Thanks to Dumitru Crudu, the author of Slaughter in Georgia, I reproduce here an excerpt from his controversial debut novel. Whether reading this will make you want to read more, or not, I would be very interested in finding out. Non-conventional use of language, warlike atmosphere; can we judge the book by this excerpt?
19.
Translated from Romanian by Florin Bican
Angelo rose to his feet and embarked upon crossing the road to buy some cigarettes. Enrico tagged along in his wake. He had a mind to talk him into ditching that Georgiana broad since she was the kind of bird everyone f*****. And just as he was on the point of telling him she was a slut and he'd f**** her himself just a few hours before, they found themselves waylaid by a gang of young men. While one of them asked: "Tkven kartveli hart?" (19), Che Guevara decided to play possum. Enrico promptly replied: "Net, mi maldavani" (20). Still the young man pressed his point: "Kartulad vlaparakob?" (21), which turned Enrico's insides to jelly. The young man's voice turned even harsher: "Ra saheli gakvt?" (23) to which Enrico mumbled in reply: "Maia imia Enrico a ievo Angelo."(24) "Kartulad, şeidzleba!"(25), the young man persisted. Enrico admited : "Ne magu pa gruzinskii."(26) The young man grabbed Enrico's collar: "Pochemu nie mojete? Stolico liet jivete v Gruzii i niznaite gruzinskii iazik?! Kak eta mojno, svini!"(27) Enrico protested: "Mi ne svini, mi maldavani."(28) The young man would just not believe they were Moldavians. "If you are Moldavians, why the f*** don't you stay in your f*****' Moldavia?" One of the young men broke in: "Okay, if you can speak Georgian, we'll let you go..." But neither Enrico nor Angelo could manage a single word of Georgian. Whereupon the lads started bawling: "Cemodan, vagzal, Kishinev!" (29), converged upon them, knocked them down and started kicking them around while Enrico pleaded with them at the top of his lungs: "C'mon, guys, got water on your brains or what?" "Okay, then, we'll let you go if you can prove you speak Georgian," the young men relented. "Tkven itsit kartulad?"(30). Still, Enrico and Angelo just stared at them with bovine incomprehension, which drove the guys completely bonkers. "So what are you friggin' twats doing in Georgia, then, if you can't speak the Georgian language? Cemadan, vagzal, Kishinev! You, bloody mankurts, russophone assholes, you've come to russify the Georgian people... You, russophone scum!" The thugs beating the shit out of them had no idea they were disfiguring the man who'd been f****** the trollop and the joker asking for his advice as to how he should secure her favours, though deep in his heart he entertained no hopes of ever getting into her pants. The funny thing was that neither Enrico, much less Angelo, had the remotest idea that the thugs currently beating them to pulp also had Georgiana on their minds, and very much so: they were pondering how they should go about finding and banging up the girl whom they had espied, only one hour before, as she was emerging half dressed from a bar in the old city. And while the young men were busy pulping his mug, Enrico felt a touch of joyful relief since, under the circumstances, at least, Angelo was no longer picking his mind as to how he should go about securing Georgiana's affections. At the same time he was slightly baffled at feeling no pain whatsoever - as if they were kicking his belly and punching his nose with cotton - wool feet and fists or with fluffy snowballs. His face nonetheless was soon awash with a sticky crimson liquid. The blood seeped into his mouth and under his shirt collar and while successive waves of feet kicked his eyes black and blue, Enrico remembered how back in Kishinev, he and some friends, armed with chains and bats, would go Russian-hunting in the evening, questioning the young men they met in the park or in the street whether they knew or not the Moldavian language. 
Lots of them didn't even know what the Moldavian words for good day or thank you were, let alone the language they came from. Consequently, Enrico and his mates gave them a fair chance, offering to teach them, free of charge, the tongue of the natives. As they swung their chains in their hands, they asked their charges to repeat after them: Good day, my name is Anton. I was born on the 7th of March. I am from Kishinev and I love Moldavia. Still, some of them stubbornly refused to repeat the respective words and phrases on account of being too difficult for them. They would duly beat the living daylights out of such types while granting free passage to those consenting to learn the odd polite formula in the Romanian language. They'd only rearrange the faces of fussy guys - the ones sneering at the Moldavian vocabulary. Unlike the gang of Dionisie, the literary critic, Enrico and his companions never clouted the subjects who displayed good will and a genuine inclination towards learning the natives' tongue. Dionisie's gang, however, started motherf****** them the moment they opened their mouths and spoke Russian. Dionisie and his minions purged the Russian clientele out of bars and cafes on the assumption that it was a misguided act to go eating out in Kishinev if you didn't speak the Moldavian language, and after driving the Russians off the premises, Dionisie would fly the three-coloured flag on top of the counter, allowing only Romanian-speaking patrons to stay. Enrico and his friends, however, had never acted along those particular lines. Their top priority was giving a chance to those who had no smattering of Romanian. They carried on them a few textbooks for rapid Romanian learning purchased on their own expenses to be presented to those interested in acquiring the language. Enrico and his mates endeavoured to hammer into the more receptive young Russians such phrases as cheers, how you doin', what's your name, where you from, respect, Ma'am, Sir, and some of their number would repeat after them till they came to master the words and phrases in question and consequently became their friends on the spot and Enrico would invite them to some bar or other where they'd all get pissed together. They'd only trample under their feet the ones who categorically refused to utter at least one word in Romanian. Now, however, Enrico was spitting blood as he camouflaged his head with his arms. Back in Kishinev, he had to admit, it was the other guys cringing at his feet and whimpering in fear. 
Still, Enrico would never take the beating too far. He'd call it a day after a few kicks and blows aimed at the mouth unlike Dionisie or these wacky young men who, by the look of it, had taken it upon themselves to slaughter them for good. When one of the young men swung a bottle of Pshenichinaya vodka with the clear intention of bringing it down upon the top of his skull, Enrico reminisced once again how once, back in Kishinev, he'd seen red on the trolleybus as, on asking the people in front of him you gettin' off? they looked at him in moonstruck confusion: "Chto vi scazali? Vi magli bi gavariti na narmalinim celoveceskom iazike?A chto dlea eta za iazik na catorom vi gavarite? (31) Blea, fasshisti, padnimaiut golovu. Muli nescastniie! nada machiti vseh v sartire."(32) Understandably, Enrico and his mates were not exactly amicable in their response and the people in question were consequently put in their place right there, on the trolleybus. Before the bottle lodged itself into the top of his skull, Enrico briefly recalled how at night he would march the streets of Kishinev yelling at the top of his lungs: "Cemodan, vagzal, Rasia! Vasha mati jdet vas damoi! Uberitesi von! Tambovskii volk vam brat!"(33), and after the Pshenichinaya shattered against his skull, a Pshenichinaya not yet drunk, Enrico was still wandering, as the asphalt rose to meet him, how come he, of all people, was called a russophone and he, of all people, was requested to f*** off home when he, in actual fact, was not even remotely a russophone and, when it came to speaking Russian, he would either keep his mouth shut or deliberately mispronounce the words and as a matter of principle refused to read Tolstoy or Dostoevsky on account of their having written in Russian, a language which quite literally made him puke and, generally, on account of wanting nothing to do with the Russians, nothing whatsoever. And that because he felt they were fostering an anti Romanian cabal. In his opinion, the moment a Russian realized you were Romanian, he'd try by all means to frustrate you: Russian doctors would prescribe you the wrong treatment, on purpose, while shop girls would deliberately sell you rotten salami. Why, indeed, would his Russian acquaintances ask him over? To poison him, of course. And what's more, all Russians want to dominate you. They will respect you only when they have defeated you. They will only love you if you become their slave and come over to their side. But if you happen to think along different lines, they'll hate you forever. They can't put up with people not agreeing with them. Their friends are only those they can keep under their thumb. However, if you want to stand for your rights, they'll smack you in the gob big time. Enrico, of course, had thwarted their plans, but how was he to explain all that to the bunch of rabid young man kicking him in the balls. Enrico saw them as if through a sieve and yet he wanted to call out to the angry lads giving him a taste of their razors: "Rebeata, zdesi cacaia-ta nedarazumenia. Vi ne tak poneali menea. Ia svoi, rebeata!"(34), but no sound came because the bottle shattered to smithereens against his skull and he passed out. He conked at their feet failing to clear that bizarre and unexplainable misunderstanding landing him on the wrong side of the barricade although he, too, wanted to purge his homeland from foreigners, just like these young people who wanted Georgia exclusively for the Georgians, with nothing but the Georgian language ringing throughout the whole land.
(19) Tkven kartveli hart? - Are you Georgians? (translated from the Georgian)
(20) Net, mi maldavani - We are Moldavians (translated from the Russian)
(21) Kartulad vlaparakob? - Do you speak Georgian? (translated from the Georgian)
(22)Ţota-ţota - A bit. (translated from the Georgian)
(23) Ra saheli gakvt? - What's your name? (translated from the Georgian)
(24) Maia imea Enrico a evo Angelo -My name is Enrico and his name is Angelo (translated from the Russian)
(25) Kartulad, şeidzleba! - Speak Georgian, please. (translated from the Georgian)
(26) Ne magu pa gruzinskii- I can't speak Georgian (translated from the Russian)
(27) Pacemu ne mojete? Stolico let jivete v Gruzii i niznaite gruzinskii iazik?! Cac eta mojno, svini!- How come you can't? You've been living in Georgia for all these years and can't speak Georgian. How is that possible, you swine? (translated from the Russian)
(28) Mi ne svini, mi maldavani - We're not swine, we're Moldavians (translated from the Russian)
(29) Cemodan, vagzal, Kişinev! - Suitcase, station, Kishinev! (translated from the Russian)
(30) Tkven itsit cartulad? - Can you speak Georgian? (translated from the Georgian)
(31) Chto vi scazali? Vi magli bi gavariti na narmalinim celoveceskom iazike? A chto dlea eta za iazik na katorom vi gavarite? - What did you say? Could you speak in some normal human language? What's that f*****' language you're speaking? (translated from the Russian)
(32) Blea, fasshisti, padnimaiut golovu. Muli nescastniie! Nada maciti vseh va sartire - F***them, the Nazis rear their ugly heads. F***** mules! We should be pulping them in their own juices. (translated from the Russian)
(33)Cemodan, vagzal, Rasia! Vasha mati jdet vas damoi! Uberitesi von! Tambovskii volk vam brat! - Suitcase, station, Russia. Your Moms are waiting for you home. F*** off. The Tambov wolf is your brother (translated from the Russian)
(34) Rebeata, zdesi cacaia-ta nedarazumenia. Vi ne tak poneali menea. Ia svoi, rebeata! - Brothers, there's a misunderstanding here. You've got me wrong. I'm one of you, brothers. (translated from the Russian)
