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Hill Country Russian
TRANSLATIONS
James Nelson
Russian
Specialist
Translator, Interpreter, Teacher
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My
name is James Nelson. I began studying Russian in 1960 as a military linguist
and have never stopped. I have about six years' residence in
We
can be contacted at hillcountryrussian@yahoo.com.
Infinity
Publishing has published the following of my translations, a thousand-word
excerpt from each of which and purchase information about which may be found at
www.buybooksontheweb.com by
entering either the title or the author's name at that site's search window:
The Mystery of Genghis Khan: A Historical Novel, Books One and Two, and The Mystery of Genghis Khan: A Historical Novel, Books Three and Four by Wladimir Secinski are available in hard copy and as eBooks (Amazon Kindle and other formats). Buy now
In these books Mr. Secinski proposes answers to the question: How did a
small band of seemingly backward people conquer most of the known world of
their time? Mongol success rested on the lifestyle developed in the harsh
conditions of the steppe combined with the most advanced practices of the
Chinese, and on two outstanding personalities: Genghis Khan himself and his
Chinese advisor Yeh-liu Chu-tsai. The novel combines history, ethnography, and
political, economic, and military theory with the human factor: greed and lust,
generosity and love, ambition and selflessness.
The Afghans: A Novella of
Soviet Soldiers in Afghanistan, by Vladimir Rybakov (penname of Wladimir Secinski).
In the late summer of 1987, rumor
had it the Soviet army was about to leave Afghanistan. Senior Lieutenant Borisov didn't believe the rumor and wangled an
assignment to Afghanistan. Borisov believed in his country's mission in
Creature: A French-Russian
Thriller, by Vladimir Rybakov.
André runs a small firm in
Stop
Being Surprised! Vignettes from Soviet Literary and Other Life, by noted
Russian critic Benedikt Sarnov.
Most
of the vignettes are one, two, or three pages long; a few are longer. All are
written in an easy conversational style. Most are wryly humorous, but some are
tragic. Topics range from the absurdities of the Soviet economic system to the
oddities and travails of cultural and scientific figures, from the difficulties
of everyday life to the horrors visited upon innocent people. Sarnov is Jewish,
and the consequences of being a Jew in the
Night
Wolves, by the popular Russian crime novel author Friedrich Neznansky.
Someone is staging spectacular armed
robberies of bank armored cars in
Infinity Publishing has also published my own Bosnia Journal: An American Civilian's Account of His Service with the
1st Armored Division and the Russian Brigade in Bosnia.
The
1st Armored Division formed the core of Multinational Division North
to keep the peace in
Ready
for publication but so far without a publisher is The Steel King by Russian journalist and novelist Yulia Latynina.
Yulia Latynina does "ripped from the headlines" fiction, her
purpose being to illuminate post-Soviet
Her books should appeal to those who
are interested in
Ms. Latynina has attracted a certain
amount of interest in the West. In particular, the New York Times published a flattering article about her in 2001 and
she has published in the Washington Post.
But so far, none of her books are available in English, and I am endeavoring to
rectify that, with the permission of her
The
Steel King is about a coal miners' strike in Siberia in the mid-1990s. The local steel king faces loss of his steel mill, which he
acquired by various machinations early in the decade, and he gets in bed with
local gangsters to force an end to the strike. The book is about how all that
plays out and also includes a love story and one honest man. My translation of The Steel King is ready for publication
now. The word count is approximately 85,000.
Land of War is about the troubles in the North
Caucasus and in particular on the Chechnya-Dagestan border, which continue to
this day, although for the author to make it possible to generalize somewhat,
she calls Dagestan the Republic of Northern Avaria-Dargo. The violence
described in the book is extreme. Ms. Latynina also details the kleptocracy
that has developed in the region. The picture she paints of Russian officials,
with one exception, is not very flattering, either. The word count is 194,000.