flaubert’s Salammbô, ... unveils the Vladimir Bartol – an author and philosopher interested in secret inner the history of religions, especially Islam – unveils the secret workings of inner workings of fundamentalism and terrorism as well as developing existentialist themes of freedom, power and the fundamentalism absurd. Literary historians regard Alamut as an encyclopaedia and terrorism of philosophy, politics, psychoanalysis, and scientific ideas, taking the form of an exotically decorated novel, posing questions on the boundary between truth and fiction. But in a world marked by 9/11, Alamut, exploring how forms of violence in history prefigure those of our own time, has also gained a more immediate significance. 7 Praise for Alamut If Osama bin Laden did not exist, Vladimir Bartol would have invented him. L’Express Like Borges, [Bartol] raises questions but offers few answers … and will leave you with an inexhaustible restlessness and uncertainty. Ricardo Arturo Ríos Torres, La Prensa You cannot read Alamut like an ordinary book. It is an adventure story from 1938 which transforms itself… into a nightmare novel of the new century. Olivier Maison, Journal de la Culture An adventure story which Alamut is… a finely wrought, undiscovered minor masterpiece that offers… a wealth of meticulously planned and executed detail transforms itself and broad potential for symbolic, intertextual and philosophical into a nightmare interpretation. novel of the new Michael Biggins, Afterword to the English translation century. Alamut portrays even the most Machiavellian individuals as human – ruthless or murderous, but also subject to human virtues, vices, and tragedies… a thoroughly compelling novel cover to cover. Midwest Book Review A novel first published in 1938, but now, with its 34th publication, it seems as if written anew… A novel about the profound rationality of irrational religious sects. Bernard Nežmah, Mladina And now, this novel, this pop classic – rooted in the journal of Marco Polo, translated into a great many languages, valued everywhere, from Spain to Germany, from France to Italy, from Bosnia to the Czech Republic, and from Turkey to Iran, but long outcast in Slovenia – is here again, printed once more, yet it is fresher, more topical, and more visionary than ever before. Marcel Štefančič Jr., Premiera 8 Al Araf original title: Al Araf short stories 344 pages first published in 1934, present edition published in 2013 translated into English by Michael Biggins, to be published in 2014 rights available: world After the epic breadth of Alamut, these short stories reveal sample translation a different Bartol, an ingenious storyteller. From story to available in English story, the characters and plots add up to create a portrait of (by Michael Biggins) the modern man. The stories, owing much to Bartol’s own experience and to his thorough knowledge of psychology, biology, history and especially philosophy, also abound in fantasy and romance. They keep slipping across genre boundaries, from erotic-romantic prose through adventure or When we stepped crime story to science fiction, always to return to the urgent outside, we barely themes of the collection Al Araf as a whole: problems of knowledge, power, freedom. Al Araf is both a picture of the caught a last apocalyptic schizophrenia of contemporary man and a map of glimpse of the his future. blond demon as he limped around the corner and out of sight. 9 Mangialupi and others original title: Mangialupi in drugi short stories 176 pages first published in 2003 rights available: world The stories are set in Bartol’s native town Trieste, north- Adriatic port where two nations live side by side, in the time of Anglo-American administration of the region after the Slovenian Second World War. The turbulent post-war atmosphere, full of political uncertainty, was a breeding-ground for conflict humorous prose between the two ethnic groups, Slovenian and Italian, writing at its best incarnated in the stories here in the earnest Slovenian journalist Pertot and his antithesis, the gung-ho Italian businessman Mangialupi. As eminent critics have pointed out, Bartol’s management of character and plot in Mangialupi represents Slovenian humorous prose writing at its best. In the stories quasi- art, quasi-politics and quasi-love suggest the true mechanisms of human life; Bartol’s humour echoes Fellini’s satire, revealing human weaknesses, but with sympathy and understanding. 10 Alamut Nothing is true, everything is permitted. —The Supreme Ismaili Motto OMNIA IN NUMERO ET MENSURA (an excerpt from Chapter 3. Page 83-88) Since that night Miriam became more trusting toward Halima. In their free time she would teach her writing and have her practice her reading. They both enjoyed this process. Halima would muster all her ability to avoid embarrassing herself in front of her teacher, and as a result she made quick progress. Miriam was generous with praise. As an incentive she would tell her stories from her childhood, about life in her father’s house in Aleppo, about the battles between the Christians and the Jews, about the wide seas and the ships that came from far-off lands. Through all this they grew quite close, becoming like older and younger sisters. One evening when Miriam entered the bedroom and undressed, she said to Halima, “Stop pretending you’re asleep. Come over here.” “What? Over there? Me?” Halima asked, startled. “Or maybe you don’t want to? Come on. I have something to tell you.” Trembling all over, Halima crawled in beside her. She lay on the very edge of the bed for fear of giving away her excitement, and out of some incomprehensible reluctance to touch her. But Miriam pulled her close anyway, and only at this point did Halima feel free to press close. “I’m going to tell you about the sorrows of my life,” Miriam began. “You already know that my father was a merchant in Aleppo. He was very rich and his ships sailed far to the west, laden with precious wares. As a child I had everything my heart desired. They dressed me in exquisite silks, adorned me with gold and gems, and three slaves were at my command. I got used to giving commands and it only seemed natural that everybody should submit to me.” “How happy you must have been!” Halima sighed. “Would you believe that I wasn’t particularly?” Miriam replied. “At least it strikes me