Wilimowski (novel)
Wilimowski (2016) is a novel by the Bosnian writer Miljenko Jergović , the first printed edition of which is his Polish translation. The title refers to the German-Polish national football team Ernst Willimowski whose name in Polish with only one L is written.
content
In the early summer of 1938, the Krakow physics professor Tomasz Mieroszewski traveled to the Dalmatian Adriatic coast with his son Dawid, who was suffering from osteoporosis , his tutor and a nurse . A promising therapy is said to have been developed there in a sanatorium. Dawid's mother, a “beautiful Jew”, died young, Mieroszewski mourns her. On the way to the coast, travelers spend the night in the north of what was then Yugoslavia in a small hotel that the inhabitants of the village call "German House" because the owner belongs to the German minority; her husband is Croatian.
Mieroszewski and his son listen to the broadcast of the round of 16 between Poland and Brazil at the 1938 World Cup in France on a Polish station on the radio that is part of their luggage and is equipped with a large antenna . Willimowski from Upper Silesia scores four goals for Poland, but the Brazilians win 6-5 after extra time. In the following nights Dawid sees Willimowski several times in dreams, who becomes the idol of the half paralyzed boy. In his dreams, Dawid can run and dribble as well as the goal scorer of the Polish national team. The conversations of the residents and guests of the “German House” do not revolve around football, but rather about friendship and enmity between peoples and the impending danger of war.
The final chapter shows that staying in the sanatorium did little to help Dawid. He and his father did not survive the war.
History of origin
Jergović, in his own words, began to be interested in Willimowski after reading as a football-loving child that he had accomplished the feat of scoring four goals in a game against Brazil. Since he was shaped by several cultures himself, he later became interested in people with similar double identities. For him, Willimowski's life path between Germany and Poland is typical of the fate of many cross-border commuters, as he got to know in the crumbled Yugoslavia.
The manuscript is written in Croatian , but initially no publisher could be found for a book edition. In 2012, several chapters from it were read out on the Serbian broadcaster RTS. In 2016 the novel was published entirely in Polish. The occasion was the 100th birthday of Willimowski, who was the most effective striker of both the Polish and German national teams based on the number of goals scored per game . Brigitte Döbert translated excerpts from the novel, two dream sequences of David, into German for the first time.
output
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Wilimowski . Zaprešić: Fraktura, 2016
- Wilimowski . Translated from Croatian by Magdalena Petryńska. Książkowe klimaty, Wroclaw 2016, ISBN 978-83-64887-45-1
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nie będę kibicował ustaszom kulturaliberalna.pl, July 5, 2016.
- ↑ "Wilimowski" Miljenko Jergovicia, czyli książka o piłkarzu, który przegrał for clear 5: 6 gazeta.pl , June 22, 2016th
- ↑ Miljenko Jergović: Wilimowski (roman) rts.rs, June 18, 2012
- ↑ Być jak Wilimowski polityka.pl , May 3, 2016.
- ↑ Miljenko Jergović / Brigitte Döbert: Wilimowski [excerpts] . In: Stephan Krause / Christian Lübke / Dirk Suckow (eds.): The east is a sphere. Football in the culture and history of Eastern Europe . Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-7307-0388-5 , p. 290-295 .