At Russia Beyond the Headlines Alexander Genis asks whether Russia could have a Norton-like anthology of its literature, in spite of all the debate that surrounds these anthologies and the canons they imply. Russia though, especially in the 20th century, presents some unique challenges: “Perhaps, the solution is to end the list at 1917. As […]
Prague German Writers – Gustav Meyrink He was twenty-three years old and living alone in Prague. A wounded heart caused him to look at his life up to that point as shallow and empty. Gustav Meyrink had just put a farewell letter to his mother in an envelope and reached for his revolver, when he […]
The first time I saw the Berg Orchestra perform not long after its founding in 1995 the concert program offered a typical mix of new and old music, with the more familiar fare used to draw audiences to the modern music they were still for the most part unaccustomed to hearing. On that particular evening, […]
Oxford University is the site of a conference on the last two decades of Russian literature titled Decadence or Renaissance? Russian literature since 1991 that starts today. Besides all the academic speakers discussing issues as diverse as the latest wave of Russian and Russian-Jewish emigration, political novels, counter-culture and oil, there are two guest authors […]
“Jasieński clearly believed that new convictions required a new formal approach, and as such he reinvents his language every fifty pages or so, and entirely rethinks how a metaphor might be used … it once seemed logical that a political revolution needed a corresponding revolution in the arts. Now the politics struggle to change while […]
The US consulate in Poland has opened a photography exhibition in the central Polish city of Kielce titled “American Milosz.” The show consists of photographs of the poet Czesław Miłosz while he was living in the US taken by his brother Andrzej Miłosz in Berkeley in the 70s as well as by a Chicago-based Polish […]
Balla (Vladimír Balla) has won Slovakia’s biggest literary prize for his novella In the Name of the Father. In its seventh year the Anasoft litera comes with an award of €10,000. Previous winners include Pavel Vilikovský, Marek Vadas, Milan Zelinka, Alta Vášová, Stanislav Rakús and Monika Kompaníková. Hopefully, the award will give Balla a promotional […]
There is something as poetic as it is sad that one of the great Russian-Jewish writers of the latter half of the 20th century worked as a pathologist (worked, that is, until the powers that be demoted and eventually fired him). The New Yorker has a very short story by the magnificent author of Summer […]
In conjunction with the publication of Nine Rabbits by Bulgarian writer Virginia Zaharieva, Istros Books is holding a couple of events in London. On September 20 you can listen to the author in conversation with her translator Angela Rodel while the next evening the pair will be joined by Istros publisher Susan Curtis-Kojakovic and Milena […]
Pole Position is a series of Polish book events kicking off this week in the UK and running through November. It’s a great lineup, opening on September 19 in London with author of Ryszard Kapuściński: A Life, Artur Domosławski speaking with Neal Ascherson about the legendary Polish journalist. In early October Paweł Huelle will present […]
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