“As in the Soviet past, bright new futures were elusive. Which didn’t mean they wouldn’t come, only that some cost was involved. And in these infant days of Slav capitalism, anything good – bright future included – was extremely pricey. Free, gratis and for nothing was a concept of the past.” – from The Case […]
When Wilhemina Koblitz, called Mina, comes home after visiting her new husband in a New York hospital, the decadence of Weimar Berlin and the magical possibilities of cinema are likely distant from her preoccupations. The delivery of a pair of metal film canisters changes all that though, to the point that she plunges into a […]
By Hallgrimur Helgason “Icelandic names are like Scud missiles. Their trail lingers in the air long after they’ve reached their target. Still these guys have my respect. Being a crime writer in the land of no murders can’t be easy. It seems you need the creative powers of a genius just to be able to […]
“ … but what is a dream except the continuation of reality, or is reality the continuation of the dream?” – Ladislav Klíma, Glorious Nemesis In 1924 the first Surrealist Manifesto was published, elevating the blurring of dream and reality to an artistic imperative. That same year Franz Kafka was buried in Prague’s New Jewish […]
Thirst by Russian novelist Andrei Gelasimov is the story of a Chechen war veteran who returns home with a face disfigured in a grenade attack. He seems content to remain holed up in his apartment with a plentiful supply of vodka, staring at the TV until the search for a former comrade pulls him out […]
Murder in 1930s Budapest provides a panorama of a lost world Vilmos Kondor’s Budapest Noir begins with a pair of deaths. On the one hand, these deaths practically could not have less to do with one another. The first is the real life death of Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös on October 6, 1936 in Munich; […]
A WWII crime novel depicts the hunt for Czech resistance fighters, their German contact and the perpetrator of a seemingly impossible crime “And if I had really been as single-minded and independent as Heydrich said I was, I would probably have told him he was wrong: murder – even political assassination – is rarely ever […]
Poland has seen more than its share of monstrosities, having been invaded at one time or other by Nazis, Prussians, Hapsburgs, White as well as Red Russians, and even the Mongol Golden Horde. Therofore, if you think of the words monster and Poland in the same sentence it is most likely in reference to a […]
A selection of fiction from the Czech Republic to Russia noted by critics in the year’s “Best of” lists The “Best of” lists that come out at the end of the year tend to confirm received opinion for the most part and so it is not a big surprise that translated fiction does not make […]
In the 21st century it is impossible to write the kind of melodramatic historical adventure novels made famous in 19th century France by the likes of Alexandre Dumas and Eugene Sue. It would be hopelessly archaic, a ridiculous undertaking, unless perhaps you add a few postmodernist touches, such as ambiguous multiple narration and piles upon […]
literalab 