Letters to Another Room
This is a beautiful translation by John Farndon (with Olga Nakston) of the late Ravil Bukharaev’s literary existential masterpiece that seeks to reconcile his Muslim faith with the pursuit of his ideals and his search of self, particularly his notions of ‘authenticity’, which it is what framed his world view.
Throughout their long marriage, the poets Ravil Bukharaev and Lydia Grigorieva had written in separate rooms in their home. In this deeply felt and poetic memoir, Ravil writes to Lydia to explain at last things left unsaid in their great love for each other. With immense honesty and insight, he explores how their journey together has been shaped by his profound Muslim beliefs and his lifelong search for what is authentic and true. Along the way, he creates beautiful and moving vignettes of eight very different people struggling to find meaning in their life, from old Elizaveta Osipovna, alone in her Moscow flat, to proud Arzhana coping with a tough life in the Altai mountains.
The honesty and transparency informing this epistolary novel-essay is at times both stunning and stupendous. In the author’s own words, here is ‘an attempt by a man to have it out with his loved one, which is all the more difficult in view of the most vital and crucial condition of such an exchange – complete and total sincerity’.
COVER ILLUSTRATION BY:
Iskander Nugmanov (DEREC)
RENAISSANACE BOOKS
ISBN 978-1-898823-04-9
LETTERS TO ANOTHER ROOM
Ravil Bukharaev, 1951–2012
Letters to Another Room
by
Ravil Bukharaev
ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND ANNOTATIONS
by
JOHN FARNDON WITH OLGA NAKSTON
Illustrations by Iskander Nugmanov (DEREC)
LETTERS TO ANOTHER ROOM
By Ravil Bukharaev
First published in English 2013 by
RENAISSANCE BOOKS
PO Box 219
Folkestone
Kent CT20 2WP
Renaissance Books is an imprint of Global Books Ltd
Original Russian edition © Ravil Bukharaev – first published 2001 in Druzhba Narodov magazine.
First Russian book edition by Blitz, St Petersburg, 2002
English Translation © John Farndon 2013
ISBN 978-1-898823-04-9
eISBN 978-1-898823-36-0
The publication was effected under the auspices of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation TRANSCRIPT Programme to Support Translations of Russian Literature
The publishers also wish to thank the Ahmadiyya Community in the UK for their support in the making of this book
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library
Set in Bembo 12 on 14pt by Dataworks, Chennai, India
Printed by Melita Press
CONTENTS
3The Ghost of the Bird-cherry Tree
The Month of Little Heat
4The Escape and Twenty Years of Non-existence
On to the Other Side
Chestnut near Karlovy Bridge
About the Fishing Rod
Stairway to Heaven
The Secret Lily of the Valley
‘Some details relating to my ancestry and to myself – for my Lydia, written sometime after she acquired a curiosity and a more sympathetic inclination to learn about them.’
Memoirs for my Daughter Laurence Sterne
October 1767
‘You are perfectly right,’ said Goethe; ‘and the only matter of importance in such compositions is, that the single masses should be clear and significant, while the whole always remains incommensurable – and even on that account, like an unsolved problem, constantly lures mankind to study it again and again.’
Conversations with Goethe Johann Peter Eckermann
Sunday, February 13, 1831
1
TEN MINUTES OF SOLITUDE
‘IN ENGLAND, SPRING is rising: should it be ever rising thus, and coming alive within the human soul?’ So, impeccably attired as a gentleman, might I scribble with a golden Parker pen upon my snow-white cuff on a melancholy March evening at the Athenaeum Club …
Or rather, I might if I were one of those dusty relics whose entire existence devolves into ritually serving out their allotted time in deep, green leather chairs, sipping weak, sepia tea dutifully delivered by albine waiters, or wafting desultorily through the newspapers.
It is, of course, extremely flattering to be admitted to the Athenaeum’s hallowed inner sanctum. Yet I confess I am a poor connoisseur of its ancient and time-honoured privileges, being rather better acquainted with much more modest old curiosity shops. I rarely wear bow-ties,