Posted
May 4th, 2011
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The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi
Translated from the French by Polly McLean
A young woman sits at her husband’s bedside, twisting her worry beads, reciting prayers. Shot in the neck by a fellow soldier, he is in a coma. She cares for him, changes his drip and puts drops in his eyes, all the while unburdening herself of the truth about her feelings toward him. Empowered by her husband’s silence she steps out of the shadows of repression and begins an astonishing confessional. As her mind appears to unravel, she becomes intensely clear-sighted. Thus her husband becomes her “Sang-e Saboor,” a mythical stone that according to Persian folklore absorbs the pain of those who confide in it, until it eventually explodes.
Published by Chatto & Windus, 2010
Atiq Rahimi was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1962. His mother was a teacher, and his father was a provincial governor under the monarchy of Zahir Shah. After the coup of 1973, however, the king was overthrown and Afghanistan was declared a republic. Rahimi’s family went into exile, and after studying at the Franco-Afghan lycée, he joined his father in Bombay. In 1979, he returned to Afghanistan to read literature at the University of Kabul, and worked as a cinema critic.
In 1984, he relocated to Pakistan for a brief period, before seeking political asylum in France. He completed his PhD in audio-visual communications at the Sorbonne, and began writing Earth and Ashes in 1996. After 18 years in exile, Atiq Rahimi returned in February 2002 to Afghanistan and helped establish an Afghan writers’ centre in Kabul, with the assistance of the French government.
Rahimi is the recipient of a number of prestigious literary and film awards. In 2004, he won the Prix du Regard vers l’Avenir at the Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Dhow award for Best Feature Film at the Zanzibar International Film Festival for his film version of Earth and Ashes. In 2008, he was awarded the Prix Goncourt for Stone of Patience – France’s highest literary honour.
Polly McLean is a freelance translator born in South Africa, who grew up in Paris and is now based in Oxford. Previous translations include titles by Catherine Deneuve and Sylvia Kristel (star of the Emmanuelle films) as well as the award-winning Secret by Philippe Grimbert. She is also a founding Director of The Funding Network, established in 2008.
Originally posted with the url: www.englishpen.org/writersintranslation/recentlysupportedtitles/thepatiencestone/
