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The Big Water (1971) - Simon - 12-16-2025
The Big Water is the first English language translation of the prize winning Macedonian novel, Golemata Voda, by author Zhivko Chingo.
Set in post-war Macedonia, it tells the stories of children orphaned by World War II and their lives in an orphanage. Full of characters and incidents, the book gives a child's view of life without parents that is both humorous and bleak and by its surprise ending, very powerful.
At a metaphoric level, the novel presents a strong critique of the authoritarianism of both institutional life and the Communist system, and their inability to reconcile with the needs and nature of the individual.
At the human level, The Big Water is a very positive and moving story of the emotional development of children, and of the fundamental and irreplaceable role of the mother. Readers will remember this story and its climax long after they have finished the book.
The translator, Sydney lawyer Elizabeth Kolupacev Stewart, has previously translated another prize winning Macedonian novel, Black Seed (Crno Seme) by Tashko Georgievski. Both translations are notarble for being true to the authors' direct, poetic and very readable narratives.
Quote: To my mother Verga
Deciding to tell you about Isaac, the son of Kejtin, has brought back to me such beautiful, delicate and unforgettable memories, such pure and bright moments I don’t think I’ll ever forget. I am so proud when I think of the son of Kejtin, proud as Jesus Christ himself. But I only want to relate to you those hours in the Home, just the cursed hours we passed until we reached the Senterlev mountain. That was a mysterious mountain, the Senterlev. They said that was the mountain the sun was born from; impossible, the mountain from which the sun is born. Does anyone know a similar place, such a mountain from which the sun is born? I do not believe, you know, that the Senterlev mountain was the only such mountain. There must have been some unspoken thing in that; but not even the Headmaster, our dear fatherly Headmaster, Ariton Jakovleski, knew it to be the truth. Whatever it was, one thing became certain — the road to the Senterlev mountain was horribly steep, like the road into hell. And all we had to do was go along the road — curse me — and now, I do not know from where I got all the strength, will power and courage for such a horrible, difficult road. At the beginning I will just say this: the passion for life and freedom was many times greater, a thousand times greater, a million times greater, an infinite amount greater. Curse me if it did not keep us going, kept us from being afraid of the dreadful punishments. Oh, eternal sweet dream. Curse me, it was the voice of the Big Water.