TIRANA, Book Fair, 9th Ed. – The prominent Dutch writer, Margriet de Moor was present at the launching of her second book in Albanian, as part of the activities of the 9th edition of the Book Fair. The event was organized this week in Tirana’s Cultural Center “Arbnori”. De Moor’s book “The Kreutzer Sonata” was translated into Albanian by Edit Dibra and published by one of the biggest publishing houses, “Dituria”.
Well-known figures of Albanian intellectual elite were present at the launching event. Petrit Ymeri, head of “Dituria”, opened the event by commenting on the successful collaboration of the house with the writer, which has brought her work to the Albanian reader. The translator of De Moor’s first book, “First grey, then white and then blue”, Virgjil Kule spoke about the pleasures and the challenges of this enterprise. Albanian scholar, Moikom Zeqo, contextualized the work of De Moor in the larger Western European tradition of art. The Netherlands’ ambassador in Albania, Sweder van Voorst tot Voorst, greeted the meeting as one of the successful collaboration efforts to exchange cultural traditions and novelties between the two countries.
Commenting about the specific book, Translation professor Mirela Kumbaro characterized it “an intelligent love story.” The writer herself expressed the deep gratitude to her translators for the care and the delicacy wit which they had worked upon her books. De Moor said that a book is like a musical act in a strange language and the translator is like the orchestra director which brings it to the diverse audience. Shifting between arts, organizing a stafeta (relay race) with both literature and music is according to de Moor a metaphor not only for her book but also for her professional life, which is split between her two passions.
TT- Is this your first time in Albania?
MM – Yes, the first. But not my first book. For 8 years another book of mine was published here so I consider that as being in Albania before because of my book.
TT – What are your impressions so far?
MM – Everywhere they are working, on houses, on roads, they are building, doing things and that’s a very good sign. To me it all seems one burst out of energy.
TT – How would Margriet de Moor introduce herself?
MM – No, I couldn’t do that. I am only there for the audience by means of my books. As my books are very different, all the time with my books I take on a very different theme I must be a personality with very many images, that is if you want to connect me with all my books. I like to write. I don’t write autobiographically. I am not a type of writer who is writing out of her own autobiography but I like to take themes that are strange for me and in my books they become close to me. My book “The Kreutzer sonata” is a book about a very classical European theme. It is in a way a thriller. A musical motif is able to destroy a love affair, not completely; in the end the love affair seems to have won the game. But there is a musical theme in the musical piece The Kreutzer Sonata, not the well-known piece of Beethoven, but of a string quartet of the Czech composer Jan⩥k, is doing the bed job. Although I am a musician and I love music in this book music is able to infiltrate in a rather naughty way in human relations. So that is special about this book. Another book of mine that was also published here in Albania, “First grey, then white, then blue”, is about a woman who is leaving her home, her husband, her village and dwelling around the world for two years. She comes back and then refuses tot ell where she was and that becomes and enormous negative and very powerful, unbearable thing for everyone around her and in the end she is killed. So that is a book about a silent voice and the consequence of being silent, of refusing to tell, to talk. It’s a thing that is very human; if you refuse to do that you turn yourself into a stranger and a very dangerous one. In the end she becomes a total stranger because she is dead and can’t talk.
TT – Since you are also a musician, when would you say the writer in you was born?
MM – It happened all very suddenly. Maybe the writer was always in me but I simply did not get the idea of starting writing my books. And only one day I just wanted to write a story, a short story. I was already in my forties and I was always a very passionate reader. And I was very content of being just a reader therefore I didn’t come to the idea to be a writer myself. But one day, and I still don’t know why, I just started to write this short story and from that moment I never stopped again. It was 18 years ago and since that moment I don’t take holidays, I don’t take weekends, I am always working. Except when I am traveling around like I am now.
TT – Do you travel around a lot?
MM – For my books only. As I said I never take holidays. Why should I? Because of my books I can go to very interesting places, like now in Albania. I am only for three days here but yesterday my publisher took me to the castle of Skanderbeg (in Kruja) and we had lunch there and it was really idyllic and really so beautiful. It was late lunch and already the sun was going down. We were so high up in the country and that is very special for me. I come from a country which is completely flat. So we were in the midst of the mountains and it was really great. And that was only for a few hours for these few days so why should I go on holidays?
TT – Are you familiar with the literature of writers form the Balkans and especially from Albania?
MM – I know very well your great writer Kadare. I consider him as one of the greatest writer s we have nowadays in the world. I love his work. I used to read him long before I had an Albanian publisher myself. And in fact the work that comes from the Balkans and of all East European writers appeal much more to me than the Anglo American lit. I like the East European and Balkan writers because of their great themes. The history of the Balkans is an enormous, complicated and dramatic history but rather close to us. Western Europe is not that far so it belongs a bit also to my own territory but it is all so different and much more dramatic. That’s one and the other thing is that they not only have these wonderful themes, this passion in their stories but they have also an artistic way of making their books. The story is not only about how and when things happened. For that you can as well read the paper. They make real pieces of art out of it. They are very interested in the form and for me as a musician I think abstract. For a musician everything is form and movement and composition. So I look for that always in my own work. I try to make my books like that. I recognize immediately a book which has the same atmosphere. And that is what I love about the East European and Balkan writers. They are true artists.
TT – Do you think there is something special about being a woman writer and if you were to stand now in front of an aspiring woman writer what would be your first advice?
MM – Thinking not of yourself as a woman writer. No it doesn’t say very much to me being a woman writer. Because when you look at what is inspiring you, the world of course and everything in your life but more than all that its literature, and literature is still a territory much made by men. It’s a fact. So what is inspiring me from all sides it’s not typically the feministic thinking. So my advice would be for women writers: Don’t stare at yourself as a woman writer! Stare only at yourself as a writer!
TT – I also have something I would call a slightly provocative question. Many people think that in societies when most of things go in the right way, with no major social, economic or political problems, there is a lack of exciting topics to write about. The best writers and the best novels come form the most problematic regions because there the fire of the inspiration is more intense. You come form the Netherlands, which here in Albania, perhaps mistakenly, we would consider a place where things more or less go in the right way. How would you comment on this phenomenon? Do you think that in your country there is a difficulty in finding interesting topics to write about?
MM – That’s a very complicated question. In a way its true what you said that we in Western Europe and especially the Netherlands we are such a neat country. Everything is well and there is no huge corruption, we are very free as concerns freedom of speech. The funny thing is the Dutch always used to be a reading country; there is a lot of reading. When people read they also write. Everyone is amazed because we have a lot of writers and they are not bad at all. I myself as a duct writer I am not very much interested in my own fellow writers because they are Dutch and I know just too well the environment. It is really true what you say. Therefore I don’t like very much the Anglo-American literature. They have very good writers but the themes don’t interest me they are very much concentrating on psychological themes. And I hate that kind of literature and therefore I feel so well in the Eastern European and Balkan and Russian and south American literature. I like literature with great passion themes. It is not very true that those spoiled countries, if we could call them like that, can’t bring forward good writers.
TT – We maybe in Albania are not very familiar with Dutch writers. Whom would you recommend to Albanian readers to start with, contemporary writers? Any of your favorites?
MM – HmmƁs I said I have very few names form my own literature. The ones I have are older writers, Louis Marie-Anne Couperus and Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker). They are 19th century writers. Perhaps you should not take my word for that because writers often don’t like their contemporaries of their own country.
TT – Which is your absolute favorite writer then?
MM – Oh no. I really can’t say that. I am an addicted reader. I always read. I have to read. I have so many books I love. Now I think of one of the most beautiful books of Ivo Andric’s “The Bridge over the Drina.” You know it?
TT- Yes and I like it very much.
MM – You see the region it comes from. When I think about literary masterpieces it comes very quickly to my mind. This a book I love and adore.
TT – Finally as a curiosity. You titled your book the same as one of Tolstoy’s best known. Do you think that was an obstacle to the book or something that brought some good luck?
MM – Of course I know Tolstoy’s book. But when I was writing I was pretending really hard that that book did not exist. The Sonata is form Beethoven who in his turn was inspired by the Russian writer. My book is inspired from the Sonata of Jan⩥k who of course got his artistic inspiration from these predecessors. I hope my book is just another link in an endless artistic chain that has to go on.
