Olga Grjasnowa

Das Buch zeigt das Leben der Migrantin Mascha. Im ersten Teil lebt sie mit ihrem Freund Elias in Frankfurt, im zweiten Teil arbeitet Mascha in Tel Aviv. Was gut dargestellt wird, ist das Thema der Zugehörigkeit, der die man selbst empfindet und der, die einem zugeschrieben wird. Mascha ist Jüdin, ihre größte Liebe ist ein Muslim, sie hat Freunde verschiedenster Herkünfte. Starke Szenen hat das Buch immer dann, wenn es wichtiger ist, woher jemand vermeintlich kommt, als wer er ist; wenn Maschas Freund Cem als Kanake beschimpft wird, wenn sie in Israel als Deutsche verachtet wird. Dahingehend, also in der Verhandlung von Zugehörigkeit und Identität, ist das Buch höchst interessant und wichtig.
Weniger gelungen finde ich es als Roman, die Geschichte, die erzählt wird, ist mir zu episodenhaft und zu wenig stringent oder spannend.… (plus d'informations)

Content Note: bimisia, (critical treatment of) antisemitism

Plot:
Mascha came to German when she was just a child, her Jewish family originally from what is now Azerbaijan and used to be the Soviet Union when they left. Now Mascha makes the best use of her talent for languages and is working to be a translator at the UN, achieving high grades and receiving scholarships that bring her to many cities. Mascha seems to have made it, but underneat that shiny success story lies her trauma – from the pogroms in Baku that her family fled from, from the loss of her great love Elischa. But that trauma can’t remain hidden forever.

Der Russe ist einer, der Birken liebt is a challenging debut novel – both for the author and her readers. But it is absolutely worth it to work your way through it.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2019/06/13/der-russe-ist-einer-der-birken-liebt-olga-grjas...… (plus d'informations)

A deeply disturbing novel of the situation in Syria: revolt against the Assad regime, as seen through the eyes of several young people. Among them are Hammoudi, a surgeon, who, for awhile runs an underground hospital, and Amal and Yousef, students at the Institute of Dramatic Arts, she as actress, he as director. After witnessing and living through warlike conditions, the three flee the country and seek a peaceful life perhaps in Europe. The story follows their paths under grisly conditions as displaced persons journeying to another homeland. With these faces, fictional as they were, the recent refugee crisis was brought home through what they suffered. These people were possibly composites of those who told the author their stories.… (plus d'informations)

This novel follows several young people caught in Damascus at the beginning of the 2011 Syrian revolution.

Hammoudi is a Paris trained doctor who must return to Syria to get his passport renewed. When he is denied an exit visa, he is trapped, earning governmental sanction finally including a death contract as he refuses the government mandate not to treat revolutionaries.

Amal is a young actress; Youssef a young director.

Author Grjasnowa paints a portrait of a pleasant although sometimes tense pre-war lifestyle in Damascus and Syria. As one by one basic necessities and finally safety itself disappear into chaos, a vivid answer is given to those who ask “Why don’t the refugees stay and fight?’, a rather ugly refrain that I have seen on social media multiple times.

Grjasnowa was a child refugee from Azerbaijan to Germany when she was eleven. She has lived in a variety of countries and is married to a Syrian national. Her understanding of the plight of refugees shines authentically from every page.

While I cared for both the characters and their outcomes, I didn’t care much for the writing.

It’s adequate, but often feels a bit stilted and not at all like the cover blurb which states that author Grjasnowa “writes sensuously and vividly”.

Some of the phrases are almost funny – “enough incense sticks to kill a cow” (how does one kill a cow with incense sticks?) And while I received a version which contains the warning that it is an uncorrected advance proof (although appears to be a regularly bound paperback version), I can’t imagine that there will be a total rewriting of the flow of the story. Whether this is indicative of the author, or the translator is impossible to tell.

There are definitely enough positives about this book that I will try another by this author.… (plus d'informations)