Books From Slovakia has a fantastic interview Daniela Balážová held with Slovak writer Pavol Rankov, author of the recently translated It Happened on the First of September. Among many topics Rankov talks about how the different translations deal with all the different languages used in the novel (spoiler: differently) and also talks about the lost multicultural world of Levice the story arises from.
He also writes about needing distance from the present moment to write, not only from contemporary times but that he found the 90s in Slovakia boring though in retrospect he realizes they were “pretty wild”. Yet he retains a deep skepticism about writers capturing the urgency of the moment: “I find authors who think they are living in the most interesting times and who try to artistically capture the present funny. I find the ones who think they and their lives are good book-material even funnier.”
Read an excerpt from It Happened on the First of September in B O D Y here
Read a review of It Happened on the First of September in Versopolis here
Words Without Borders Russophone Issue
Words Without Borders latest issue is titled #Russophonia: New Writing in Russian and is devoted to young Russophone writers born in 1985 or later who “work in shorter genres, from minimalistic flash fiction and protest poetry to visual performance.” From a gripping short story by Alisa Ganieva set in her native Dagestan to an excerpt from Olga Breininger’s novella titled There Was No Adderall in the Soviet Union to Alla Gorbunova’s fantastical short prose and poetry by Danyil Zadorozhnyi, Dinara Rasuleva, Ksenia Zheludova and Xenia Emelyanova, as well as a conversation between Galina Rymbu and Ilya Danishevsky “about the place of poetry, mass media, and literary texts in today’s Russia.”
It’s excellent evidence that writing in Russian continues going strong.
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