The 8th Annual Festival of European Literature starts on November 15 in New York, with this year’s title being Crime Scene: Europe. Noir fiction writers participating include Zygmunt Miłoszewski (Poland), Ana Maria Sandu (Romania), Stefan Slupetzky (Austria), José Carlos Somoza (Spain), Caryl Férey (France), Jan Costin Wagner (Germany) and Dan Fesperman (US). “Europe is in […]
Having come to his full powers as a writer whose novels and stories could not be published during Stalin’s growing stranglehold on power, whose plays could almost never hope to be performed, Bulgakov is now a hot commodity in the entertainment world. The latest news is that Stone Village Pictures – makers of The Human […]
An article in Czech Position on the 2011 Josef Škvorecký Prize going to Czech novelist, screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Martin Ryšavý for his novel Vrač. Continue Reading
You cannot make this stuff up. It requires multiple Kafka organizations, Kazakh embassy press services and lazy, incompetent journalists to create the right effect. Less than a month ago I wrote about the shadowy European “Franz Kafka” Circle Prague, which seems to award its Franz Kafka Medal just before the internationally renowned Franz Kafka Society […]
The first part of an essay by book jacket designer Peter Mendelsund on his blog Jacket Mechanical covering just what it is his job involves. And he starts with a bang, as it were, questioning some of cover designs for Nabokov’s Lolita because: “It is easy to forget, especially easy given the soft-core Lolita renderings […]
The Conrad Festival is underway in Krakow as the Polish city celebrates the literary heritage of the English novelist born as Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. Among the Polish and international guests at the festival are Michel Houellebecq*, Andrzej Stasiuk, Roberto Calasso, Alberto Manguel, David Grossman, Eva Hoffman and Jacek Dehnel. The festival was opened by […]
It seems Russian book banning mania has not abated since I last wrote about the subject not all that long ago. The latest target – novelist Boris Akunin, author of the successful Erast Fandorin detective series among others. On October 27 the news got out that the senior investigator of the Moscow branch of the […]
Romanian novelist and journalist Gabriela Adameşteanu’s best known novel Wasted Mornings (Dimineata pierduta) was a huge critical and commercial success when it was first published in Romania in 1984 and numerous translations followed. The English translation by Patrick Camiller was published this year by Northwestern University Press and on November 3 Adameşteanu will be appearing […]
Eastern Europe has made its way into a lot of recently published magazine issues. First of all there is Timothy Snyder’s fantastic article in the NYRB on Galicia (requires subscription) “A Core of European Tragedy, Diversity, Fantasy,” in which figures as diverse as Emperor Joseph II, Stanisław Przybyszewski, son of the composer Franz Xaver Mozart, […]
A preview of Komiksfest 2011 on Czech Position. The festival features guests such as Pascal Rabaté, Dave McKean, Anke Feuchtenberger, Konstantin Komardin, Dario Adanti and Paco Roca. Hopefully, I will have some interviews up next week. Read the full article here … Photos – 1) From Ibicus by Pascal Rabaté, 2) Black Holes by Dave McKean, […]
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