Border State
by Tõnu Õnnepalu
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Description
Winner of the 1993 Baltic Assembly Prize An immediate sensation upon its 1993 publication in Europe, already translated into more than a dozen languages, Border State is a brilliantly realized account of a man in the grip of Western excess, emotionally crippled by a world that is subsuming his own and inhabiting a West in which "all countries have become imaginary deserts of ruins where crowds of nomads roam from one attraction to the other." His tale, in which disillusion and murder become show more inextricably linked, is a compelling exploration of scarcity, longing, and madness. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This book was actually read for an Estonian culture/history class I was taking at college.
This book was actually read for an Estonian culture/history class I was taking at college.
This book was actually read for an Estonian culture/history class I was taking at college.
I once saw the words "border state" in a newspaper. That was how they labeled the country from which I came. It was a political term. Very appropriate, by the way. A border state is nonexistent. There is something on one side and something on the other side of the border, but there is no border. There is a highway, and a field of gratin with a farmhouse under tall, thirsty trees, but where is the border between them? It's invisible. And if you should happen to stand on the border, then you too are invisible, from either side.
"Quando vien fuori che sei dell’Europa dell’Est ti guardano con compassione e dicono una frase fatta, come se parlassero con il congiunto di uno appena morto", così Emil Tode, pseudonimo di Tõnu Õnnepalu, ci parla di appartenenza, di sdradicamento, di esilio. Il giovane traduttore estone, protagonista di questo romanzo scritto in forma epistolare, viaggia attraverso l'Europa e giunge a Parigi. Splendide descrizioni dei luoghi e dei sentimenti, toccanti gli eventi descritti e le memorie di infanzia attraverso le lettere che il giovane non ha mai spedite. Il rapporto inconciliabile tra est e ovest che il Baltico soffre da millenni è la riflessione profonda alla base di questo bellissimo romanzo.
Jan 29, 2017Italian
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Books written in uncommon languages
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34+ Works 269 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Border State
- Original title
- Piiririik
- Original publication date
- 1993
- Important places*
- Estland
- Original language
- Estonian
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 894.54533 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages Literatures of Altaic, Uralic, Hyperborean, Dravidian languages; literatures of miscellaneous languages of south Asia Finno-Ugric languages Finnic languages Estonian Estonian fiction 1991–
- LCC
- PH666.3 .O33 .P5513 — Language and Literature Uralic languages. Basque language Uralic. Basque Other Finnic languages and dialects Estonian
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 94
- Popularity
- 342,412
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.13)
- Languages
- 11 — Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian (Nynorsk), Norwegian, Swedish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 15
