On March 27, Read Russia and The New York Review of Books are co-hosting the book launch of the much awaited An Invitation for Me to Think by Alexander Vvedensky, translated by Eugene Ostashevsky, with additional translations by Matvei Yankelevich. All of these publishers, organizers and translators will be in attendance in NYC at Pravda […]
My article on the recent Švankmajer exhibition in Prague has just been published in New Eastern Europe magazine’s Spring 2013 issue. “The Last of the Great Surrealists: Jan Švankmajer: Dimensions of Dialogue – Between Film and Fine Art” is about the Czech artist and filmmaker’s extremely diverse art and film work as well as his […]
The 4th Slovo Russian Literature Festival is well underway in London. Running from March 5 to 26 the festival celebrates Russian literature old and new, along with the links between the two. This is well illustrated by lectures being given on March 15 by contemporary novelist Dmitry Bykov (Living Souls, 2011) on Boris Pasternak and […]
“What begins as a glance extends into lingering contemplation. She is going through my passport page by page, as if reading a novel. Then she turns to the computer for some corresponding information and back again. Her eyes have lit up. My first reaction is pride, that she likes it, but then I remember that […]
“Shadow Play” by Slovak writer Peter Karpinský is the first story I brought to Prague literary journal B O D Y as a new contributing editor. The story of a translator of a German poet that reveals itself to be much more than that, is part of Karpinský’s 2010 Anasoft-nominated collection The Holy Non-Assumption. The […]
At Slovakia’s Project Forum Salon there is a summary of a lengthy interview with Polish novelist, essayist and literary historian Stefan Chwin, who has recently written not only one but two books about Czesław Miłosz, so basically if he’s going to give an interview about him it’s going to be long. Just from the summary […]
On February 20 Prague literary journal B O D Y is hosting an evening of the work of Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva by translator Mary Jane White. The translations will be accompanied by excerpts from the Russian originals and a scholarly talk about “the soundscape of Kafka’s and Tsvetaeva’s writing. “The evening kicks off with […]
In a world where overhyped English-language books playing on a predictable single-note formula (take your pick – 1. Quirky, 2. Topical, 3. Autobiographical) all too often overshadow masterpieces by writers from the wider world, it’s clear that international literature needs its champions. And champions it has, though not that many, and maybe not any who […]
Boris Akunin’s Sebald Lecture delivered in London on February 4, is now available online. He talks about motherly manipulation, being tramautized by Steinbeck – i.e. everything you’d expect a lecture on translation to be about. But he also talks about the specific place of translation in the Soviet Union and how it was “cleaner” than […]
The Jerusalem International Book Fair runs from February 10 to 15 and as always there are a lot of writers and events in literalab’s sphere of interest. At the literary cafes these include Hungarian writer and previous Angelus award winner (link) György Spiró, who will be speaking about his autobiographical novel Dreaming For You. Polish […]
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