Description
Smaranda Kafka was born and educated in Romania, postgrad France and Australia. Her short stories have been published in Australia, Romania, Canada and the United States of America. She has published three two books written in ‘ABC-ul unei vieți’ (‘The ABC of One’s Lifetime’; a novel in two volumes) and the book of short stories ‘Alb și Negru’, ‘la voia destinului’ (‘White and Black, at Destiny’s Beck and Call’); and one volume of short stories written in ‘Layers upon Layers.’
All three titles have been published by Coresi Publishing House SRL, Bucharest, Romania and can be found via this
Translating a literary world is rewriting it, and that is a tormenting job. But still you don’t want to ask any other person to do it. It’s yours, and you don’t give it away, even to a friend. You may listen to him, and after that, you’ll do it the way you feel is right for you.
The translation of the Romanian book ‘Alb și Negru, la voia destinului’ marks its own rebirth into another form of expression, in the book ‘Layers upon Layers’; as the saying goes, they are brothers, but siblings, not twins.
This book follows the same narrative as the first one, and while it keeps the spirit of the original work, it has its own soul manifesting through a series of subsequent changes while remaining obedient to the writer’s perception of the reality the characters lived in.
And even though the book ‘Layers upon Layers’ brings out the same memories, sounds, colours, images and facts as the Romanian version, it still sounds and feels differently.
That’s the way I see this new book, as an interpretation, not a translation; and I love it.
Hopefully, you love it too.
Smaranda Kafka
