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 […]
The London Book Fair will take place from April 11 – 16th with a focus on contemporary Russian literature. The lineup includes the presence of 50 of the country’s most prominent writers and literary figures, including the author of the modern classic Pushkin House Andrei Bitov, Ludmila Ulitskaya and Boris Akunin among many others. Paying […]
At the Fiction Writer’s Review there is a great interview with Vladislav Todorov, whose debut novel Zift was published in English last year. About a thief named Moth unjustly imprisoned for murder in 1944 he is released in the communist Bulgaria of 1963 only to be poisoned by his former criminal partner, Slug. In the […]
From 1908 to 1922 Franz Kafka worked at the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague. Considering his work was virtually unknown in his homeland after his death, then banned successively by German occupiers and the communist regime, Kafka’s traces in his former city were not very well guarded. Today though, […]
On Hungarian Literature Online a review of György Spiró’s yet to be translated Spring Exhibition, a novel whose main character misses out on the 1956 uprising due to a hemorrhoid operation. There is also an interview with the author where he talks about the difficulty of dealing with anachronistic communist lingo and his memories of […]
On March 24, 2011 Czech-born French writer Milan Kundera will become just the twelfth writer to have his collected works published in the prestigious Bibliothèque de La Pléiade edition during his lifetime. Published by Gallimard, the initial volume will include Kundera’s novels originally written in Czech, which form the bulk of his work. Having left […]
Link: Prague and the Jerusalem International Book Festival This year’s Jerusalem Prize might have gone to Ian McEwan, but the week-long event has a number of connections to the Czech capital, whether it be the Prague-born writers attending or ties going further back into the city’s storied past.
Link: The Slovak fiction scene – Part II – Michal Hvorecký The second part of a review of the Slovak issue of the Dalkey Archive Press’ Review of Contemporary Fiction looking at an extract from Michal Hvorecký’s novel The Escort
“You’re asking whether there can be an innocent painting? What kind of a question is that? Innocent – how?” Hans glanced at the pictures around him. “A painting that would bear a direct relationship to reality, simply and openly, without any gimmicks, irony or hyperbole, or any other twisted perspectives,” Michal, the painter, developed his […]
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