What You Can See From Here: 'A clear-eyed tonic in troubled times' (Guardian)

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The Hummingbird has captivated European readers, selling more than 300,000 copies in Italy alone and making Veronesi only the second author to win the Premio Strega, Italy’s most prestigious literary award, twice. The film adaptation is in production in Italy, starring Nanni Moretti (winner of the Cannes Palm d’Or) and Bérénice Bejo (nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Artist) and the novel hashe work has already been translated into 24 languages, with Elena Pala’s English translation lauded by Ian McEwan among others. Yes, you can,” I said, and suggested that it might have been a misshapen cow, a badly assembled giraffe, a freak of nature, and besides, the stripes and reddish color are hard to see at night. Ito’s career as a journalist prevented her from staying silent, she says; if she couldn’t face the truth of what had happened to her, how could she continue her work? “It has been difficult, but rape is visible now. We see more cases in the media, we’ve had demonstrations in Tokyo and in many other cities. I have no regrets.” David McNeill The optician had a mind especially adept in this. You could name two things that had absolutely nothing to do with each other, and right off the bat he would explain how they were closely related. And yet it was the optician of all people assuring us this latest okapi dream most certainly would not cause anyone’s death, that death and Selma’s dream were completely and absolutely not connected. But we knew that the optician, like us, believed they were. The optician more than anyone.

A whimsical tragicomedy with a stellar ensemble cast, What You Can See From Here is the miraculous story of an unusual village sprinkled with fairytale magic, based on the bestselling book by Mariana Leky. As Chinese society evolved, however, so did Shen Yang’s destiny. Now 35, she’s married to an Italian designer and has been living in Shanghai for the past few years. Her childhood trauma of being an illegal “extra” is still there, but writing has been a process of reconciliation with her past. Vincent Ni Martin and I were the same height. He would crouch down, grab me by the hips, and lift. He was at the point where he could hold me in the air for almost a minute. I only touched the ground if I stretched my toes down as far as I could. When Martin lifted me a second time, I said, “Last night my grandmother dreamed about an okapi.” As in life, What You Can See from Here reveals its significant players and their startling joys and losses, in patient, unexpected ways. The cumulative effect of this wise storytelling is colossal. A profound and beautiful novel." I absolutely fell in love with this wonderfully unusual tale. I loved the unusual characters that I was able to meet; by the end of the novel they felt like my own family and friends, and I am definitely going to miss them. I had a particular soft spot for the optician.

Reviews

What You Can See from Here has sold more than 600,000 copies in Germany and been translated into 14 languages. Some readers have found the novel’s optimistic portrait of community living grating, a Pollyannaish flight from the challenges of globalisation. There may be infidelity and alcoholism in Leky’s nameless village, but even the philanderers and drunkards are good at heart. The only character who isn’t given a chance to shine is Luisa’s father, forever calling in from some far-flung location on a bad line.“The book’s success has shown an enormous yearning among readers for withdrawal, for a reduction in complexity, and for spirituality”, said one reviewer on Deutschlandfunk radio, who summed up its appeal as “cocooning in Westerwald”.

Martin’s mouth was at the level of my belly button. “So is somebody going to die?” he asked into my sweater.On a beautiful spring day, a small tranquil village in the Westerwald wakes up to hear that Selma (Corinna Harfouch, Downfall, Deutschland89) has had a premonition: she dreamt of a rare animal again - an okapi. This means that someone is about to die and the eccentric villagers know it. Selma's granddaughter, 11-year-old Luise, and her best friend Martin look on as fears of being the victim of the prophecy throw the village into a frenzy of confusion. Luise doesn't want to lose anyone, but when the premonition comes true, the young girl’s world is suddenly turned upside down. Surprisingly, we had never noticed Selma’s perfect resemblance to the Dutch television host Rudi Carrell; it took someone from outside to come and point it out to us years later. But then the resemblance hit us with full force. Selma’s long, slender body, her posture, her eyes, her nose, her mouth and hair: from head to toe, Selma resembled Rudi Carrell so perfectly that, from then on, in our eyes, he was nothing more than a poor copy of Selma. Now that the one-child policy has been relaxed, the stories of these illegal children will soon be a part of China’s national collective memory. But to those who grew up tainted with this humiliation, the scars are permanent. One is Chinese writer Shen Yang, who wrote her story in part to extinguish the nightmares that still haunt her. Originally published in German in 2017, it is primarily the story of young Luisa and her grandmother, Selma, living life in small town Germany. Whenever Selma dreams of an okapi, someone always seems to die. (Get your fingers ready to google… an okapi is a real animal that looks like a cross between a zebra and a giraffe.) The book never truly enters magical realism territory but rather hovers close to superstition, making it feel like a 20th century European fable. In the days and years to come, as Luise grows older, she must grapple with the big questions of life- grief, love- both familial and romantic- as she observes, and listens to those surrounding her, finding contentment in her surroundings, while pondering adventures outside of her comfort zone.

With many of Veronesi’s past works drawing heavily on his own life, it’s tempting to look for him in Carrera, his protagonist, but he rejects the comparison: “I don’t reflect myself in Marco Carrera. He is not even a projection of who I might have been … If he were a real person, I would like to be his friend, and, above all, his tennis doubles partner.” I loved this novel truly, madly, deeply. It has been a real darling of a book in Germany for readers across generations. I am jealous of all the new readers who will have the chance to discover Mariana Leky’s exciting new voice and the joy of meeting the fabulous ensemble she has conjured in What You Can See from Here.” The Hummingbird by Sandro Veronesi, translated by Elena Pala, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

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I wanted to write a book about such big and vague issues that I felt I needed to locate them in a place that could be contained,” she adds. “I write about love and death, and how they are connected – it doesn’t get more diffuse than that.” Philip Oltermann A] whimsical love story . . . peopled by eccentric-but-endearing characters . . . There is enough candor and humor, along with a handful of bracingly moody characters, to make Leky’s vision of perpetual love compelling.” This is what complex, and dreadfully boring compulsory reads are made of. The type of literature that all but demands a veritable treatise on brilliant characterization and marvelous usage of figures of speech. I always suspected, that had my high school major been literature related, I would've totally failed these assignments. As it is, I managed to coast by with a B, while most of the class reveled in As and A+es. I loved this novel truly, madly, deeply." --Nina George, bestselling author of The Book of Dreams and The Little Paris Bookshop