Jozef Ignác Bajza, René, or: A Young Man?s Adventures and Experiences 2025

This volume marks the first translation into another language of the first Slovak novel, René, or: A Young Man?s Adventures and Experiences, published in 1783-1785. Written at a time when the Slovaks lived under the double domination of the Hungarian Kingdom and the Habsburg Monarchy, the story, and accompanying commentary, shed light on the variations of the Enlightenment Bildungsroman in minor European languages.

René and his companion are curious anthropologists studying the cultures of various societies. Their interrogation of social custom, class system, religious practice and ecclesiastical authority reflects Bajza?s belief in the power of critical examination to better the world. Their journeys from Venice to the Middle East, Austria and Upper Hungary measure the distance between ?civilization? and ?barbarity? and allow the author to deliver stinging criticism of his own society.

The novel?s familiar landscape, echoing Voltaire, Montesquieu, Wieland or Johnson, place it among the classics of the Age of Enlightenment. At the same time, the book documents the particular challenges faced by the Central European Enlightenment intellectuals, opening a window into the process of self-definition of the smaller European nations. The introduction and concluding studies explore the specificities of Catholic Enlightenment in the work of Bajza (c.1754?1836) and his Hungarian contemporary György Bessenyei (1747?1811), as seen in their preoccupation with ideal governance, religion, vernacular languages and education, as well as the themes of travel, orientalism, scientific knowledge, the rational subject and individual freedom.

Translated by David Short, a prize-winning translator from Czech and Slovak with a career of over 50 years. From 1973 to 2011 he taught at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of London. His translations include works by such writers as Bohumil Hrabal, Karel Čapek and Vítězslav Nezval, as well as academic works in the fields of art, literature, linguistics and semantics.

?This lively translation of Histoire du n?gre (Tale of Black Histories) smartly recognizes and celebrates Édouard Glissant?s early cultural activism. The translators/editors, Emily Sahakian and Andrew Daily, assert convincingly that Glissant?s commitment to a pedagogical theatre not only informs his later theorization of the Caribbean condition but also addresses oppression wherever it occurs. Histoire du n?gre (1971) - a collective assemblage born of Glissant?s overarching educational project at his Institute for Martinican Studies - revisits official French ?History? by juxtaposing opposing texts. He thus creates a dialogue that exposes the horrors and hypocrisy of colonialism. As Sahakian and Daily tell us, the resulting ?histories? demonstrate how colonial power twists the truth but also how anti-colonial artists uncoil it, bringing to consciousness that which has been veiled. In their wonderfully informative introduction and notes, Sahakian and Daily explain the stakes of doing this kind of theatre work in Martinique, as well as the potential for reprising and reframing Tale of Black Histories for contemporary Anglophone production (which, in fact, Sahakian has done with several groups of students). Those interested in translation will learn a great deal from examining how the French text, included in this volume, has been transformed for production in English. Scholars of Glissant will marvel at how his gang of theatrical mavericks engaged with popular audiences in impromptu and participatory gatherings.? Judith G. Miller, New York University