#RivetingReviews: Darcy Hurford reviews KŪNAI by Tomas Vaiseta, Jurga Tumasonytė, Virginija Kulvinskaitė, Akvilė Kavaliauskaitė and Vidas Morkūnas

Comprised of five chapbooks, each by a different contemporary writer, with colourful covers (that sometimes make more sense once you’ve read the book) and a brief format, Kūnai, meaning ‘bodies’, is a project from 2023 from Strangers Press, a small publisher based at the University of East Anglia, focusing on Lithuanian literature.

In Death and Other Stories by Vidas Morkūnas, translated by Kotryna Garanašvili, supernatural transformations feature heavily. The piece has a folklorish feel and an understated humour, which both come across well in Garanašvili’s translation. In the titular story, a family keep an unnamed creature in a wooden box in the shed. Then animals in the village begin to die. Elsewhere, a ‘girl’ who has lived by the same dull routine for thirty years, one day finds her coat walking to work without her.

Bodies by Akvilė Kavaliauskaitė, translated by Erika Lastovskytė was originally published as a full-length short-story collection. What appears here is a selection of five of these stories, which are rich in dialogue and film references. Starting with ‘A Classic with a Twist’ the story features Victoria and Albert (not the historical ones), whose ice-cream and TV-based marriage falters after Albert, an insurance salesman, becomes unusually concerned about a new client. ‘Bodies’ and ‘Animals for the Modern Age’ are linked by their central character, a film director called Marijus, who gets a deserved comeuppance in the second story.

‘My Mum’s Three Weddings’ proclaims the cover of Juvenilia by Virginija Kulvinskaitė, translated by Julija Gulbinovič. Inside, it becomes even more mysterious: the first story, ‘Childhood’ offers words like šulė, bachūras and tačka. Happily, the back flap of the book contains a glossary of these and other Slavisms used in Vilnius slang, which helps you through these brisk, sad and funny tales of life as a malalietka – a juvenile – in Vilnius. The glossary feels like a nice translation solution – the stories would have lost something of the atmosphere had the slang been taken out.

Taxi Driver by Jurga Tumasonytė, translated by Sasha Wilde, starts with a quote from Scorsese’s film. As in the film, a taxi driver is transformed, but here it is in a more uncanny way. Rasma has had a chequered past, but now has a partner and earns a living driving taxis. We follow her as she visits family, goes about her job and thinks about her past. But what starts off as a realistic, kitchen-sink tale takes a strange turn. A doppelgänger Rasma emerges. The story moves steadily between the two characters, shifting like the view from a car window.

Last up is The Sleep of Birds by Tomas Vaiseta, translated by Jeremy Hill. Comprised of two stories, both relying on internal monologue and shifts back and forth in time, this book has a more intense, psychologically charged tone than the others.

Kūnai is an enjoyable way to dip your toe into Lithuanian literature. All these authors have written other works; so hopefully we will be able to read more from them in future.

Reviewed by Darcy Hurford

KŪNAI

Written by Tomas Vaiseta, Jurga Tumasonytė, Virginija Kulvinskaitė, Akvilė Kavaliauskaitė and Vidas Morkūnas

Translated by Jeremy Hill, Sasha Wilde, Julija Gulbinovič, Erika Lastovskytė and Kotryna Garanašvili

Published by Strangers Press (2023)

September 2024 #RivetingReviews titles are available to buy from bookshop.org.

Darcy Hurford is a translator from Estonian, Finnish, German and Swedish. Originally from England, she is now based in Belgium.

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