UK audiences tired of hearing about the troubled present will have a chance to hear about the troubled history behind the Iron Curtain, with appearances by Albanian and Slovak authors at various locations throughout the week. Oct. 15th sees the book launch of False Apocalypse by Fatos Lubonja and translated from the Albanian by John […]
Latest News
Ondrej Stefanik in B O D Y
“‘It seems like you’re an unhappy person. Isn’t that true? Learn to be happy in your unhappiness like Alyosha Karamazov,’ says the lunatic. Alyosha Karamazov? Shit, who’s that? His scar-faced accomplice from the Russian mafia?” From Ondrej Štefánik’s short story “Man On A Toilet”, translated from the Slovak by Janet Livingstone. This is the second […]
Deborah Levy in B O D Y
Author of Man-Booker nominated Swimming Home and Black Vodka: ten stories has just published a book of poetry entitled An Amorous Discourse In The Suburbs Of Hell, an extract of which is the latest read in B O D Y’s UK & Irish Poetry Issue. Levy has a number of UK appearances coming up, including […]
EU Prize for Literature 2014
The winners of the European Union Prize for Literature were announced today at the Frankfurt Book Fair meant to recognize “the best new and emerging authors in Europe.” Of the writers from Central and Eastern (really, Southern) Europe it’s a mix between those I’ve heard of and haven’t and those who’ve had something translated into […]
Literary Roundup: Stories from nowhere – Brazil+Ukraine to be exact
This evening in London, Brazilian author of the novel Nowhere People, Paulo Scott, will be appearing at the London Review Bookshop. Published by And Other Stories, the book was translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn and is described on the event host’s site as presenting “the stark contrast between the world of the rich, […]
Seifert 113
In celebration of the 113th birthday of the Nobel Prize–winning Czech poet Jaroslav Seifert there will be an evening devoted to his work in Malkovich Bar in the poet’s old neighborhood of Žižkov. Great poet, great bar – should be good (though if you don’t understand Czech the bar part will be more important as […]
Literary roundup: Sci-fi from another world
The Paris Review has an article on great Polish science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem’s view of the future (and, of course, present) of humanity entitled “The Future According to Stanisław Lem”. The occasion is the screen adaptation of Lem’s 1971 novella The Futurological Congress, translated into English by Michael Kandel, into a film called The Congress […]
Bogdan Suceava in B O D Y
This week’s Saturday European Fiction is a short story by the author of Coming from an Off-Key Time and Miruna, a Tale, to mention just his books translated into English – “Greetings From Prague” by Bogdan Suceavă and translated from the Romanian by Alistair Ian Blyth (as were the two abovementioned novels). Tycho Brahe, Kepler, […]
Literary roundup: Read Russia Prize and Drunken Boat translations
At the outset I have to admit that I really don’t understand this. The Read Russia Prize, at least on their website, is stated to be for “English translations of Russian literature” and to be given in New York each May. So naturally last weekend in Moscow they announced the winners of the prize, the […]
Literary roundup: Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky + Modernist mags
Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading this week is a story by the great Russian writer Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky entitled “The Unbitten Elbow”. Translated by Joanne Turnbull, who also provides a brief introduction, the story comes at the recommendation of The PEN Literary Awards. Not much more needs to be said about it than what Turnbull says in […]
literalab 