Rok trajanja | Babelica

Glavni lik nima imena. Ima pa zato nekoliko nenavadno službo in tudi precej neobičajen pristop do nje. Je paliativni oskrbovalec, ki učinkovito, morda še preveč, skrbi za umirajoče. Da bi ublažil tesnobo, ki ga obhaja med delom in še zlasti po njem, piše dnevnik. In da ne bi pozabil. Ko ima delo, ko torej ljudje ob njem umirajo, je videti, da ima stvari bolj ali manj pod nadzorom. Ko ga nima, se zdi, da se mu počasi podira svet. Njegova ustaljena srečanja s pivskimi tovariši in partnerko Katarino postajajo vse krajša. Beži, do onemoglosti bezlja naokoli ali se kje skriva. Vse bolj obupan je, ko išče alibi za svoja zločinska dejanja, ki to morda niso, in vse bolj osamljen, ko inkriminira prijatelje, ki to morda so. V oskrbovalčev preganjavični notranji svet so tako spretno všita vprašanja smrti, samomora, umora, evtanazije, krivde ... To nenavadno delo, ki opisuje podrobnosti smrti in umiranja, hkrati pa se osredotoča na drsenje prvoosebnega pripovedovalca v norost, je, kot je zapisal literarni kritik Matej Bogataj, nadvse artikuliran roman, ki ga po slogu lahko uvrstimo v območje med Kovačičevim romanom Deček in smrt in Robbe-Grilletovim Voyeurjem ter Beckettovimi junaki.

Gašper Kralj (1974) je pisatelj in prevajalec, rojen v Ljubljani. Dejaven je bil v aktivističnih gibanjih, tako v Sloveniji kot v Mehiki in Gvatemali, kjer je opravil tudi raziskavo za doktorsko disertacijo iz socialne antropologije. Delo je izšlo kot monografija Izginuli in vrnjeni (Založba /cf., 2008). Za nekaj let se je ustalil v Kataloniji – kjer občasno še vedno živi –, tam prevajal špansko pišoče avtorje (Javier Cercas, Eduardo Galeano, Ernesto Sábato, Carlos G. Villa), se ukvarjal z raziskovanjem sodobne književnosti in snovanjem romana Rok trajanja (Založba /cf., 2016), s katerim se je uvrstil med nominirance za najboljši literarni prvenec in med finaliste za kresnika. Knjiga je izšla v madžarščini (Használati idő, prev. Emese Rajsli, Forum, 2021) in nemščini (Ablaufdatum, prev. Alexander Rath, Društvo slovenskih pisateljev, 2023). Za svoj drugi roman Škrbine (Založba /cf., 2020) je leta 2021 prejel Cankarjevo nagrado za najboljše izvirno literarno delo, z njim pa se je uvrstil tudi v ožji izbor za nagrado Evropske unije za književnost (EUPL) in ponovno med kresnikove finaliste. Škrbine so izšle v nemškem prevodu (Splitter eines Lebens, prev. Felix Mayer in Jernej Biščak, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2023). S soprevajalko Tino Malič je bil dvakrat nominiran za nagrado esAsi, in sicer za prevod romana Vojaki Salamine Javierja Cercasa (Založba /cf., 2013) ter dela Otroci dni Eduarda Galeana (Sanje, 2014).

The protagonist has no name. What he does have, however, is a somewhat unusual job – and a rather uncommon approach to it as well. He is a palliative caregiver, who efficiently – perhaps even too efficiently – looks after the dying. He writes a diary to alleviate the anxiety that he experiences at work and, especially, after work. And to avoid forgetting. When he has work – that is, when people around him are dying – he seems to have things more or less under control. When he has no work, his world seems to be slowly falling apart. His habitual meetings with his drinking buddies and his partner Katarina are becoming increasingly short. He is running away, running around to the point of exhaustion, or hiding somewhere. He is increasingly desperate trying to find an alibi for his criminal acts, which may or may not be that, and getting increasingly lonelier trying to incriminate his friends, who might be precisely that. Questions of death, suicide, homicide, euthanasia and guilt are thus skilfully sutured into the caregiver’s paranoid inner world. As the esteemed literary critic Matej Bogataj wrote, this extraordinary work, which describes the details of death and dying while focusing on the downward slide of its first-person narrator into madness, is a highly articulate novel, whose style places it somewhere between Kovačič’s novel Deček in smrt (A Boy and Death, 1968), Robbe-Grillet’s Voyeur and Beckett’s characters.

Gašper Kralj (1974) is a writer and translator, born in Ljubljana. He has been involved in activist movements in Slovenia as well as in Mexico and Guatemala, where he also conducted research for his doctoral dissertation in social anthropology. The work was published as a monograph Izginuli in vrnjeni [The Disappeared and the Returned] (Založba /cf., 2008). He settled in Catalonia for several years—where he still occasionally lives—and translated Spanish-language authors (Javier Cercas, Eduardo Galeano, Ernesto Sábato, Carlos G. Villa), explored contemporary literature and worked on his first novel Rok trajanja [Expiry Date] (Založba /cf., 2016), for which he was nominated for the best literary debut and was among the finalists for the Kresnik Award for the best novel. The book was published in Hungarian (Használati idő, transl. Emese Rajsli, Forum, 2021) and in German (Ablaufdatum, transl. Alexander Rath, Društvo slovenskih pisateljev, 2023). For his second novel, Škrbine [Stubs] (Založba /cf., 2020), Kralj received the 2021 Cankar Award for the best original literary work published in Slovenian language. The novel was also shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL) and was a finalist for the Kresnik Award. Škrbine was also published in German (Splitter eines Lebens, transl. Felix Mayer and Jernej Biščak, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 2023). With co-translator Tina Malič, he has been nominated twice for the esAsi Award, for their translations of Javier Cercas’s Soldiers of Salamis (Vojaki Salamine, Založba /cf., 2013) and Eduardo Galeano’s Children of the Days (Otroci dni, Sanje, 2014).