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Adriana Babeţi: Dear Mike, I don’t even dare ask you my next question. If you tell me there are people in your country who haven’t heard of Dante or Balzac, what can we say about Hašek or Kundera, Kiš or Esterházy? What is happening with Central European literature in the United States? How is it regarded?
Michael Heim: I have said that in this immense mass of people are smaller groups, of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of readers. All it takes is for the works to be translated. Even if they are not read by hundreds of thousands of people immediately—so I tell myself when I translate, to quiet my fears—they will be in the libraries. I once met someone who, on hearing I was a Slavics professor, told me he had just taken a great novel out of the library, by the Serb, Crnjanski: Migrations. He wanted to know if I had read it, and if I hadn’t that I should. You can’t imagine how happy it made me. Or I might see someone on an airplane reading a book I have translated. I’m moved. It’s not every day, but still, it’s happened a few times. Even if the novels sell poorly (an average print run is no more than two thousand, in a country as large as the U.S.), I don’t think this matters. There will always be that loyal “gang,” people who aren’t even aware how exceptional they are. I do what I do for these people. I know that it is important for them to read Hrabal, Esterházy, Ugrešić, Kiš, or Crnjanski.
Adriana Babeţi: How many books from this part of Europe have you translated?
Michael Heim: I couldn’t tell you unless I went home and counted. I haven’t kept track. Over twenty, I think. But I’ve also translated from Russian. A different cultural area.
Adriana Babeţi: Of all Central European authors translated, who are the best known in the United States?
Michael Heim: Kundera, Kundera, Kundera. By far. All intellectuals have heard of him. Whether they’ve read him is a different story. But they enjoy playing with the title of his best-known novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, going on about the unbearable lightness of this and the unbearable lightness of that. I laugh when I run across newspaper headlines adopting the formulation. The editor who commissioned me to do the translation first heard the title over a bad transatlantic phone connection from Kundera in French. All he could make out was that it consisted of three abstract words. I realized a title consisting of “three abstract words” would be a hard sell in the US but was surprised the initial opposition to a literal translation came from Kundera himself. “I realize that for you Americans the title will be a bit hard-going,” he told the editor, “so we can try something else.” And he suggested one of the chapter titles: “Karenin’s Smile.” I protested. “We’re not children,” I told the editor. “If The Unbearable Lightness of Being is the title, so be it.” And so it stayed. I’m glad I pushed for it. Even the film based on the book adopted it. Unfortunately, the film, though a box-office success, failed to take advantage of the cinematic structure inherent in the novel.
Cornel Ungureanu: How would you describe Kundera’s relationship with the Czech spirit?
Michael Heim: Kundera now calls himself a “European writer.” And that’s what he is. He wrote his last two books directly in French. But for me, he is still a Czech writer. And he is extremely conscious of his roots. He wrote a study of Vladislav Vančura, a great Czech novelist, unknown abroad, because he is very hard to translate. His material is very Czech. Maybe one day I’ll attempt a translation.
Cornel Ungureanu: Czech writers have a strong relationship with Czech directors . . .
Michael Heim: Yes, Kundera himself didn’t teach at a school of letters, but at the well-known Prague film school. He taught French literature there. Film is extremely important in this relationship. It has helped me personally to promote Czech literature in the American market. Czech culture had already impacted the public through Menzel or Forman. I remember the Oscar for Menzel’s film Closely Watched Trains. Because of it, I was able to win the battle for the novel on which it’s based. Also important were the events of 1968.
Cornel Ungureanu: Is that when you met Hrabal?
Michael Heim: No. I met him in 1965 when I was in Czechoslovakia and he was introduced to me as the most important living Czech author. I’d like to go back for a moment to Kundera’s Czech roots. In that study of Vančura, Kundera also admits he owes a great deal to Čapek. Whoever has read The Joke can see it. Čapek argues in most of his novels, including An Ordinary Life, that there are no mediocre, banal, indistinguishable lives, that each one has its own purposeful biography, and thus its own point of view, its personal vision.
Cornel Ungureanu: How did Hrabal strike you then, in 1965?
Michael Heim: He was my true introduction to Central European literature. Through him, I discovered a completely new universe. In my opinion, Hrabal is the incarnation of Central Europe. Because his works have all the major themes of this area, but not in an elevated, highbrow way—quite the opposite. Everything Hrabal does is extremely popular, but it is clear also that he is a very cultivated person. He knows German literature and philosophy very well, especially Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and even Hegel.
Daciana Branea: Which Central European literature is the best known in the U.S.?
Michael Heim: Certainly Czech literature, because of Kundera.
Daciana Branea: Was his article, “The Tragedy of Central Europe,” as important as they say?
Michael Heim: It was extremely important, only because it came after Kundera was already celebrated as an author. Kundera became known in the States as a writer first, for The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, at the beginning of the ’80s.
“The Tragedy of Central Europe” was an important explanation of “the other Europe.” Earlier, Philip Roth had started a series of translations from Central European literatures, called “Writers from the Other Europe.” This became the place to go to find all these authors. You, an ordinary American reader, not knowing which books to choose, you could let Roth judge for you. He could be your guide . . . and so he was for many people. And his name was on the cover of every book, printed just as large as the name of the author. I’m sure the publishers did this on purpose, because they knew it was much more likely that the American reader would buy a book with Philip Roth’s name on the cover than one with a name no one could pronounce and no one had seen before.
Daciana Branea: You were saying that Czechoslovakia enticed you because you had heard so much about its beautiful women. Were you disappointed?
Michael Heim: I came to Czechoslovakia for the first time in the summer of 1965. I was 22, and the quality to which you refer was very important . . . and I was completely satisfied [laughter] . . . by what I found. I don’t mean only the women, but everyone my age. I learned something that surprised me about myself: they taught me how “American” I was.
I had been in the Soviet Union three years before. This was 1962, my first trip to Europe, and I was very naïve, in the best sense of the word. I didn’t have any preconceived ideas. I was simply horrified by all I found there: the lack of freedom, the fear . . . When I came to Czechoslovakia, everything was different. I met people my own age who knew how to stand up to the system, how to manage within it, and who were not at all afraid. They weren’t