A Poem About Lillebror and Karlsson.

Belov, Igor

NB: Karlsson on the Roof and its sequels, the children's books by Astrid Lindgren (best known in the English-speaking world for her Pippi Longstocking), are immensely popular in Russia, where they served as the basis for a beloved cartoon series. Their main characters are a little boy called Lillebror ("Junior") and a chubby little man named Karlsson who lives on the roof. Karlsson flies by means of a propeller on his back, activated by a special button on his belly. He is tremendously arrogant and gluttonous and tends to get Lillebror into trouble; he repeatedly describes himself as "handsome, clever, and moderately plump."

 ... Karlsson hocked a loogie past the trashcan and flew away
 --Danila Davydov
for the sake of hoarse voices in nighttime stores for the sake of warm
hearts under passenger car hoods into city center at midnight fly the
souls of handsome clever and moderately plump men
they seize cafes and gas stations these zealots of wrinkled laundry
nightmare of the nation's national defense one of them is you or
possibly me
they blow their alcohol-stale breath on stars they scare off crows in
squares and bats are in your Stockholm rafters in a neighborhood
engulfed by weeds
you wait while your black eye fades wake up dead and stop sleeping
altogether and one fine day read on the kitchen wall: "You'll
never grow up Lillebror"
life handles us with one swipe while autumn strangles us from all sides
and only the moon glows above the bar like a Swedish five-crown piece
and just sniffing the cork makes us drunk we go down with the grace of a
wounded ship but by habit we search for the button on belly in case the
earth slips out from underfoot 

Translation from the Russian

By Kevin M. F. Platt & Maya Vinokour

Igor Belov was born in 1975 in St, Petersburg and currently lives in Kaliningrad. He is the author of two books of poetry: Ves'etot dzhazz (2004; All that jazz) and Muzika ne dlia tolstykh (2008; Music not for fat people). His poetry has been translated into Swedish. German, Polish, Estonian. Ukrainian, and Belorussian. and he has been recognized with awards and grants in Russia, Sweden, and Poland.

For a biographical profile of Kevin M. F. Platt, see page 42.

Maya Vinokour is a second-year doctoral student in the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in themes of spectatorship in modern Russian and German literature. Also a translator, Vinokour won Academia Rossica's Young Translator Award in 2011.