Author Archives | literalab

The 48th annual International Book Fair for Children

The 48th annual International Book Fair for Children wound up in Bologna a few days ago and some great Polish designers were among the award winners. Iwona Chmielewska won top prize in the non-fiction category for her illustrations for the Korean book Maum – House of the Spiritsby Heekyung Kim. Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielilinski, who […]

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Oxford’s Bodleian Library and the Marbach Literary Archive in German

Oxford’s Bodleian Library and the Marbach Literary Archive in Germany have prevented a collection of letters and postcards written by Kafka from being auctioned off and will soon be put on public display, switching between the two prestigious institutions like a child shuttling back and forth between divorced parents. I attended a meeting of Prague’s […]

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Bring on the Romanians

“The rest is vibration. The old man went on laughing and listening to the distinct vibrations of love at a distance in the outer quarters of Bucharest. The apparatus had been perfected at this point, and its accuracy had increased so greatly that all the old satyr had to do was close his eyes, and […]

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A look at Absinthe: New European Writing’s Spotlight on Romania

  “The rest is vibration. The old man went on laughing and listening to the distinct vibrations of love at a distance in the outer quarters of Bucharest. The apparatus had been perfected at this point, and its accuracy had increased so greatly that all the old satyr had to do was close his eyes, […]

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The quiet, beauteous shadow

At the ongoing Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City – which includes Sam Lipsyte, Das Racist and John Waters among many others – Queens-based cooperative Lightful press will be introducing their latest book, Poems from Children’s Island by Sasha Chernyi (also transliterated as Sasha Chernyi and Chorny). The bilingual edition of this classic of Russian […]

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Readux is a new Berlin-based literary website with a wide range of coverage

Readux is a new Berlin-based literary website with a wide range of coverage of German and French books and literary goings on. The site will feature reviews, interviews, articles, opinion and through April 3rd even has a book giveaway. Launched earlier in March the site already has a lot of interesting content, including a great […]

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Estonian Literary Magazine

Link: Estonian Literary Magazine With articles on two different ways for writers to approach Estonian history comparing author of Purge, Sofi Oksanen and the less well-known poet and novelist Ene Mihkelson, as well as one on Russians in Estonian literature (ethnic Russians make up 25% of the population) there looks to be a lot on […]

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Danube in America: an interview with Michal Hvorecký

Michal Hvorecký was among the Slovak writers included in the Slovak issue of the Dalkey Archive Press’ Review of Contemporary Fiction. Born in 1976 he is part of a younger generation of writers expanding the bounds of Slovak writing and gaining a growing international readership, though at this point far more in German translation than […]

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The Belarus blacklist

The Belarus blacklist The cultural and media blacklist that the government of Belarus has denied exists and which Russian writer Victor Erofeyev recently referred to being on, seems to be having a growing influence according to this article in Transitions Online. Rock concerts have been cancelled due to imaginary illnesses and paintings by artists such […]

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Sándor Márai – the definition of a Central European writer

The publication of the novel Embers brought the name of Sándor Márai back into the international spotlight somewhat. Since then a number of translations into English have followed – most recently Portraits of a Marriage, which a review on Hungarian Literature Online says is actually a grouping of two Márai novels. Although known as a […]

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