“When I looked up again, I could see only that my father was stuffing the doll, leg first, into the stove, after the rags. You could see how these caught fire amid the orange glow of the embers, the doll taking only seconds to shrivel up into something unrecognisable, though the rags flopped about as […]
“I was born a feral beast. At the time of my birth, I tore my mother apart. It wasn’t on purpose. I think the circumstances caused it. There was a lot of blood in the hospital room. My father, who gutted animals as part of his occupation, couldn’t bear to look.” – from “A Western […]
“We had stopped here and there along the way—at important spots, where he had seen a deer for the first time or where he’d had his first kiss. So I didn’t get to see the landscape while it was still light, and now only saw it as elongated shadows that the hills were casting over […]
“Reaching this point, Rabbi Nachman felt the urge to make a pause, not even he knew why, and lifting his eyes from the book, he saw on the threshold of the open door the tall thin figure of the wayfarer with the tangled white beard, the clear blue eyes sunken in their sockets, the long […]
B O D Y’s latest issue kicks off today and will bring new fiction, poetry, essays and interviews through the month of April. For my part, I will be publishing fiction from Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania with work by Ludovic Bruckstein, Krisztina Tóth, Sándor Jászberényi and Leonie Hodkevitch. The opening work in the issue is […]
“An old Portuguese man steps out of a dream about the southand leans against a yellow wall.I would like to be his gaze, which measures the distancebetween the sun, the tourists’ white thighs and the blue tiles of the cathedral.” from “Uno”, one of two poems by Anna Belkovska in translation by Jayde Will that […]
‘But then a grenade exploded, and they were showered with plaster and shards of bricks. Greta covered Hans with her naked body. But he clambered up onto his lone leg and made for the window. Greta tried to hold him back, what could you possibly want to see, my love?’ from “Victory” by Jānis Joņevs, […]
‘To contemporary dance and poetry.To Bukowski, who drinks and fucks in every third poemand sends everyone to hell.I am reading a book of his selected poems in my countryside home.On a bench between the well, woodshed, and greenhouseand lavender, which won’t be here anymore tomorrow.’ from “You Get Used to Everything” by Inga Pizāne, published […]
This week I will be publishing a selection of contemporary Latvian writing in B O D Y. The issue starts with a couple poems by Inga Pizāne. There will also selections of poetry from Anna Belkavska and Semyon Khanin. A short story, “Victory” by Jānis Joņevs rounds out the week’s writing. Latvian Lit Week: Inga […]
The latest issue of The Continental is out and includes my essay, “Fatherlessland”, a work about my father’s death, Prague as a city and film set, Nazis past and present, and a few other topics as well. The issue also includes an interview with Fran Lebowitz, a ghost story by film director Abel Ferrara, an […]
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