No longer available: German, French, Georgian
Alexandre Hmine
La chiave nel latte
A novel
ISBN 978-88-97308-64-5
208 pages, € 18.00
Alexandre Hmine
The key in the milk
Winner of the 2017 Studer/Ganz Prize
“The key in the milk” tells the story of a boy of Moroccan birth who, left by his mother in the care of a Swiss widow called Elvezia, grows up in Alto Malcantone (Ticino). As the plot unfolds, shards of the protagonist’s past are brought to light: his childhood toys, the religious festivals, the hockey matches played in the road, his first crushes, and the holidays spent in Casablanca – a city that, to the eyes of the then ten-year old protagonist, looks baffling, impenetrable and distant. Although he feels a sense of belonging to Switzerland, the boy is forced to question his own indefinite identity. His doubts and confusion, shared by the reader, will be left unsolved until the end of the book.
The author’s style is clear and concise, giving voice to an array of different languages and cultures – from the local Swiss dialect of Alto Malcantone to Moroccan dialect, with hints of sports jargon and Italian literary tradition.
Alexandre Hmine was born in 1976 in Lugano, where he obtained his high school degree at the city’s Liceo 2. He then graduated in Humanities at the University of Pavia. He was part of the editorial staff of RSI, and then worked as a collaborator for the Swiss weekly newspaper Azione. Since 2004 he has taught Italian in several high schools in the Canton of Ticino. His first novel, La chiave nel latte (“The key in the milk”) earned him the 2017 Studer/Ganz Prize for the best debut work.
From PRO HELVETIA – 12 SWISS BOOKS 2018 | NO. 7
Link: 12 SWISS BOOKS
LA CHIAVE NEL LATTE
Alexandre Hmine
GENRE Novel, LANGUAGE Italian
Introduced by Ruth Clarke
ALEXANDRE HMINE was born in Lugano in 1976. He has worked as a national and regional journalist in Switzerland, and has taught Italian in secondary schools since 2004. His debut novel The Key in the Milk won the Studer/Ganz Prize in 2017.
This coming-of-age novel tells the story of a Moroccan boy growing up in Ticino in Switzerland, where his teenage mother leaves him in the care of an elderly widow, Elvezia. Spanning the period from early childhood to university and the beginning of his teaching career, the un-named protagonist recounts moments from his everyday life with Elvezia and his school friends. He describes his teenage years and growing curiosity about the opposite sex. He also visits his birth mother and stepfamily, where he learns about Muslim customs and his Moroccan heritage. Balancing his two lives, acquiring two passports, feeling the pressure to explain himself to those around him, the boy develops the suspicion that he doesn’t really fit in anywhere.
The Key in the Milk is a unique coming-of-age story: beautiful snapshots of childhood and adolescence as an outsider, underpinned by an uncertain sense of identity. The story progresses in fragments, in memories brought to life by the voice of the narrator through childhood toys, religious festivals, football games, tennis practice, teenage crushes and exam failure. All this is interspersed with trips to Casablanca, a city the protagonist visits for the first time at the age of ten and which he instinctively rejects. Hot, bustling Casablanca with its Arab customs seems more foreign to him than his small town in the Ticino mountains. Although Switzerland feels like home, he can’t help but ponder his identity, raising questions for himself and the reader right through to the final pages: where do any of us come from? Can we truly belong anywhere but in our own memories?
Alexandre Hmine uses brilliantly spare prose to recount his narrator’s memories, following his train of thought from one snapshot to the next. Hmine realistically evokes the way we recall the past, as a combination of vivid, minute details, emotions and smells, with gaps, spaces for the things we perhaps didn’t realise at the time. Each word is carefully chosen to demonstrate the natural way children absorb different cultures and languages.
Recreating this gentle tone and juggling the mixture of Italian, French, Arabic and Swiss dialect, thoughtfully employed by the author to contextualise his characters, will prove an irresistible puzzle for the translator bringing this delightful voice into another language.
Click here for a SAMPLE TRANSLATION by Ruth Clarke
TITLE La chiave nel latte
PUBLISHER Gabriele Capelli Editore, Mendrisio
PUBLICATION DATE April 2018
PAGES 208
ISBN 978-88-97308-64-5
TRANSLATION RIGHTS Gabriele Capelli, gabriele.capelli@directions.ch
“I remember the gaudy colours from photographs and postcards, the scent of spice I’d heard about, the rhythms of African drums, the documentaries they show in Europe, and I wonder what strange mirage I’m living in.”
Ruth Clarke is a translator from Italian, French and Spanish into English. She has translated an eclectic range of work by authors from Benin to Venezuela, including Cristina Caboni’s debut novel The Secret Ways of Perfume. Ruth is a founding member of The Starling Bureau, a London-based collective of literary translators established to bring top quality books to publishers.
Foreign Rights: info@directions.ch
No longer available: German, French, Georgian
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