Serbian poet’s A Dream for John Updike translated into English

In 1977, the year when Couples was translated and published in Serbian, the prominent Serbian (then Yugoslavian) woman poet Ljiljana Djurdjić wrote a poem titled “A Dream for John Updike”—obviously inspired by the novel The Centaur, which was translated in Yugoslavia in 1968.

Her poem was published in 1977 in the literary magazine and was recently translated by Biljana Dojčinović and Milica Abramović in anticipation of the 5th Biennial John Updike Society Conference to be held June 1-5 2018 at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, in Serbia. “Another proof of John Updike’s popularity in Yugoslavia in the ’70s,” conference director Dojčinović writes. Below is the new translation and a scan of the poem as it first appeared in print, published here in translation for the first time:

Ljiljana Đurđić, 1977 Književna reč

A DREAM FOR JOHN UPDIKE

As if trillions Had been marching behind me In that insomnia Suffocated by the gracefulness of protozoa The followers of an acrid wind From the Galaxy of The Centaur Could have easily forgotten That there had ever been A space trodden by The hoves of the wild horses With the animal gentleness Of parasites and amoebas In the guts of a hippopotamus Should we equate it with The image of a herd Crossing the Rubicon?

Translated by Biljana Dojčinović and Milica Abramović