Book World Prague 2014

Prague’s book fair – Book World Prague – is underway and the guest of honor this year is Hungary with writers in attendance including the venerable Péter Esterházy, Krisztina Tóth, György Spiró, János Háy and László F. Földényi. You can download a supplement in English on the Hungarian presence that even has a section entitled “A Thousand Shades of Black and White”, but I read all the way through and it included nothing whatsoever on S&M, in spite of having 950 shades more than… oh never mind! There is also a Screening of the film The Emigrant, “which is about Sándor Márai and his wife and their last years of voluntary exile”. There will also be a discussion about the popularity of Bohumil Hrabal in Hungary.

This year’s Jiri Theiner Award is being awarded to historian Peter Demetz, author of the fantastic Prague In Black And Gold and Prague in Danger among many others.

Czech and international writers of note at the fair include Literalab favorites such as Romanian Bogdan Suceavă, whose Miruna, A Tale, was recently published by Twisted Spoon Press as well as having a book translated into Czech. There’s also Israeli Etgar Keret and Slovaks Pavel Vilikovský and Pavol Rankov among many others.

I’ll be writing more during the fair and after.

Read the Book World Program in English here

Photo – Péter Esterházy