PSALM 44
Page 14
Du, Abschaum!: “You, scum!”
mutan gemišt, mongrel: Kiš uses a highly unusual pejorative, which might be translated as “muddy mixture.”
Let us pray: Russian in the original: “Pomolimsja!”
Lama, lama: “Why, why” in Hebrew and Aramaic. Probably a reference to the phrase uttered by Jesus on the cross, as recorded in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
some five hundred kilometers from Berlin: the Serbian text actually locates Marija and Žana a rather unlikely five hundred kilometers “northwest of Berlin.”
on top of a hayrick: Kiš has “on top / at the summit of [the] Hainkorn,” leaving his translator and editors to puzzle over whether this is meant to be a (misspelled or fictional) German mountain or else a pile of wheat hay (German Einkorn = “single-grain,” wild wheat).
DANILO KIŠ was one of Serbia’s most influential writers and the author of several novels and short-story collections, including A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, Hourglass, and Garden, Ashes. He died in 1989 at the age of 54.
JOHN K. COX is professor of history and department head at North Dakota State University. His translations include books The Attic and The Lute and the Scars by Danilo Kiš, as well as short fiction by Kiš, Ismail Kadare, Ivan Ivanji, Ivo Andrić, and Meša Selimović.
COPYRIGHT
Originally published in Serbian as Psalam 44 by Globus, Zagreb, 1962
Psalam 44 by Danilo Kiš © Librairie Arthème Fayard and Danilo Kiš Estate.
Preface copyright © 2012 by Aleksandar Hemon
Translation and afterword copyright © 2012 by John K. Cox
First edition, 2012
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kiš, Danilo, 1935-1989.
[Psalam 44. English]
Psalm 44 / Danilo Kiš ; preface by Aleksandar Hemon ; translated and with an afterword by John K. Cox.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-56478-762-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Auschwitz (Concentration camp)—Fiction. I. Hemon, Aleksandar, 1964- II. Cox, John K., 1964- III. Title.
PG1419.21.I8P7713 2012
891.8’2354—dc23
2012013731
This translation has been published with the financial support of the Serbian Ministry of Culture
Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
Partially funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency
www.dalkeyarchive.com
Cover: design and composition by Mikhail Iliatov
Printed on permanent/durable acid-free paper and bound in the United States of America