“This isn’t the placelessness of a fellow modernist writer like Kafka, but more closely resembles that of a hyperrealistic painting, where the attention to detail – the glint of light on a bottle, the folds of skin on the figure’s neck – obscure any sign of the surroundings. Felsen isn’t looking at the world through […]
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Prague Microfestival XIV
The 14th Prague Microfestival takes place next weekend. Billed as a festival of ‘International Writing, Art, Film, Theory and Performance’ it will take place at Punctum, Krásova 27 in Žižkov. Among the writers and performers I will be reading on Saturday, October 15 at 6:30 pm, together with a number of other writers. You can […]
The Continental: Noir
The latest issue of The Continental, a magazine I am editing and writing for, is out. The theme of the issue is Noir and includes work from a darker, crime-ridden era of New York City (otherwise known as the good ‘ol days) to a futurist Hungary, Russia, the Czech Republic and elsewhere. Founder of Punk […]
Bianca Bellová in B O D Y
“And this handsome but utterly stupid young man, who had never had to deny himself an eighth dumpling in his life and was playing at being a committed left-winger, even taking the liberty of professing a kind of ideological solidarity with her, he wasn’t even capable of finding out the most basic information about her […]
Karel Šebek in B O D Y
I write to keep the train on course to crush meit’ll happen on a morning no less beautiful than thishands latticed in love like jailbars shall adorn every windowI am seeking death her silver in every living momentwords piled like cadaversa death camp of happiness – from an untitled poem by Karel Šebek, translated from […]
Marijana Čanak in B O D Y
“As soon as her mother turned away to do some other chore, the girl tore off pieces of dough and made them into little figures. She lined them up in front of her, stabbed them with a fork and groaned as if she were they; she chopped off one’s head and made the others play […]
Lukáš Cabala in B O D Y
“It contained the body of a roughly four-year-old boy. That in itself is astounding, since we’re talking about a time frame of about twenty-four thousand years ago, as evidenced by carbon-14 dating of other finds from the same area, but then came Professor Buttler’s reaction, which… his reaction threw us for a loop. You’ve probably […]
B O D Y Summer Issue 2022
The Summer Issue of B O D Y, marking the magazine’s 10th year in existence, is out. Besides the usual mix of fiction, poetry, non-fiction and reviews, the issue includes the editors’ list of their favorite work published over the past decade. Stay updated with the Summer Issue here Read my list of my five […]
Siegfried Mortkowitz in B O D Y
“Yes. The Mortkowitz funeral. I remember now. That was definitely yesterday.” Then, as if I’d suddenly turned radioactive, he spun on his heels and rushed away, leaving me to simmer in the soup of my bewilderment and humiliation. I felt that everyone was now looking at me, happy to have their attention momentarily diverted from […]
Literary roundup: Ukrainian writers on the war
AGNI magazine has published “Dispatches from Ukraine“, a series of writings and reflections by mostly Ukrainian writers, filmmakers, journalists, professors and more. It starts off with a powerful piece by novelist Yuri Andrukhovych, “After Bucha”: However, what we see testifies to dehumanization. The population of Russia successfully dehumanized itself. This is an anti-world. This is […]
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