Imaginary worlds – Werdenberg Melchior – Ajax Press – 2023 – ISBN 978-5-94161-905-4
Imaginary worlds
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Imaginary worlds
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Ajax Press presents the third book of "micro-detectives" by Swiss writer Melchior Werdenberg, Imaginary Worlds. (The first book, The Deadly Case, was published in October 2016, the second, Night Shadows, in May 2018). Under the pseudonym Melchior Werdenberg hides the famous Swiss lawyer Hans Baumgartner. By virtue of his profession, a lawyer constantly deals with conflictual, dramatic and even tragic life material. This material is largely non-verbalizable, but it has to be translated into the conventional and abstract language of normative acts, protocols, expert opinions, court speeches and verdicts, which the law uses. There is a gap between the material of life and the language of law, the bridge across which is the personality of the lawyer himself. The law, on the one hand, grants the lawyer the right not to disclose professional secrets, protecting him from the pressure of conflicting parties, and on the other hand, the law requires him not to disclose professional secrets, protecting the adversarial nature of the conflicting parties. The lawyer finds himself in the role of King Midas' barber, who is burdened by secrecy and wants to express it at least to the dug hole. But the clever lawyer, knowing the legend, himself makes a puff of the grown reed and twists his song so that no one can reproach him for divulging the secret. He became a lawyer two decades ago, having previously had experience as a district attorney in Zurich. He had been a judge of the Military Court of Appeals, and had handled cases involving drugs and sex work, and economic crimes. So Melchior Werdenberg has a solid background that allows him to write about mysterious and criminal cases. However, as a lawyer he assures: any coincidences of his stories with real events and people are accidental. Verdenberg's short stories, written in a deliberately cold language, behind which you can guess a subtle irony, are not only a trifle, helping the reader to have fun, immersed in the world of other people's passions, crimes and punishments. They are thought-provoking. Special mention should be made of the translator of this and other books by Werdenberg, Boris Khlebnikov (his translations included works by Hoffmann, Hesse, Böll, Grass, Schlink, etc.): it was thanks to him that Melchior Werdenberg spoke Russian to his readers.
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books by the author