“Then there is a veritable panorama of the immediate post-’68 emigration process itself: from the border crossings that, again, resemble neither the dangerous escapes of previous eras nor those that would follow when the regime would seal the border. There are nervous train rides; nostalgic car rides; last looks; and sad goodbyes. There is Vienna, […]
Witches Sabbath By Maurice Sachs Translated from the French by Richard Howard 2020, Spurl Editions, 276 pp. Maurice Sachs was born in Paris in 1906, when the Belle Époque was giving way to modernity, and grew up nourished by that golden age of French culture in a way that seems unimaginable today. His grandfather was […]
In 1982, Ricardo Luis Melogno murdered four taxi drivers in the space of a week in Buenos Aires. He has been locked up in prison or psychiatric institutions ever since, and now is cast in a legal limbo from which he may never be released. Argentine writer Carlos Busqued, whose debut novel Under This Terrible […]
“The way Rankov balances and weaves together the seemingly lighter side of the September 1st story with its darker and more momentous occasions, such as the September 1st, 1939 outbreak of World War II, makes for a highly compelling narrative. By slipping back and forth from fascism to youthful frivolity, the darkness is made darker […]
In commemoration of the death of Czech writer Jan Balabán ten years ago at the age of forty-nine, B O D Y editor Jan Zikmund has reviewed the English version of Balabán’s short story collection Maybe We’re Leaving, translated from the Czech by Charles S. Kraszewski. He writes about how Balabán writes “quiet”, compact stories […]
“The collection’s cast of characters includes, among others, a child-like dwarf creature who needs to be kept away from water and serves as a litmus paper in the human world, an ex-stripper ceaselessly emitting cigar smoke in emulation of her act of long ago and an old woman whose devoted tending of the apricot tree […]
Into the Spotlight is a soon-to-be-published anthology of contemporary Slovak fiction including writers such as Uršuľa Kovalyk, Pavel Vilikovský, Monika Kompaníková and many more. It was translated by Julia Sherwood and Magdalena Mullek and published by Three String Books (an imprint of Slavica Publishers). You can read my review of this fantastic anthology here. Read […]
The Vegetarian by Han Kang has awarded the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. The novel was translated into English by Deborah Smith and published by Portobello Books. The author and translator are each awarded a prize of £25,000 as well as a trophy. If you haven’t read this novel yet you absolutely should. It’s amazing. […]
I have finally begun my ‘Best Books’ list and this year I’m not doing it all at once but am featuring the very best books with reviews and/or links of their own. One of my very favorites this year was McSweeney’s Latin American Crime issue and I reviewed it today in B O D Y. […]
My review of Sándor Jászberényi’s soon-to-be published debut short story collection The Devil is a Black Dog. We have published five of the amazing stories in B O D Y, three of them during this past Sándor Jászberényi Week. So hopefully this review will send you on to the stories and to the book itself, […]
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