European Literature Night takes place May 14 in cities throughout Europe, with readings, performances, panel discussions and more. Prague’s Literature Night will take place in Žižkov and includes work from writers near and far, as well as a former classmate of mine from university who I’m willing to bet large amounts of money doesn’t remember […]
“Lermontov’s house is gone now. The foundations have crumbled in upon themselves; the mock-ups of the reconstruction are now covered in graffiti. There will never be any reconstruction…” This is the beginning of Tara Isabella Burton’s excellent essay on Tbilisi on Tin House’s blog Fiction by Lyudmila Ulitskaya Great Russian writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya has a […]
“Upon passing the door to the master bathroom you make out a black reflection in the tub. You distract yourself by putting a bibelot face down in the children’s bedroom. Whispering death threats in the dolls’ ears in the playroom. You wind up climbing the stairs. Thirteen steps you’ve counted now, thirteen, that lead you […]
The recent centennial of Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal and the publication of Harlequin’s Millions in a translation by Stacey Knecht is the impetus for a number of Hrabal-based events coming up this week. On May 6, Knecht will be in conversation with writer Caleb Crain at 192 Books in New York City. And NYRB and […]
Argentine writer Iosi Havilio is appearing at the excellent Blue Metropolis International Literature Festival in Montreal on Friday May 2 and Saturday May 3 together with fellow Latin American writers Carlos Labbé, Luis Alberto Urrea and Eduargo Lago. Read an excerpt from Iosi Havilio’s Paradises in B O D Y here There are not a […]
The great Tadeusz Różewicz passed away on April 24, 2014, the last of a great generation of Polish poets to experience the country’s turbulent 20th century from the Second World War through communism and its aftermath. Today, B O D Y publishes his poem “Wishing Well” in a translation by Kasia Pilat. There have also […]
For the second year running Hungarian László Krasznahorkai has won the Best Translated Book Award for fiction. His novel Seiobo There Below, translated by Ottilie Mulzet, was the winner after he won the 2013 prize for Sátántangó in a translation by George Szirtes. Krasznahorkai came by his publisher New Directions’ offices and gave a short […]
“I sat down on the edge of the couch. The Radiotechnika radiola was playing music, something non-Russian. Vova poured the rest of the wine into the glasses – there turned out to be just a bit left — and they drank up. I was sorry Igor had interfered, and that they didn’t give me any […]
In The Moscow Times, John Freedman illuminates a striking parallel between the hysterical, xenophobic cultural attacks being directed against cultural figures in Russia and those carried out at the height of Stalinism: “I’ve seen this before. Not in my lifetime, no. I saw it unfold before my astonished eyes in crumbling, yellowing newspaper clippings from the late 1920s […]
Literature is filled with requests for cigarettes, but I doubt there are many that resemble the one found in Ondrej Štefánik’s “To Sacrifice Yourself For Someone Else”: “Do you have a smoke?” I hear a squeaky voice from somewhere. It’s not the voice in my head. I shiver. I look around. Not a soul. “So? […]
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