Spring 2024 - Recrudescence

Editor’s Welcome Recrudescence may strike you as an odd term to choose for a literary journal. A quick search can provide you with the following definition: “the recurrence of an undesirable condition.” While this might add to your confusion, what I love about this term is the echo that it makes with its original meaning: “becoming raw again.” What emerges between this dynamic of “undesirability” and “rawness” is the feeling that anyone has when starting afresh. As exciting and thrilling as newness can be, it places you in a position of vulnerability that no one truly seeks to be in. Pushing beyond this unsettling moment is what helps us grow; however, while in the midst of that growth, we choose how to react, adapt, and move forward. There was no theme more fitting for Trafika Europe’s Spring 2024 issue as we continue to shed our former carapace to emerge into the future. Through looking at the project in this light, what has become clearer is that this concept resonates harmoniously with literature. Traditions are constantly being made, questioned, reformed, and replaced. Literature goes through phases, it grows, and it adapts. More importantly, authors and translators become raw again with every new work, replacing a former self with a new one despite any discomfort along the way. We are excited to provide another amazing set of literature all fitting the concept of “Recrudescence” in different forms. We begin with two excerpts of children’s literature translated from Faroese. In the literal sense, children’s literature forms young minds and introduces new concepts. Author Dánial Hoydal and illustrator Annika Øyrabo present The Line s, which depicts grieving a loss and how to move forward. Hilbert by Bárður Oskarsson, translated by Marita Thomsen, helps us learn to ask for help, particularly in uncomfortable situations with which we are unfamiliar. Ukrainian author Halyna Petrosanyak’s “Mrs. Vogel Doesn’t Need a Visa”, translated by Jeff Kochan, tells of a couple divided by a border. As Zoriana attempts to move to Germany with her partner, she must take on a new identity to cross the border, reflecting the transformations that occur when traversing boundaries. Things to Do After My Death by Miklós Vámos, translated from the Hungarian by Ági Bori, follows Sanyi who spent time in jail after killing his father. Upon his release, he starts over with a new foundation that he built off of his past and experience in prison.

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