Translated from Macedonian by Ljubica Arsovska and Patricia Marsh
You, who were so alive,
why did you, despite my will,
move to the world of the dead?
In time
my wife stopped loving me,
my child hugging me,
my dog fawning on me,
my neighbour greeting me,
my brother visiting me,
my sister calling me,
my friend understanding me,
my fatherland respecting me,
my freedom delighting me,
You answering my prayers.
For a while
I went on loving my wife,
hugging my child,
patting my dog,
greeting my neighbour,
visiting my brother,
calling my sister,
understanding my friend
respecting my fatherland,
delighting in my freedom,
praying to You.
But after a while I, too,
stopped loving my wife,
hugging my child,
patting my dog,
greeting my neighbour,
visiting my brother,
calling my sister,
understanding my friend
respecting my fatherland,
enjoying my freedom,
praying to You.
My world and your world
were divided by a tombstone.
Under it now and then I sense
someone up there sobbing, lighting a candle for me,
but I don’t know which one of you it is.
Lidija Dimkovska (b.1971, Skopje, Macedonia) has published six books of poetry, three novels, one American diary and one short story collection awarded and translated in more than 20 languages. Her first collection of poetry English Do Not Awaken Them with Hammers was published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2006. Her second collection pH Neutral History (short-listed for the Best Translated Book Award 2013) was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012, and in 2016 Two Lines Press published her novel A Spare Life (long-listed for the Best Translated Book Award 2017).
Ljubica Arsovska is editor-in-chief of the long-established Skopje cultural magazine Kulturen Život and a distinguished literary translator from English into Macedonian, and vice versa. Her translations from English into Macedonian include books by Isaiah Berlin, Toni Morrison, Susan Sontag, and plays of Lope De Vega, Harold Pinter, and Tennessee Williams. Her translations from Macedonian into English include works by Lidija Dimkovska, Dejan Dukovski, Tomislav Osmanli, Ilija Petrushevski, Sotir Golabovski, among others.
Patricia Marsh is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, author of The Scribe of the Soul and The Enigma of the Margate Shell Grotto, and translator of a number of plays and poems from Macedonian into English. She lectured in English at the University of Skopje for a long period before returning to live and work in the UK in 1992.
