Breaking the Silence: Pale Horse, Pale Rider in the Balkan Region

Abstract

Belonging to the "literary plague canon" (Cooke 2009: 8), K. A. Porter's novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider has recently found itself under the spotlight again. This is unsurprising considering the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and the fact that this work is a highly valued account of a survivor of this pandemic's devastating 20th-century counterpart: the Spanish flu. However, except for an article published in the Slovenian journal Delo in 2020, in former Yugoslavia currently there appear to be no voices about the work in the media. This does not mean that Pale Horse did not reach the region though, as the latter gained access to the novella through the 1968 Serbo-Croatian translation by Zora Minderović. Despite the reputation of the work as a superb literary achievement, along with sporadic English copies available in libraries, this translation was the only point of contact between the novella and the readers in the Balkan region. Over half-a-century later, the situation remains the same since the work has neither been re-translated nor has the existing translation been reprinted or published as a new edition. In this paper we pose some questions as to why Pale Horse, Pale Rider has been undeservedly neglected among the wider audience in the Balkans. Since the paper is part of a still ongoing wider research project, our aim is just to open some questions rather than offer any conclusive answers. Providing an account of the context of the translation, the paper thus focuses on the elements of the work that may have affected its reception in the region, with particular emphasis on the pandemic and the strong female anti-war position.