Whispers of Grief and Independence: Nahar Trina on Toni Morrison, Flash Fiction, and Rooted Displacement

This is a Part 2 of my interview with Nahar Trina. 

On Toni Morrison's Sula
EN: You translated Toni Morrison’s novel Sula into Bengali. What drew you to this particular book, and what challenges did you face in carrying Morrison’s rich, poetic language, cultural nuances, and emotional depth from English into Bengali? How did the process of translating her work influence your own writing, especially in terms of voice, rhythm, or exploring themes like friendship, grief, and Black womanhood? 

Nahar Trina: Before translating Toni Morrison’s Sula, I was a devoted reader of her work, and I still am. By the time I began translating Sula , I had already published four translated books. Among them were two collections of children's stories featuring tales from home and abroad, and a translation of a short story collection for adults comprising works by some of the most celebrated authors in world literature. Another significant project was translating ‘Death to Life, Bangladesh’, a book by Jim McKinley based on the 1971 Liberation War of my motherland. The modest confidence I gained from translating these diverse books largely gave me the audacity to take on this particular novel by Toni Morrison.

 

Truth be told, I encountered obstacles at almost every turn while translating Sula. It is a reality that proficiency in the English language alone does not guarantee a successful literary translation. This is because language is intrinsically bound to culture. While it might be possible to break down linguistic barriers, scaling cultural walls often proves to be far more daunting. Added to this was Morrison's highly distinctive and peculiar prose style.

 

In any translation, I generally strive to prioritize the contextual essence first and then focus on the literal words. I strictly adhered to this approach for this novel as well. To readers of world literature, Toni Morrison is a deeply revered figure. She possesses a narrative style entirely her own—one that is simultaneously intricate and mesmerizing. The more adept a translator is at dissecting the spellbinding nature of Morrison's language, the more lucid the core narrative becomes in translation. Personally, I believe attempting to translate her work is an act of sheer audacity, as her writing demands immense effort. When dealing with such challenging texts, a piece of advice from Gabriel García Márquez serves as a brilliant strategy: he noted that the easiest way to truly understand a foreign book is to translate it. My desire to comprehend Morrison's writing on a deeper level, combined with my growing fascination with her work, encouraged me to display this audacity. Furthermore, I felt that introducing the readers of my native language to the creation of such a rare and monumental literary figure would be immensely enriching. This thought also fueled my courage to translate Sula.

 

Moreover, as a translator, I felt that Sula had the power to create a profound impact on Bengali readers in various ways. Although published around 1973, its appeal remains  timeless —especially for women in a society like ours, where women are still compelled to live within patriarchal structures. Here, a woman's personal freedom is often subjected to ridicule, and speaking of sexual autonomy is considered almost sacrilegious. Among the four central women in Sula, except for Nel Wright, the other three were remarkably advanced in terms of personal independence—especially Sula herself. The way Sula voiced her longing to live as an independent entity in such a hostile, prejudice-ridden era decades ago makes her journey even more deserving of recognition today. Through Sula, perhaps the seeds can be sown for readers to aspire to—not lawlessness—but a truthful, independent existence. This vision heavily influenced my decision to translate the book.

 

Another compelling reason was the novel's depiction of good versus evil. The tension between these two elements revolves around the core narrative. Yet, there is no overt attempt to explicitly label what is good or what is bad. None of the major characters bother to justify their actions or engage in rigorous self-defense. Their lives simply unfold like flowing water or the passage of time. Morrison leaves the judgment of good and evil, sin and virtue, entirely to the readers. Furthermore, it is impossible not to fall in love with the profound friendship between two individuals evolving from girlhood to womanhood that lies at the very heart of the book. The temptation to share my own profound admiration for this work with Bengali-speaking readers played a definitive role in translating Sula. Ultimately, as to how much her work has influenced me as an author, I believe that is for my readers to judge.

 

Your English-Language Debut

EN: Your recent English-language debut, Fleeting Impressions, is a collection of flash fiction exploring grief, belonging, and the quiet power of language. What inspired you to move into flash fiction for this book, and how does it connect to or differ from the stories in your Bengali collections like Studio Apartment (which won the Ekushey Book Fair award)?

 

Nahar Trina: The biggest inspiration behind writing the flash fiction pieces in Fleeting Impressions was the desire to capture the profound depth hidden within transient, momentary emotions. In this genre, the unwritten rule of “show, don't tell” deeply attracts me. This form allows the narrative of an entire lifetime to be distilled into just a few lines. A fleeting image, a sudden silence, or an unfinished sentence—each becomes as powerful as a full-length story. Due to displacement and geographical relocation, the fragmentation that seeps into life, the sudden stirrings of memory, or the soft shadows of grief—these emotions often materialize more vividly through brief, sharp, and silent prose rather than lengthy descriptions. Flash fiction has taught me to harness the power of that silence. This minimalist form has instilled a sense of discipline in me; here, the weight of every single word and the quietness of every pause matters. It feels like a distillation of emotions through language.

 

There is both a bridge and a distinction between this work and my Bengali stories. The stories in ‘Studio Apartment’, which was selected as the best short story collection in the Pencil Publications Talent Hunt Competition at the Ekushey Book Fair in 2020, are comparatively longer, character-driven, and allowed me the time to carefully craft the atmosphere. (On a side note regarding my other works, the children's story collection ‘Vindeshi Goppo’ (2023) was published after winning an award in the Ekushey Book Fair manuscript competition, and my first prose book, ‘GoddoCollage’ (2026), was published after being selected in a manuscript competition organized by Kitab-e Publications of West Bengal, India). In my Bengali books, I could seamlessly utilize the intimacy and comfort that our mother tongue naturally provides.

 

On the other hand, since English is an acquired language for me—a process that is still very much ongoing—writing in it requires a high degree of conscious effort and caution, which is never the case with Bengali. Spontaneity possesses a unique strength of its own, which is quite evident in my Bengali stories, and I am consistently striving to bring that same fluidity into my English writing. I hope readers will notice that very effort to find a rhythm within the English language in Fleeting Impressions.

Yet, a deep thread connects both books—they both attempt to explore the quiet, internal landscapes of human beings. Grief, loneliness, the tug-of-war of memories, and the experience of changing homes—all of these themes return in both languages, albeit in different forms. Alongside presenting narratives in elaborate detail, flash fiction has taught me that not all stories need to be spoken aloud; many stories can be whispered. And sometimes, it is within those whispers that the truest emotions are captured.

 

On Legacy, Bridges, and the Future

EN: Looking at your journey—from editing Golpopath to publishing in both Bengal and international platforms—what do you hope your body of work contributes to Bengali literature and to the broader South Asian diasporic conversation? What are you working on or dreaming about next?

 

Nahar Trina: My journey from editing to my own creative writing—has been a continuous process of learning and exploration. My involvement in the Bengali literary world is not just as an author; for a long time, I served as both an editor and a writer for three literary webzines: Porua, Shishukagoj, and Golpopath, (though the publications for Porua and Shishukagoj have now ceased). This experience taught me that editing is not merely about selecting texts or proofreading spellings; it is about carefully nurturing a writer's voice, clarifying their vision, and building a bridge of dialogue with the reader.

 

Conversely, my role in the English medium is different—there, I am primarily an author. When writing in English, I find that the language provides a certain necessary distance, opening up opportunities for analysis, structure, and connection with a global audience. Furthermore, working in English allows me to regularly learn from international editors. They evaluate a piece of writing based strictly on its literary merit rather than personal acquaintance, which I find immensely inspiring. When an article or story requires edits prior to publication, the warmth, sincerity, and professionalism they display not only help me grow but also leave me deeply impressed. The experience in the Bengali literary circle is often quite different, where a writer’s familiarity or personal network sometimes takes precedence over the actual quality of the text. This occasionally confronts me with ethical questions as a writer. Nevertheless, both contrasting environments have taught me invaluable lessons and have positively shaped my literary journey.

 

Flag of Bangladesh

When it comes to the broader discourse of Bengali literature and the South Asian diaspora, there are countless talented Bengali writers making significant contributions. I do not know how far my own voice will resonate in that grand space. However, as an author, my only desire is that whatever I write should serve as a harmonious bridge between these two worlds. I want the memories, the soil, the complex relationships, and the lived experiences of Bangladesh to reach global readers; at the same time, I wish for the isolation, the wordlessness, and the identity crises of diasporic life to be translated back to Bengali-speaking audiences. For me, the dialogue between these two realities is paramount.

 

Currently, I am working on a few short stories, translations, and long-form essays where the boundaries of language, memory, and identity blur into one another. My dream is to create a body of work in both Bengali and English that offers readers not just a narrative, but an immersive experience—where roots and displacement, home and exile, memory and the present moment coexist. Additionally, one of my primary goals next is to translate my debut Bengali novel, which is set against a historical backdrop, into English. There are still so many stories waiting to be penned; writing is an endless, continuous journey. My only wish is to remain on this path as long as it brings me joy.

EN: May it ever be so. Thank you, Nahar, for sharing your story.

 

Read Nahar Trina's A Shoreless Abyss.

When Leo Tolstoy Went to Bangladesh

One of the unexpected pleasures of writing is discovering that words have a life of their own.

You put them on paper (or more likely a computer screen), press "Publish," and they quietly disappear into the digital universe. Most of the time you never know where they go or whose eyeballs will encounter them.  

A few months ago I received an email from Bangladesh.

Nahar Trina, an author, translator and editor of the Bengali literary webzine Golpopath, had stumbled across an old post on Ennyman's Territory: Imaginary Interviews: My Visit with Leo Tolstoy. She asked if she might translate it into Bengali so it could be shared with her readers.

How could I say no?

Her note was gracious:

"I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'Imaginary Interviews: My Visit with Leo Tolstoy' on your blog, Ennyman's Territory. I would love to share this wonderful piece with Bengali readers by translating it into my mother tongue, Bengali."

She explained that Golpopath is a completely non-commercial literary publication with a devoted readership and assured me the translation would be offered simply for the love of literature.

Recently she sent another message. The 98th issue of Golpopath had been published, and somewhere halfway around the world my imaginary conversation with the great Russian novelist had found a new audience—this time in Bengali.

There's something beautifully circular about that journey.

The publication included this photo of our "visit."

A Russian writer, imagined by an American blogger in Minnesota, translated by a Bengali author for readers in Bangladesh.

It's a reminder that stories ignore borders. They travel farther than passports, politics, and maps. They move from one language into another because someone recognizes an idea, a question, or a moment of humanity worth sharing.

For me, it actually takes me back to my very frst published story, "How Important Is Prayer?" After it was published in a paper called Youth, I received letters from three continents thanking me for the insights I shared, and how what I'd written touched their lives. 

When the World Wide Web emerged in the 1990s, I created a website where I shared art and stories on my website. Before long my story Duel of the Poets was translated into Croatian. Other stories were translated into Russian and French. And two stories by my daughter, who was 12 at the time, were published in California and New Zealand.

As writers, we rarely know where our words will end up. Sometimes they stay close to home. Sometimes they wander farther than we ever will. An example of this idea is the heart of my story A Poem About Truth.

I'm grateful to Nahar Trina and the editors of Golpopath for giving my little literary experiment a second life in another language. And I'm reminded once again that the community of readers is much larger than we imagine. 

Somewhere tonight, someone I will never meet may be reading an imaginary interview with Leo Tolstoy—in Bengali. Because words have wings.

I think Leo would smile.

Link to the Bengali version:

https://www.galpopath.com/2026/06/blog-post_257.html

Link to the original imagnary interview:

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2025/08/imaginary-interviews-my-visit-with-leo.html

Nahar Trina on Goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/20229982.Nahar_Trina

Journal Notes from the Summer of '93

In early 1993, I pitched a book idea to Thomas Nelson Publishing and a movie concept to a producer on the set of Iron Will, and within a month both offered me opportunities to move forward.

While working full-time, I created a tight eight-month plan with two critical deadlines: August 1 for the book and October 1 the screenplay. But then my wife Susie threw me a curveball. She'd had enough of living in town and wanted us to go house-hunting so we could move to the country that year. To do all three felt like more than I could handle. I countered with this: she could go house hunting with a friend and after August 1 I would go see what they found. 

Sure enough, she brought me to look at a house on August 2, and by the end of the week we were owners of 8+ acres, a house and two garages--his and hers. By October we moved in and the screenplay was completed as well. 

Here are a few select entries from my journal that summer.

Seeds / Journal Notes

Proverbs 17:3

The crucible is for silver,

the furnace for gold.

The Lord tries hearts.

 

D.H. writes of our tendency as grapes to complain about the instruments God chooses when crushing us to produce holy wine.

June 23, 1993

 

Monday Ralph had a dream that I brought him two Bibles. Afterwards he said, “Who gave me this dream?”  I suggested that when he reads the Bibles, he’ll find out.

June 30, 1993

 

We remember our dreams to our own peril.    
June 30, 1993

 

At root I am depressed by the thought that I am not going to “make it” as a writer. That is, that I do not have the drive, the “neurotic passion” that is sufficient to make it.  That is, I allow other things to distract me, diffuse my energy, divert me from my course. I am not writing every day, every night.  And even though I am far more productive than my peers, it seems that I create illusions that give the impression that I am much more than I am. Do I have what it takes? Or am I just a small peeper making big noises that carry with the wind?

July 2, 1993

 

Our lives are written in time like words upon a scroll, with none of it to be erased.

July 3, 1993

 

I have labored these many years to produce a body of work. Today it seems so small… with so many stories yet to tell.  
July 5, 1993

  

There were four of us, brothers… till the four winds scattered us ‘cross the wild unwatered plains while the seeds of future dreams are nourished by private wells.

July 17, 1997

Harry Gold, Revisited

SHORT STORY MONDAY
The following is a piece of flash fiction written in a rather unconventional manner. All of the sentences from this story have been borrowed from other works of fiction created by other authors. It was sort of a word game. For continuity sake I did add a few sentence fragments and used the name Harry Gold in all the places where needed. I think it interesting how a sentence, placed in a new context connotes new meanings through the unexpected juxtapositions. See if you can tell where the original ends and the newly created addendum begins.

Harry Gold

"The rule of 'nothing unessential' is the first condition of great art."
--Andre Gide

After dinner Harry Gold reads us the last two chapters of his La Nuit. The next to last especially seems excellent to us, and Gold reads it very well. Being rich is an occupation in itself, particularly for people who arrive at it via parachute in middle life.

We go out for a walk -- William Williams, Gold and myself. Never has it seemed such a long way to the top of this hill. The road with its tossing broken stones stretches on forever into the distance like a life of agony. It is hot as a furnace on the street and we sweat profusely.

I bring up the question of ownership. "Who owns language? Can a man own words? Sentences? The turn of a phrase?"

Gold's face becomes agitated, defiant. "It's mine now. No matter what they say, it's mine."

It occurs to me that Williams doesn't like this reply, but there are no others to turn to and we are forced to accept it. Gold feels guilty because his work is heavy with borrowing. Ideas, phrases, sentences, even whole paragraphs have been shamelessly appropriated, pilfered without attribution, plagiarized.

Harry adds, in a low voice, "The will of man is unconquerable. Even God cannot conquer it."

I can not bear to see him like this. To myself I think, Why do you do these things? In human affairs every solution only serves to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. I consider how sages of the future will describe this historic day.

For a while we walk without speaking, the heat pressing down on us like a heavy hand. The hill seems steeper than before, as if it has grown suspicious of our intentions. Williams kicks at a loose stone and sends it rattling down the slope. The sound echoes faintly, like a small confession that no one intends to pursue.

Gold wipes his forehead with a handkerchief that was once white but now bears the stains of long arguments and careless pockets. He walks with a strange determination, as if pursued by invisible editors demanding an explanation.

At last he stops and looks out over the valley. The town lies below us, quiet and indifferent, its roofs glowing in the late afternoon sun.

“You speak of ownership,” he says, almost gently now. “But language is a river. We drink from it, we carry it away in cups, and still it flows.”

Williams nods slowly, though whether in agreement or exhaustion I cannot say.

I begin to suspect that Gold’s crime, if crime it is, lies less in the borrowing than in the boldness of admitting it. Most men prefer their thefts to remain hidden beneath respectable silence.

The wind picks up briefly, stirring the dust along the road. For a moment the heat lifts and we breathe more easily.

Gold laughs then—a short, unexpected laugh.

“Perhaps originality,” he says, “is merely the art of remembering badly.”

We continue our climb.

Somewhere beyond the crest of the hill a dog barks, and the sound travels toward us as though the evening itself were calling us onward.

# # # #

Illustration: ChatGPT

Throwback Thursday: A Nod to Somerset Maugham

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JUNE 2010

I am currently reading The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham, one of the great writers of the last century. My first awareness of Maugham was in 1964 when our family moved to Bridgewater, New Jersey, in Somerset County. One day while I was in the car with my mom in Somerville, we drove very slowly down a street with a row of old houses with porches. She slowed to a near stop in front of one, and said, "Somerset Maugham used to sit on that porch." She said it in that tone of which even though I was but eleven I knew meant something significant.

Maugham was 91 when he passed away the following year at his home in France.

There's no question that Maugham was a gifted writer. Reading The Painted Veil, one becomes intensely aware of his ability to describe in microscopic detail the inner workings of the human heart. I also think he is gifted at putting into words many of the thoughts and feelings we often conceal because we're too considerate. The seamless manner in which inner workings of the heart intersect with plot in this story is impressive.

Maugham was one of the highest paid -- if not the highest paid -- writers of the 1930's. In that pre-television era he was able to connect with readers who agonized while waiting for the next segment in his serialized novels and short stories.

His father and grandfather were lawyers, and as an uncertain youth he spent some time studying for a medical career. This Wikipedia note helps one to not only understand Maugham's ability to portray the cholera epidemic in The Painted Veil, but perhaps gives insight into why the Anton Chekov, himself a doctor, was such a master story teller:

Some critics have assumed that the years Maugham spent studying medicine were a creative dead end, but Maugham himself felt quite the contrary. He was able to live in the lively city of London, to meet people of a "low" sort that he would never have met in one of the other professions, and to see them in a time of heightened anxiety and meaning in their lives. In maturity, he recalled the literary value of what he saw as a medical student: "I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief ..."

Maugham carried the burden of being a homosexual at a time when it was less acceptable, a factor that complicated his life. He was not known to be a cheerful man. On one occasion while among the literati in Mexico City he departed for some other destination with his young partner. D.H. Lawrence famously remarked, "He wasn't happy here and he won't be happy there."

My two favorite Maugham short stories are The Verger and Mr. Know-All. Each has a payoff worth pursuing. The latter can be found in Volume I of The Complete Short Stories of Somerset Maugham. The Verger will be discovered in Volume IV.

Kent Peterson Shares Two Books That Made an Impact on Him Long Ago

As much as people love the music and the events at Duluth Dylan Fest each year, there's another dimension that is equally rewarding. Getting to know the people who gather here for this weeklong celebration of Duluth's native son. It seems like every year there are new faces and a surprising number are writers.

I met Kent Peterson and his wife Christine at the Trivia Contest about two weeks ago. Kent is a writer who produces one page of typewritten copy each day. There's a whole community of these one-pager writers who share their work in cyberspace at a site called One Typed Page. (https://onetypedpage.com/)

I immediately shared with him how I used to do what I called Limbo Exercises each day, filling a blank page with typing... ideas, observations, poetic expressions, subconscious mining. The objective (for me) was to learn how to write on command, as opposed to sitting around waiting for the Muse to arrive.

Kent has since been sharing some of his pages with me. If you were to be a regular reader, you'll notice that he does not always use the same typewriter. I'm curious how many manual typewriters he has. I know that I loved my first Smith-Corona, and also the very slim Olivetti I took to Mexico in late 1980. 

Kent's one-pagers are thoughtful, well-crafted and always have a takeaway. I asked permission to publish this one on my blog today. 

Sunday, February 20th 2022 --- 1956 Smith-Corona Skyriter

There are a couple of books that I read years ago but that I still think about now and then and recommend often. While both of these books are just plain old good stories, they are also books that I wish were read by more folks because they contain valuable insights into how narratives can take on lives of their own, with far reaching, often disastrous consequences.

The first of these books is Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. First published in Italian in 1988, I read the English translation in 1989 and it immediately claimed the "best book I read in the 80s" spot on my mental list. It tells the story of some bored folks at a publishing house who get tired of reading all the "true" crackpot conspiracy theory manuscripts that keep getting submitted, so they merge every crazy notion they've ever read, heard about, or just plain invented into one huge mega-conspiracy. And then the killings start...

I recall several things as being great about the book. First off, you can tell that Eco has to be one of the most well-read guys on the planet. He knows classical stuff and pop culture stuff and history and languages and science and psychology and obscure trivia and by golly you wouldn't want to be up against him in a game of Jeopardy! Second, damn near every scenario he lays out has at least two fairly plausible solutions. You never quite know where things are going. Finally, and it's been decades since I read the book, I kind of recall that it seems like it's wrapping up out there is still like 100 pages to go (it's a huge book) and those last 100 pages turn it from being a great book to being a GREAT and important book. If more folks read Eco then maybe a shitty book like Dan Brown's DaVinci Code wouldn't have been a best-seller and maybe we wouldn't have to be dealing with all this Q-Anon bullshit.

The other antidote-to-madness book that has stuck in my head is Todd Gitlin's 1992 novel The Murder of Albert Einstein. Gitlin was, among other things, a professor of Media Studies and the novel tells the story of a telegenic but aging TV reporter working for a national TV newsmagazine who gets a lead on "the story of a lifetime". If you are my age you might picture the reporter as someone like Jessica Savitch and the show as being something like "60 Minutes". What made the book fascinating to me was that the importance of a "scoop" precisely timed to meet the broadcast schedule and the ratings were more important and often in conflict with fact-checking the story. Like Pendulum, this is a thriller that makes you think about what you know and who tells you what you know.

Kent Peterson, Superior WI USA

* * * 

EdNote: Kent's "typed page" was converted to text using Google Lens, another trick Kent taught me.

Tribute to John Prin: Author, Mentor and Friend

Selfie taken during our annual meet in Hinckley, 2020.

We lost another good one. 

In 1982 I met John Prin at a Twin Cities Christian Writers group. An author of national stature came to speak at one of those early meetings we attended and after the meeting we sought each other out because of the questions we each had asked in the Q&A session.

 

John had been a full-time writer at Control Data, a major corporation during the early days of the digital age. I was a "failed missionary" who was now painting apartments and trying to figure out how I would spend the rest of my life. I felt inwardly drawn to the idea of being a writer and ultimately came to believe it was a calling. To this end John became my mentor. He not only helped me improve my skills as a writer, he taught me how the publishing business worked for freelancers. 

The following summer we attended the weeklong Decision School of Writing and from that time on I began publishing continuously. From the end of 1982 til 1986 I painted apartments by day and devoted myself to developing my writing skills and getting assignments by night. 

In 1986 Susie and I inherited her grandmother's house in Duluth. It was my hope to get a full-time writing job and put painting apartments behind us. To showcase my work while job hunting, John instructed me to buy a $25 binder instead of a three or five dollar binder. The tactic worked. It created a professional impression that led to several freelance assignments before landing a position as a writer the first week of July. This "break" evolved into a successful career in advertising, marketing and PR. 

1988. Top row: John and I. Front row:
John's Susie, my Susie and their Emily.

Over the years John and I continued to meet annually, to share our life adventures and writing successes. I was impressed with his successes as an author, an addictions counsellor and involvement in helping the needy, not only here but also in war torn Kosovo.*

In 2007 I began blogging daily and three years ago added Medium, another blogging platform. John followed my online activities keenly and last year sought my help getting started on Medium himself. He was excited about Koinonia, a publication for Christian writers, as a platform. He was attracted to its capacity for helping others beyond his physical sphere of influence.

Because he was older and had not been involved in social media before, it took a lot of hand holding, and I did all I could to help him with blogging the way he guided my early efforts to become a publishing writer.  

A week ago Friday he called me, seeking help on another article for Koinonia. We agreed to set up a time to work through the issue on Saturday, but when he called Saturday to follow up he was unable to talk. John has been battling pulmonary fibrosis for the past few years, a disease that took his daughter Emily 5 years ago this month, and which his twin brother Dave is also struggling with now. 

The next day he went to the hospital and passed away by mid-week, diagnosed with pneumonia and Covid on top of his primary issue.  

* * *

I wrote this a couple days ago not knowing how to finish. Perhaps it's a way of saying thanks to someone who made a difference in my life. 

If you're a young person reading this with something on your heart you wish to pursue, find a mentor whose values you share and who has travelled the path ahead of you enough to help show you the way.  

*John and his wife Susie made 13 humanitarian trips to Kosovo and twice to Macedonia. Susie also made trips to Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia with other groups.  

Related Links

John's website: www.TrueYouRecovery.com

John's books on Amazon

Roadmap to Lifelong Recovery: Interview with John Prin

Stories by John published on Koinonia

Chopin: Desire for Love and Thoughts from the Keen Mind of George Sand

George Sand was a woman who could not  and would not live within the confining boundaries society placed on women of her day. To be published as a novelist, she therefore wrote under a pseudonym. Her real name was Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin, baronne Dudevant. 

This week I was watching a movie about Frederic Chopin and his relationship to George Sand titled Chopin: Desire for Love. It brought to mind the 1991 film Impromptu with Hugh Grant and Judy Davis in which Davis (as G. Sand) states that the beauty of Chopin's music is "proof that there is a God." It was a great line, and a statement that is hard to argue with. His piano compositions were exquisite.

Chopin: Desire for Love is a more recent production (2002) and less enjoyable. Like Impromptu it centers on the relationship between Chopin and Aurore Dupin, but in this latter version their conflicts become the story. His self-centeredness becomes painful to watch, no matter how much his compositions inspire or convey of the turbulence at the center of their passions. 

Dupin has two children who still need a mother. Chopin, who has never married or had children, sees her children as an impediment to the inspiration her love provides him. It's a form of machisimo that is common in certain parts of the world. When we worked at an orphanage in Mexico, some of the children there were kicked out of their homes by a second husband who would have nothing to do with the offspring of the first. 

Director Jerzy Antczak was nominated for an Academy Award for this 2002 production, which he filmed in Polish, then dubbed in English. The score is fabulous, simply because there is so much of Chopin there. Yo-Yo Ma is even one of the players in the soundtrack. 

The effect that Antczak attempted to achieve was to illuminate the conditions that created these sometimes emotionally charged pieces, much like that which was more successfully accomplished in Immortal Beloved about the music of Beethoven. Beethoven's stormy temperament is fairly well-known, so that film worked for me. This film diverged significantly from the image I have of a fragile, perfectionist composer who struggled with sickness and depression. 

One imdb.com reviewer stated that both Chopin films strayed far from the actual story of Chopin's career and affair with Aurore Dupin so that both were unacceptable. Of the two I preferred the former, even though I become impressed with the skill with which modern film makers are able to re-create the sets in these period pieces.

The actors were good and well cast for their roles--Piotr Adamczak as Chopin and Damuta Stenka as George Sand. Several of the reviewers gave the film high marks, so it may be something to consider, even if it does have a soap opera aspect. I will give it 5 stars out of 10, only because there is so much wonderful Chopin music in there. 

* * * 

George Sand by Auguste Carpentier

George Sand as a writer did not get as developed in this film. According to some, she was even more popular than Balzac and Victor Hugo in her day, and highly influential politically. I thought it would be worthwhile to share some quotes from this rule-breaking woman who had to make a go of it in a very restrictive time for women. She believed it was OK for a woman to wear pants (they were more comfortable than frilly dresses) and write novels. What I seem to recall was that she lived much of her life on less sleep because she did all her writing at night. Making sacrifices is what writers must do if they are to succeed. 

I'm always impressed by how much writers of that era accomplished without typewriters and word processors, or photocopy machines. George Sand lived in 1830, the typewriter was invented in 1872.

What follows are several quotes from her letters and writings.

* * * 

"I have an object, a task, let me say the word, a passion. The profession of writing is a violent and almost indestructible one."

* * * 
"Life resembles a novel more often than novels resemble life."

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"Life is a long ache which rarely sleeps and can never be cured."

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"Art is not a study of positive reality, it is the seeking for ideal truth."

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"Masterpieces are only lucky attempts."

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About Chopin

"His creation was spontaneous, miraculous. He found it without searching for it, without foreseeing it. It came to his piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head during a walk, and he would hasten to hear it again by, tossing it off on his instrument. But then would begin the most heartbreaking labor I have ever witnessed." 

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