Fiction in translation
September 2020
Alindarka's Children
by Alhierd Bacharevič, Translated by Jim Dingley and Petra Reid
Alindarka's Children (Dzieci Alindarkiis, 2014) is a contemporary novel about a brother and a sister interned in a camp. Here children are taught to forget their own language and speak the language of the colonizer, aided by the use of drugs as well as surgery on the larynx to cure the 'illness' of using the Belarusian language. The children escape but are pursued by the camp leaders and left to thrive for themselves in this adventure, which bears a likeness to an adult, literary 'Hansel and Gretel'. The dialogue translates well to the guttural differences between English Received Pronunciations and Scots. The Russian, translated by Jim Dingley, will become RP and the Belarusian, translated by Macsonnetries author Petra Reid, Scots. This novel has been translated and will be published in September 2020 thanks to the Pen Translates Award, won by Scotland Street Press in May 2019
