Interview with
Olga Godim,
author of
Lost and Found in Russia
Warm welcome to Russian-born Olga Godim, the author of Lost
and Found in Russia, to The Happy Book Reviewer!
This is
the story of two mothers, Amanda and Sonya. After the shocking discovery that
her daughter was switched at birth thirty-four years ago, Canadian Amanda heads
to Russia to find her biological daughter. Thirty-four-year-old Russian dancer
Sonya battles her own daughter’s teenage rebellion.
Godim: Thank
you, Trisha, for inviting me to your blog.
Happy to have you! So, this is your only non-fantasy
book. What inspired you to write contemporary women's fiction instead? Did you
set out to try a different genre, or did certain events inspire Lost and Found in Russia?
Godim: I’m
predominantly a fantasy writer, that’s true. It’s how my brain works. But
several years ago, I started thinking about a story that eventually became Lost and Found in Russia. Snatches of
that story just wouldn’t leave me, maybe because it is based partially on my
personal experiences.
Really? How so?
Godim: When I
was young and poor, I often fantasized: what if someone showed up at my door
and said that I had been switched at birth, and my birth family was
rich. And they’re looking for me. What
would I do? What would my mother do? And – here was the tricky question – what
would my other mother do? Would she want and love me as much as the mother
who raised me? From that daydream sprouted the idea for one half
of the book – the story of Amanda, who discovers after 34 years that her
daughter was switched at birth, by mistake.
The second part of the novel unfolded in my mind
after I met an amazing woman, Irina, in Montreal. An immigrant from Russia,
like my protagonist Sonya, Irina came to Canada with nothing and accomplished
much. I was inspired by her optimism and determination. She told me about her
life and her struggles to find her place in a new country. Awed by her courage,
her indomitable spirit, and her lovely soul, I adopted her as a model for Sonya.
After my meeting with Irina, the novel practically wrote itself, although I
have to say that both women are absolutely different. Sonya came from my
imagination. Unlike Sonya, the real woman Irina had never been a dancer. She
was a musician, a violinist, in Russia. She became a surgical nurse in Canada.
Could you imagine how much efforts and study hours went into such a drastic
professional switch!
Now, I think I heard about a Russian switched-at-birth story like yours happening in real life recently! Did you see that story?
Godim: Yes, there was a news story recently about two babies
switched at birth in a hospital. And what do you know – it happened in Russia
too, last year. The hospital switched the babies at birth, by mistake, and the
mothers, obviously suspecting that something was wrong, started searching and
doing DNA testing. The hospital denied all responsibility. Several months
later, the two women found each other and switched the babies back. Their
reunion with their own babies was a very poignant moment, as was their parting
with the babies they raised and nursed and loved for those months. They both
feel as if both baby girls are their daughters. I thought I made it all up, but it seems such things could
happen… in Russia. Here is the news reel about the mothers’ reunion: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nightly-news/53613825/#53613825
You're a mother (and a daughter) yourself. Did that
make the story of a mother and child searching for each other more poignant
because you know first-hand how deep a mother's love runs?
Godim: Yes, I
suppose. Being a mother and a daughter, I know the dynamics of a mother-child
relationship from both ends. But every woman is different, unique, so two women
wouldn’t react identically to the same situation. When I was doing research for
this novel, I asked my own mom: “What would you do if someone comes to you and
says that I’m not your daughter? Would you help us meet? Accept the other
woman’s claim that I’m her daughter?” She said she would, with no hesitation.
Then I asked my sister the same question: “What would you do if someone said
your daughter is not really yours, and you have another daughter somewhere
else?” She said she wouldn’t allow such a person in the door. She could never
accept that the daughter she raised and loved could be someone else’s child. In this
story that I made up, there are actually several controversies running around.
What about the daughter who suddenly learns that her mother is not her mother,
that she has another mother some place else. She loves her mother. Would she
love the other woman? Again, everyone reacts differently.
Reviewers of the book point out
how enjoyable your depiction of Russia is to read, and that you clearly love
the country and are an expert on it. What are your ties to Russia?
Godim: I grew up
in Russia, although it was a long time ago. Russia is a country of
contradictions: between poverty and wealth, between the richness of her culture
at one end of the spectrum and the majority of poorly educated, rampaging
bigots at the other. There is an epidemic of drunkenness and a sweeping
corruption there, but at the same time, the amazing feats of courage and
self-sacrifice are common among the best of her people. My best friend is a
Russian woman. In my
novel, I tried to show the best Russia can offer, but some pretty gruesome
facts also made their way into the story. I guess the truth often has multiple
faces.
I love books with a message. If a high school class were
reading your book some day, what themes or messages would the teacher want the
students to pick up on?
Godim: I’d say
the most important message of this novel is: “Don’t give up. It’s never too late. Persevere
in whatever endeavor is important to you.”
Amanda
learned that her daughter was switched at birth 34 years after the fact. That’s
quite a long time. Undaunted by the weight of years, she traveled to Russia.
She knew she would have to deal with a host of foreign bureaucrats, the lack of
democracy, and the inevitable changes the time brings, but she didn’t despair,
because she wanted very much to find her biological daughter. She persevered.
Sonya was
a dancer in Russia. When she immigrated to Canada she was already over 30 and resigned,
at least at first, to losing her dancing. She thought it was too late to
establish a new dancing career in a new country. But dance beckoned her. She
missed it bitterly: the music, the movements, the stage, and the audience.
The
turning point in her story was when she danced for Jane. Jane was a
quadriplegic, and Sonya worked as her caregiver. At one point, Jane demanded to
see Sonya dancing, and Sonya complied. The scene of her dancing is my favorite
in the novel. It’s not exotic or sensual, quite the opposite, it’s rather
mundane, but it reflects Sonya’s need of dancing, her joy in her body moving
with music. After that scene, Sonya became determined to recapture her dancing.
If I ever write a sequel, Sonya’s dream of dancing will come true.
You've also done a translation of
a Russian classic that hadn't been translated to English yet. Can you tell us
about it?
Godim: I'm
bilingual, English and Russian, and I wanted to offer my readers one of my
favorite stories by the Russian writer Alexander Grin. His novella Scarlet Sails, first published in 1923,
is very popular in Russia. I loved it when I was a young girl. Since its first
publication, Scarlet Sails has had
numerous adaptations in Russia, including a movie, a ballet, and countless
print runs. The story is lyrical and romantic, almost magical, and filled with
the vague yearning of the unknown. It’s
available in English translation, but I’ve heard that the existing English
translation is no good. Besides, it was published several decades ago and is
out of print now. So I decided to translate it myself and put it on my website
– for anyone to enjoy. It was the labor of love and my tribute to the author.
You can find it here: http://olgagodim.wordpress.com/translation-scarlet-sails/
How was translation similar to
writing a novel? Or was it very different?
Godim: Translating
is an art in itself, nothing like writing a novel. When I translated, I wasn’t
concerned with the story structure or with developing characters. It was
already done by the author. Instead, I wanted to convey to the readers what the
author wanted to say and how he wanted to say it.
There are
two schools of translation. The proponents of the first one postulate that
translating should be done word by word, to get the readers to feel the foreign
language, its rhythm and its imagery. I’m not sure this is the right approach.
I subscribe to the other ideology of translation: that the readers’ experience
in the target tongue should be close to that of the readers in the original
tongue.
When I
translated Scarlet Sails, I sometimes
skipped adjectives (there are too many in the original, and the English readers
are not reacting well to the abundance of adjectives) or changed the sentence
order in a paragraph, so it would sound better in English. I even omitted occasional
sentences or combined a couple of sentences into one, or used some metaphors
the author didn’t use while dropping the ones he did. My main goal was to bring
the text closer to the modern English readers, although I tried my best to keep
the author’s lyrical tone and his romanticism.
That sounds exhausting, but so rewarding, especially for a work you feel so connected to! Is your next work going to be a
translation, a contemporary women's novel, or are you moving back to fantasy?
Can you give us a hint about your next book?
Godim: I don’t
plan on doing another translation, at least not yet. I have a fantasy novel, Almost Adept, published in January 2014,
and my second fantasy novel will be released in May. I’m writing another
fantasy novel now. I might return to the story of Amanda and Sonya one day, I
have an idea for another story about Sonya, but I don’t know yet.
Thank you for coming on today! Readers can find Lost and Found in Russia in e-book and
print at:
- Eternal Press
- Barnes & Noble
- Amazon
- …or order it from your local bookseller!
