When I was 17 years old and deciding where to go to college I went on a visit to the University of Miami because I was considering studying at their music school. The sight of white cork-lined practice rooms that looked like jail cells made me a bit uneasy from the outset, but it was […]
While everyone seems vitally concerned with the portal Loki utilizes to make a surprise appearance on earth in The Avengers there is another portal I’d like to turn your attention to. If you haven’t gone to the Czech Literature Portal site yet now is your chance. From the beginning of May I have taken on […]
Book World Prague takes a plunge into Black Sea literature, opening up literary vistas barely known to international audiences The guest of honor at this year’s book fair is Romania, and according to Book World Prague (BWP) director Dana Kalinová, this gave them an opportunity to make a broader presentation of writing from other countries […]
Work of Alexander Kluge, among the boldest filmmakers and writers of the past 50 years, as well as being a key figure in New German Cinema, gets Prague showing It is not uncommon to find artists who came to film from work in other mediums. Some are painters turned filmmakers, while others turned to film […]
From the works of Havel and Mácha to the Tata Bojs and a Hungarian vampire, Europe celebrates its literature What began as a Czech project called Literature Night has now spread from Prague across the continent, with Czech and European authors appearing and having their work read from London to Yerevan. In its fourth year […]
Absinthe: New European Writing #17 – the Bulgarian issue is ready and on the way to subscribers. So subscribe, order it. Besides the work of a lot of great Bulgarian writers I have an essay in it on some recent adaptations that have made it to Bulgaria’s silver screen. I will also soon have some […]
Being a good or great writer is certainly no guarantee of having a great, good or even remedial grasp of politics, culture or, really, anything at all. Yet there are writers whose intellect outside their books approximates their intellect in their books, and so it can be worth hearing what they have to say. For […]
“After the difficulties I have encountered in trying to bring my edifying and instructive animal tales to the public I would have sold my soul to get them published. Now I no longer have even a soul, as I passed on last spring and I’ve been sucking men’s blood ever since, just like my grandmother. […]
“The mist that came from the Mediterranean sea blotted out the city that Pilate so detested. The suspension bridges connecting the temple with the grim fortress of Antonia vanished, the murk descended from the sky and drowned the winged gods above the hippodrome, the crenellated Hasmonaean palace, the bazaars, the caravanserai, the alleyways, the pools […]
On April 23, 2012 US President Barack Obama announced that he would award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest honor, to Polish Resistance fighter Jan Karski. Earlier this year in Poland the parliament announced the commemoration of Karski’s centennial in 2014, including a monument to be built to him in Warsaw as well […]
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