Rumena Buzarofska
My husband
transl.: Alexandra Ioannidou
ed.. Gutenberg, p. 192.

The heroines of Buzarovskaya are full: life, husbands, children, colleagues. Even from themselves, who endure what they endure.

A collection of short stories by Rumena Bujarovska (Rumena Bujarovska, professor of literature, translator and writer, born in 1981 in North Macedonia), released last December by Gutenberg, has the general title “My Man”, because in all the stories the main characters are married and, one way or another, although no one is “good” to them, live in the shadow of their husband, next to him, carved and sculpted from his side, sometimes boring and meaningless, and sometimes cruel and painful, in eternal mourning, boiling in their chest. Here we are dealing with genuine, raw, intelligent, witty and spartan women’s literature, modern through and through, stylish and full of life. Not “feminist” literature or, in other words, “military” literature, but bold, heartbreaking in its honesty, melancholic, liberating, often frightening or even violent, and ultimately subversive. Buzarovskaya describes modern women and their men around her, bourgeois women and bourgeois men of her country, her city, but, of course, she is talking about all women and all men – and about us. The similarities we will discover in our own lives are enormous. Her characters are usually wives and “housewives” who are trapped in a relationship that suffocates them, that they can no longer tolerate, and who have the courage to admit it and speak it out, even if it’s harsh or even from the inside. Their men – the author has a unique way of observing the world, sometimes it even seems that he is spying on us and making notes – unfair, manipulative, boring, “in his own world”, flabby when not cruel, selfish and blind. You’re cute here and there, but nothing more or more important than that. Because they cannot and cannot be better. The short stories, written in beautiful, fast prose, a stunning denunciation of patriarchy, describe everyday life as it is, without the slightest embellishment, but without giving either praise or curses, as most of their readers would probably expect. Buzarovskaya’s imperfect heroines are not “good” or “holy” per se, although they do deserve canonization in the end. Because at least they testified. And they are still testifying. They live their heavy stories, they are trapped in them, and they are overwhelmed: life, husbands, children, colleagues, everything. Even from themselves, who endure what they endure.

Lonely, deceived, mother, widow, abandoned, mistress

But let’s see, one by one, the eleven stories in the volume:

“My husband is a poet.” A portrait of a poet (bad but mostly brash) by his wife who knows exactly who he was once when they first met and who her husband is now, how much she missed him then and how much she hates him now . And how much he endures to pass the time, and because he does not know or does not want to do anything else.

“Soup”. Master story. The day after her husband’s funeral, the main character stays at home alone and receives two visits in a row: first from a friend and then from her mother. She wants to be alone with her thoughts about the past, but she can’t get them out. However, especially the second visit will make her weep bitterly.

“Adulterer”. The story begins with the phrase “My man has a mistress” and for 22 pages describes the heroine’s attempts to catch him at the scene of the crime, or at least confess to her and part with the “other”. However, it is terribly hard for her, much more than she could imagine. So he decides to take more drastic measures, and the shovel…

“Genes”. One of three stories in a collection dedicated to children. In it, the main character talks about her son Neno, a strange, withdrawn, bad boy with a penchant for stealing. In fact, when he grows up, he will also hit an Albanian-speaking minority classmate. Her husband thinks it’s “her kind” genes that weren’t as cool as his. But maybe things are different.

“Nectar”. A story related to the first one, since here is the arrogant husband of the main character, a gynecologist by profession, a self-taught artist – and a very bad one, although he himself does not see it at all. She again, locked up at home with her children, finds refuge in poetry. Something her husband would never appreciate.

“Empty nest”. Here the main character herself is a self-taught artist, a nurse and, by the way, the wife of a doctor who will be tested to the limit when she takes in her niece, who is studying at the School of Fine Arts. She loves to draw flowers in her garden, but her niece cannot see them, although she never tells her about it. The end of the story is chilling.

“Man of Habit” In the previous novel, the main characters drink a lot. And they drink to it. The heroine here is a foreigner, the ambassador’s wife. Her relationship with her husband is not the best, and the local lover, the actor, is also “shared”, as he is extremely attractive and in demand by many. And she accepts it.

“Father”. The second story in the children’s collection. Here Lucas, the son of the heroine, is terribly naughty and noisy. From a young age, he always made a fuss, with everything that came to hand, making his mother’s life hell. In fact, he always had the naive support and encouragement of his father. But everything will be changed, and in a way that the reader does not expect.

“Saturday, five o’clock in the afternoon.” Unexpected art. A portrait of a seemingly perfect and perfectly matched couple, albeit quirky because of an old-fashioned husband, who nevertheless hides a lot, and real, madness. Only five pages, from which even a whole film could have turned out.

“Lily.” Third story with children. The main character is one of the prettiest characters in the book. Her daughter, Lily, is again a quiet, heavy, unusual child, whom her mother tries to love, locking herself, like her, all day in her house. Her husband adores Lily as much as he hates his mother-in-law, who lives in poverty in the countryside and forbids his wife to visit her. But she will do it in secret, with dire consequences.

“March 8”. The longest story in the collection and the most “different”. Here one gets the impression that Buzarovskaya not only enjoys what she tells, but is more passionate about her story and the emotions of her heroine than in all other short stories in the book. In addition, this novella is really hilarious – its drunken characters, who are trying to cheat on their husbands, give us thirty pages of unforgettable pantomime. We almost feel the need to ask a neighboring country writer for a much longer text in this style in order to get Philip Roth’s Balkan. We don’t know, because of course that would be explicit mansplaining: its definition.

The book is published in Gutenberg Publishing’s elegant Aldina Pocket Series, which features contemporary foreign novels. The translation of the Slavist, Associate Professor of the Department of Balkan Studies, Slavic and Oriental Studies at the University of Macedonia Alexandra Ioannidou, who also signs the informative introduction, is impeccable and often very enjoyable.