Kolia (12 page)

AUTHOR'S NOTE

THE IDEA FOR
KOLIA
came to me while watching a street magician pick pockets outside an Orthodox church in Bucharest, during a trip to Romania in 2004.

I have never actually stepped foot inside the former USSR, but I have been interested in Russia since my adolescence and the fall of the Soviet Bloc. While
Kolia
is set among real historical events, I have taken liberties with some of the conventions of the circus and certain aspects of Soviet life.

Rather than relying on the powerful Gulag narratives of
Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov, my research focused on historical documents, eye witness accounts, and reference materials, including Anne Applebaum's
Gulag: A History
(New York: Doubleday, 2003), and documentation from Amnesty International on prison conditions in Russia prior to the amendment of the Penal Code in 2002.

Henri Cartier-Bresson's photographs of Moscow taken in 1954 (
Moscou vu par Henri
Cartier-Bresson
. Paris: Éditions Delpire Éditeur, 1955), and those taken by Carl de Keyzer for his book
Zona: Siberian Prison Camps
(London: Trolley Books, 2003), were both inspiring to me, particularly in the evocative faces of their subjects, which peer out of the carefully staged photographs.

It was thanks to Philippe Petit's book on tightrope walking,
Traité du funambulisme
(Arles: Actes Sud, 1997; preface by Paul Auster) that I learned that the solid core of the ropes and cables used by high-wire artists is referred to as “the soul.” I also drew on Philippe Petit's book on the art of the pickpocket (
L'art du pickpocket: précis du vol à la tire
. Arles: Actes Sud, 2006; preface by Howard Buten).

The characters of Kolia, Bounine, Pavel, and Yulia are based loosely on the celebrated clowns Karandash, Oleg Popov, Yuri Nikulin, and Annie Fratellini.

The line of poetry that Kolia quotes in his letter to Tanya is derived from Mayakovsky's poem “Back Home” (1925) and its famous missing line, which was edited out of later versions thanks to the influence of Osip Brik (cf. Roman Jakobson,
La génération qui a gaspillé ses poètes
. Paris: Éditions Allia, 2001, pp. 54–55).

My thanks to Luana and Oliver.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

LITERARY TRANSLATION IS AT ITS
heart a collaboration and I would like to thank those who played a role in bringing this translation to life — my editors Kelly Joseph, Allyson Latta, and Aude Tékéli for the sensitivity and diligence they brought to bear on the text and, of course, Perrine Leblanc for keeping the faith and trusting in the process.

I would also like to extend a special thanks to Donald Winkler and Sheila Fischman for welcoming me into the fold with such generosity.

And finally my heartfelt gratitude goes to Radosveta Vucheva, to whom this translation is dedicated.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PERRINE LEBLANC
was born in Montreal in 1980. Her first novel, published under the title
L'homme blanc
in Quebec and
Kolia
in France, won the Governor General's Literary Award for French Fiction, Quebec's “Canada Reads” competition, and the Grand prix du livre de Montréal and was longlisted for
Elle
magazine's Grand Prix. She lives in Montreal, Quebec.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

DAVID SCOTT HAMILTON
was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1957.
Exit
, his translation of
Paradis, clef en main
by Nelly Arcan, was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation
and named a
Globe and Mail
Top 100 Book. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

HOUSE OF ANANSI PRESS
was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi's commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada's pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as “Publisher of the Year.”