The Galley Slave
Drago Jancar(Author)
Dalkey Archive Press
Book
Paperback/Softback
376 pages
978-1-62897-569-7 (ISBN)
Description
The Galley Slave is a tour de force of historical fiction centered on the misadventures of an Everyman of indeterminate origins named Johan Ot, who is part picaresque anti-hero, part Josef K.
"Jancar's 1978 novel (part of Dalkey Archive's Slovenian Literature series) is a vivid, dense, atmospheric tale set in the brutal medieval age of the Inquisition. A hapless stranger in a nameless land flees before the "plague commissars," who put up roadblocks and interrogate travelers, compel him to take refuge in a town where it seems that his every move is being watched. The land is overrun by forces of suspicion and terror, and the stranger, Johan Ot, is likely hiding some darkness from his own past, revealed in nocturnal ravings that alert the neighbors to a guilty conscience-or an inner demon.
'Darkness and flames and blood everywhere, with people always concealing evil intentions,' Jancar narrates in the foreboding voice of the omniscient moral police. The net of the Inquisition tightens: Ot is captured, interrogated, and brutally tortured until he confesses to having 'some sort of devil... in me.' Excommunicated from the Church, he vanishes, or is perhaps spirited away by an underground apostate brotherhood, resurfacing amid renegades plotting to bring down the 'snot-nosed little emperor,' Leopold. Yet the doomed Ot is again captured and sentenced to become a galley slave 'for the rest of his natural life.' Jancar depicts the insidious gloom of this society with the intimacy of someone acutely aware of how the repressive tentacles of an authoritarian regime can rob individuals of their destiny." -Publishers Weekly
"Jancar's 1978 novel (part of Dalkey Archive's Slovenian Literature series) is a vivid, dense, atmospheric tale set in the brutal medieval age of the Inquisition. A hapless stranger in a nameless land flees before the "plague commissars," who put up roadblocks and interrogate travelers, compel him to take refuge in a town where it seems that his every move is being watched. The land is overrun by forces of suspicion and terror, and the stranger, Johan Ot, is likely hiding some darkness from his own past, revealed in nocturnal ravings that alert the neighbors to a guilty conscience-or an inner demon.
'Darkness and flames and blood everywhere, with people always concealing evil intentions,' Jancar narrates in the foreboding voice of the omniscient moral police. The net of the Inquisition tightens: Ot is captured, interrogated, and brutally tortured until he confesses to having 'some sort of devil... in me.' Excommunicated from the Church, he vanishes, or is perhaps spirited away by an underground apostate brotherhood, resurfacing amid renegades plotting to bring down the 'snot-nosed little emperor,' Leopold. Yet the doomed Ot is again captured and sentenced to become a galley slave 'for the rest of his natural life.' Jancar depicts the insidious gloom of this society with the intimacy of someone acutely aware of how the repressive tentacles of an authoritarian regime can rob individuals of their destiny." -Publishers Weekly
Reviews / Votes
"[A] phantasmagoric intellectual thriller." -John K. Cox"Jancar, one of Slovenia's foremost writers, skillfully infuses even the most mundane events with foreboding, dread, and paranoia." -Publishers Weekly
"Drago Jancar is unquestionably Slovenia's most accomplished prose writer." -Andrew Wachtel
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Normal, IL
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 215 mm
Width: 139 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-62897-569-7 (9781628975697)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Drago Jancar was born in 1948 in Maribor, Slovenia, and is one of the best-known Slovenian writers at home and abroad. After studying law, he worked as a journalist, an editor, and a freelance writer, and traveled to both the U.S. and Germany. In 1993, he re- ceived the highest Slovenian literary award, the Preseren Prize, for his lifetime achievement, and in 2009 he was awarded the Premio Hemingway. His novels include Northern Lights and Mocking Desire. He lives in Ljubljana.
Michael Biggins's other translations of Slovenian literature include the novels Northern Lights and Mocking Desire by Drago Jancar, Boris Pahor's Necropolis, Vladimir Bartol's Alamut, and several collections of poetry by Tomaz Salamun. He teaches Russian and Slovenian languages and curates the Slavic and Baltic library collections at the University of Washington in Seattle
Michael Biggins's other translations of Slovenian literature include the novels Northern Lights and Mocking Desire by Drago Jancar, Boris Pahor's Necropolis, Vladimir Bartol's Alamut, and several collections of poetry by Tomaz Salamun. He teaches Russian and Slovenian languages and curates the Slavic and Baltic library collections at the University of Washington in Seattle