Haaretz has a fascinating article on the rich but deeply conflicted life of the Hebrew poet and mostly St. Petersburg resident photographer Asher K. Shapiro. Having converted to Christianity on what he thought was his deathbed so he could marry his pregnant Orthodox Russian girlfriend Shapiro spent his life with the social benefits and personal […]
The Millions’ Year in Reading series is in full swing and frankly, what the majority of these writers and critics seem to have been reading in 2012 just reminds me that I read in an entirely different universe than they do. So many of the selections sound so quaint and dull, Romance novels with a […]
Russian literature, theater and art will be in the spotlight in Berlin at the RusImport festival from November 29 to December 9. Highlights include performances of Pyotr Fomenko’s production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters (in Russian with German titles). Fomenko, who passed away at 80 in August was one of the giants of Russian theater. Then, […]
English-speaking expats coming to Prague to write poetry and become famous – yes, you’ve heard that one before and assume that piece of ancient history dates back to the early 1990s. In fact, it stretches just a bit further back, and on November 24 in Prague there will be a series of events commemorating Elizabeth […]
Czech writer Jiří Hájíček was one of the names on this year’s Finnegan’s List when fellow Czech novelist, graphic novelist and playwright Jaroslav Rudiš selected his 2012 novel Rybí krev (Fish Blood) among the three books to be more widely translated into European languages. In this case more widely is easy to define as the […]
In the wake of Phillip Roth’s retirement announcement another prestigious Jewish writer getting up there age-wise, has decided to lay down his pen. Hungarian writer Imre Kertész has said he’s finished writing in an article in ActuaLitté. Unlike Roth, Kertész pins his decision down to subject matter, and having exhausted the theme of the Holocaust […]
If there is one reason to prefer the boxing to the literary world it is that its heavyweight division is determined by a specific number of pounds (minimum 200, or 90.7 kg.) whereas there are no clear indicators for how heavy a writer has to be to be referred to as a heavyweight. This became […]
The New Literature From Europe festival kicks off today in New York City with reading and discussions taking place at a variety of venues in Manhattan beginning at 6pm. The focus of this year’s festival is the meeting point between writing and art, asking “why European writers are writing about art, about artists, and about […]
The Central European Forum takes place in Bratislava from November 15 to 18 and there are a host of writers from the region taking part, including Serbia’s Vladimir Arsenijević, Slovenia’s Drago Jančar (last year’s European Literature Prize winner – more below), Hungary’s György Konrád, Czech Jáchym Topol, Poland’s Andrzej Stasiuk and many more. The conference […]
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych celebrated the Day of Ukrainian literature and language with a rousing (though admittedly not so well-translated message): “The Ukrainian language is the powerful factor in the consolidated state-building that contributes to the enrichment of the spiritual culture of the society.” Uh, yeah . . my sentiments exactly. The day commemorates 12th […]
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