The One Hundred Slavic Novels collection is nearing its destination – one hundred translations in seven countries. The most recent in the series is the Slovenian translation of Macedonian author Aleksandar Prokopiev’s novel Špegavec (Voyeur), the 96th title in the collection, translated by Robert Suša.
“Various characters, most of them only roughly sketched and accentuated with meagre details, overlap and merge in the narrative. One of the characters is the author, who is writing a story of a single, middle-aged man, who bored and dissatisfied with his life sets out on a neurotic ramble through his city (Skopje) and, hidden in its putrid transitional bowels melancholically reminisces on his childhood, lustfully absorbing the rare titillating scenes that alleviate his pain and disappointment. He pulls himself out of the abyss of despondency by erecting his own minimundus of imaginary freedom and tiny pleasures, more or less erotic,” commented the author of the postface Namita Subiotto.
Aleksander Prokopiev is one of Macedonia’s most exciting contemporary prose writers, who pursues literature also as an academic and lecturer. When he joined the literary scene in the 1980s, he expressed his poetics in the following terms: “Literature should be fed with photography, film, comic novels, rock music, television.” This has remained his credo to this day. Špegavec is his first and only novel so far – yet another reason to check it out.
