An excerpt from Balla’s novella In the Name of the Father was this week’s Sunday European Fiction at B O D Y and here is an interview conducted by Jitka Rožňová with the writer for the forthcoming issue of Slovakia’s Knižná revue (The Book Review): To receive so many awards for a single book (In the […]
“Of all the people I knew in those days he was the only one who could switch off, sit down and just stay seated, puffing away without – I’m quite sure – a thought in his head. He would just sit there, immersed in emptiness. Not that he had a clue about Buddhism.” From an […]
“Russia’s regular historical paradox is that its rulers want one thing but the result is often something entirely different. Peter the Great wanted to strengthen the empire, but instead he placed a bomb beneath it, which destroyed it. In our time, Gorbachev wanted to save communism and instead he buried it.” Author of Maidenhair, Mikhail […]
In Granta’s ongoing Best Untranslated Writers series author of the fantastic East of the West (reviewed on Literalab here) Miroslav Penkov chooses to feature “The Brave Words of Petar Delchev.” Delchev has been a sailor in the Black Sea and more recently been “restoring ruined village houses” and “managing a tailoring factory” all the while […]
Here’s what I wrote about the Prague book fair for Publishing Perspectives, covering the significance of Slovakia as the Guest of Honor, poetry being a focus of the fair and various ups and downs facing the Czech book industry, such as the insanely high VAT tax on books and the impending arrival of Amazon. On […]
The short story “All of That” by Ognjen Spahić was featured in B O D Y’s Sunday European Fiction’s on June 30. It was also the basis for a short film by Montenegrin director Branislav Milatović that has appeared in film festivals throughout Europe, recently winning the Gjorgi Abadziev Award at Macedonia’s Asterfest international short […]
“He’ll carry the wreath, and Maria and Anna will walk after him. He said it as if he didn’t have any idea what he was supposed to do. Like he’s going to carry the wreath on his back and walk around the house. Cruel. It seems cruel to bother children with that kind of stupidity; […]
A new column at Literalab that will follow-up B O D Y’s Sunday European Fiction starts off with an essay by the translator of this week’s story, Gale A. Kirking. It was a riddle that required my reading two wonderful novels and a collection of short stories to sort out. In dedicating the novel Rustic […]
“She pouted her painted lips and was still walking toward the ballot box and her hands were now moving down again, from beneath the skirt, and I caught a glimpse of white fabric in her fingers, but I could not see more, because Táňa was standing in front of me and the ballot box on […]
K never made it to the Castle but he can take some solace in the fact that his struggle will now grace the shelves alongside the battles between caped heroes and masked villains with the publication of the comic The Castle. By way of the Czech Literature Portal I came upon the recent release of […]
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