صورة أفريقية عريضة وعريضة جدا عن التقاء الأفارقة بالحداثة والاستقلال.. مملة أحيانا والترجمة غير دقيقة أحيانا

Soyinka literally drops you into his protagonist ensemble in mid scene, no explication, just like if you were watching a play. I found it an intriguing way to get to know characters - emerging slowly from their interactions, different facets from different scenes, reflecting a very detailed observation of people and an ability to really capture their quirks and contradictions. I would never have read this if I wasn't exploring back through Nobel Laureates as a quarantine project. I would never have heard of it. Its odd how quickly writers, including excellent writers, can fall away as we concentrate on the next new thing and have so little time to remember and carry the history with us. The challenging relationships different characters have with history and traditional stories/religion as Nigeria becomes independent plays a big part in the narrative with meta-narrative resonances. It's a bit male in perspective, none of the group really able to form adult attachments; and this too seems rooted in the lack of sense of self, as they all return from overseas educations, as Nigerians take over the colonial structures including corruption with delight. Each character is struggling to find meaning in different ways and ultimately I did not feel that hopeful. Written in 1965 as Nigeria started to lose democracy to a series of military coups, it is likely that Solyinka didn't feel that hopeful either.

Odličan stil, ali jednostavno se nismo našli... U pogrešno vreme sam je čitala, kad sam imala puno obaveza, a knjiga tražu maksimalnu koncentraciju i pažnju...

Hay libros que si bien son complejos, llegan a envolverte de tal manera que ni siquiera tienes oportunidad de cuestionarte si su lectura es difícil o no; este no es uno de esos libros.
Wole Soyinka en esta novela se muestra como un autor más que capaz. A lo largo de la lectura, nos encontramos con párrafos laberínticos que ciertamente dan cuenta del increíble uso de la lengua por parte del autor, pero que a la final terminan siendo pasajes tortuosos e innecesarios.
La historia, si es que podemos llamarla así, nos lleva por diferentes aspectos de la sociedad nigeriana vista a través de los ojos de 5 individuos. Sin embargo, es tan extraña la forma de presentar la narración, que al final es inevitable perderse y no prestar atención.
De alguna manera siento curiosidad por el autor y por ende creo que valió la pena el ejercicio. Ya veremos si otra de sus obras logra ganarse una mejor puntuación.

Luin Tulkit-kirjaa melkein 3 viikkoa. Tällaiset kirjat saavat pohtimaan vakavasti, kannattaako vapaa-aikaa käyttää lukemiseen vai ihan johonkin muuhun.

Voihan otsalohkoni - kyllä oli vaikea kirja. Muun muassa tällaisen kielen takia lukemisesta puuttui kaikki ilo. Sinänsä nuorten nigerialaisten hetket olivat kiinnostavia väläyksiä afrikkalaiseen 1960-lukuun ja ilmiselvään juurettomuuteen. Monet palasivat expat-elämästä ja opiskelemasta ulkomailta. Ja tapailivat Afrikassa uskonmiehiä, Afrikan valkoisia, yliopistoeliittiä ja emansipoituneita naisia.

En ymmärtänyt kirjaa lainkaan. Siinä oli selvästi tarina, mutta kuka missä mitä miksi kenen kanssa? Mikä oli kirjan idea? Miksi se oli kirjoitettu?

En saa tästä kirjasta selkoa ilman Googlea tai GR-arvioita. Tuskin kuitenkaan välitän niin paljoa, että käyttäisin aikaa kumpaankaan.

Ymmärrän myös, että ongelmani saattaa olla se, etten lainkaan ymmärrä kontekstia. Mutta käännöskirjallisuuden pitäisi auttaa lukijaa tällä matkalla eikä tehdä siitä vielä vaikeampaa.

A small group of young Nigerian intellectuals have a few drinks and hold pretentious philosophical conversations, in between ribbing each other about girls, jobs, getting drunk, etc. I shouldn't like this book at all, I should be thinking that no decent writer would write conversations like that, because people don't talk that way.
These characters in this situation would, and the conversations between them are perfect. So are the almost throw-away sentences at the ends of chapters which made me completely rethink what I had just read. Wole Soyinka is not a decent writer, he is a great writer.
The characters, places, corrupt society and satirical set pieces are all very well depicted. The writing is richly sensual, poetic, funny and distinctive. The author is better known as a playwright and poet than a novelist, so the plays and poems must be mind-blowing. He even makes Voidancy poetic in this little gem of a novel.
The story of how they ended up in the situation they are in for the time-frame of the novel is told obliquely, using their memories and each others, flashbacks, hallucinations and a little from the third party narrator. This means that the story is revealed through a series of images. The mixture of techniques works very well. Many of the stories are not happy ones, as the protagonist group deal with corruption, frustration, bigotry and ignorance. They are all interesting.

The writing is too pretentious for me, but it does handle some interesting topics!

Прочетена на български в превод на Румяна и Георги Паунови.

Шоинка 1988: Шоинка, У. Тълкувателите. София: Народна младеж, 1988.

Kind of difficult for me to get into at first, set in Nigeria, following a group of Nigerian young professionals as they try to figure out how to be the Western educated people in a post-colonial Nigeria that is split and schizophrenic culturally from the divides between its history, its indiginous culture, its western and white influences, its political upheaval and corruption, and so on... The names of people, places, indiginous mythology, and certain historical events not in the maintstream consciousness of America make this somewhat difficult to follow at first, and it is definitely something to be re-read, rather than read. It took me two attempts to get past the first forty pages before I found myself picking it up a third time (nearly a year after the post-colonial literature class I took where I was supposed to have read this book in its entirety) and finally taking the initiative and effort to keep track of unfamiliar names, to refer to notes I took in the class on relevant culture and history of Nigeria, and proceeded to read it fully over two or three days, and loved it immensely. More than immensely.

P.S. I just re-read the Interpreters, and have to say I was even more blown way by the immensity, subtlety, and gravity of this book. I know all things literature are subjective, but Soyinka's writing is so phenomenal, I highly recommend to anyone who takes the time to read this review, make it a project to read this novel with some research in order to understand the context of what is unfamiliar, and immerse yourself.

تحفة

A very rich sociable imagery fills this book to overflowing with humor, tragedy, witty descriptions, and social commentary. You can see why Soyinka got the Nobel prize. His writing is so smart, both intellectual and clever, but also evocative -- of experiences but not necessarily exactly what takes place in this book. There's frequently a kind of temporary mystery that clears up, but some of it never does. A picture of life as loose ends, in a way. I found this more fun to read than Death and the King's Horseman, which is a painstaking read -- rewarding, thought-provoking, and impressive, but not quick. The Interpreters starts off a bit stilted, to be honest, puzzling, but once it gets going it really moves along. I laughed out loud. But it's also sad, compassionate, humane -- humanistic. And they do get into adventures, adventures that bring out certain aspects of the society Soyinka is describing. My only disappointment was that its scope never really opens up to a bigger picture the way Ngugi wa Thiongo's work or Chinua Achebe's does, or Bessie Head, others. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I kept expecting a bit more overtly political, I guess, some more open conflict, something just around the corner that never came. Its politics remains very personal, but not just in the sense that it deals with personal matters, but in the sense that it never involves more than a few people (except, I guess, by addressing matters that clearly affect more people than these examples). Of course, the same could be said of many great novels.

Wole Soyinka foi o 1º africano negro a receber o Nobel de Literatura, em 1986 (e até hj o 1º de dois ☹️).

Os intérpretes foi escrito em 1965, qdo ele tinha 31 anos.

O livro mostra um grupo de jovens amigos nigerianos tocando suas vidas e trabalhos (tem jornalista, pintor, escultor, professor universitário...) e refletindo sobre o sentido da vida, da morte, do passar do tempo, do amor, da amizade...Achei o livro complexo: são muitos personagens, cada um com sua personalidade característica.

Também achei o livro engraçado, mas não abertamente, é uma graça sutil, entranhada nas linhas; por exemplo, além de paixões (Kola: quadros; Sekoni: esculturas), os personagem têm obsessões (Egbo: água e afogamento; Sagoe: defecação, que ele chama “vacuolização” e sobre a qual escreveu uma tese de mestrado, obviamente recusada pelo orientador, que ele obriga funcionários e colegas a ler