A Dangerous Life
“Volume 1: A Dangerous Life,” is a translation by David J. MacKinnon offering access to the experiences and mindset of poet, novelist, and essayist Blaise Cendrars of the 20th century. The work treks through seven writings from Cendrars of life experienced on the edge. A secret passage leading to the Bank of England, a narrative of the killing fields of Champagne, an account of losing his writing hand in 1915 to a German machine-gunner, an interview with an infamous Brazilian’s serial voodoo killer, the discovery of a cursed diamond, and an unpublished western novel of a bank robber comprise “A Dangerous Life.” Almost unfathomable tales, MacKinnon succeeds in bringing the voice of the Swiss-French writer to an English-speaking readership.
Blaise Cendrars is well-known in France and Europe. His writing style, deemed to be ahead of his time, conveyed a staccato-like lyrical sound that gave the translator the impression, when encountering his work read out loud, a copy of the author’s “Easter in New York,” of rap. MacKinnon retells this experience in an interview, “I wanted to give them a sense of this poem that revolutionized French poetry and that they should actually tune into. So I’m doing it, and I’m going, ‘Shit, this sounds like rap too.’” The work was created in 1911 by a man named Frédéric-Louis Sauser, but was signed for the first time as Blaise Cendrars, meaning, a man who rises like the Phoenix from his own ashes. Thus, the trail-blazing modernist was thumb-printed on to the world.
Cendrars was born in 1887 in Switzerland. Known only then as Frédéric-Louis Sauser, the young writer left secondary school at fifteen and began travelling. His earlier writings hinge from perspective of Russian society having lived in St. Petersburg where he began writing poetry and was witness to the Russian Revolution of 1905 before moving on to Siberia. Cendrars, by then his pen name, joined the French Foreign Legion in 1914 fighting for France. In September 1915, he lost his right writing hand. He learned to write with his left hand and penned the “Great Offensive of Champagne.” As Cendrars navigated the mid-twentieth century, he became known for his experimental style and started to become associated with modernism publishing over forty books. His non-linear narratives and free-verse exhibited fascinating and enthralling stories from a criminal scope and sometimes disparate members of society. I assume, from a historical lens, Cendrars offered a bottom-up view of society. His directness and transparency in discourse associate his writing as a reaction against the War and the rise of industrialization. Cendrars wrote until he suffered a stroke in 1957 and passed in 1961.
MacKinnon wanted to translate the vibrancy of the boldness of Cendrars’ words to an anglophone audience. Labelled, “Volume One,” and carrying a subtitle, “Sewermen, Bank Robbers and the Revelations of the Prince of Fire,” indicates that there is more to be translated of Cendrars.
From BC, David J. MacKinnon is known for his novels, “Leper Tango,” and “The Eel.” He has translated for Cendrars before in a text, “Blaise Cendrars Speaks,” with Ekstasis Editions in 2016. MacKinnon graduated from Sorbonne and is a member of two law societies, he serves as the Board of Directors of the Canadian Association of Legal Translators, the co-founder and Director of the Long March to Rome, an indigenous-led mission seeking repeal of the Papal Bulls of Discovery. His portfolio of translations includes working for the international criminal tribunals of Rwanda, The Hague and Yugoslavia. MacKinnons’ efforts and successes of translation will help elevate an enigmatic writer.
Thank you to David J. MacKinnon, Guernica Editions and River Street Writing for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review!
