Vladimir Bartol Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

20 Pages·2013·0.38 MB·English

Vladimir Bartol
Nothing is true,
everything is permitted.
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3
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Sovre Award – the
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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
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Topol, Sanje, 2008)
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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.
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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