Khaled Khalifa 소설 "Death is Hard Work"

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Khaled Khalifa, "Death is Hard Work" (Arabic, 2016;

First  American Ed., 2019, translated by Leri Price )

 

시리아 내전이 배경으로 어두운 내용인데도 책을 놓기 어렵게

재밌게 읽힌다. 아랍어 원문의 영역이긴 하지만, 부드러운

문체 때문이기도 하겠다. 예를 들면:

 

"Simply put, he hadn't done anything; his existence was

tantamount to a vacuum. All he had done was observe

other people's lives and discover they were like him: a

collection of walking lumps taking up space, spending

their lives striving to negate death. They repeated the

same actions day in, day out, and when, like him, they

noticed that time was passing, they made some futile

gesture toward extricating themselves from their

addiction to daydreaming instead of living --

that ultimate human weakness." (p. 158)

 

줄거리와 작가에 대해서는 아래 서평과, 간략하게는,

책 겉표지 안쪽의 소개글에서:

 

뉴욕 타임즈 서평

 

 

책 겉표지 안쪽: 앞(위 사진)과 두(아래 사진)