It was just about a year ago that I first spotted the comic The Sorrowful Putto of Prague, with its living, moving Baroque angel Xavier. Having written my own living, moving Baroque angel story I was fascinated to see a very different take on the subject, and one that came with so much humor, fantastic […]
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Two restored masterpieces of Wojciech Has
Two of the most stunning and surreal adaptations of two of the strangest books to come out of Poland have just been restored and released in high definition on DVD. Wojciech Jerzy Has directed the adaptations of Jan Potocki’s novel The Manuscript Found in Saragossa in 1965 and of Bruno Schulz’s Sanatorium Under the Sign […]
Literary roundup: Russian writers in London and the literature of non-resilience
Having just published an article about Russian writers in Prague in the ‘20s (not to be confused with Prague in the ‘90s, which was supposedly Paris in the ‘20s as Paris in the ‘90s was too expensive to be anything but Paris in the ‘90s) I wanted to point out this broad historical look at […]
Czech literary awards and Prague festivals
The Czech Magnesia Litera award for the book of the year has gone to Michal Ajvaz for his novel Lucemburská zahrada (The Luxembourg Gardens). The novel is about a teacher in Paris named Paul who enters some kind of fantasy world where an unknown language is spoken when he accidentally types a word he hadn’t […]
Literary roundup: Index on Censorship and the Holocaust in Lithuania
In celebration of its 40th anniversary Index on Censorship is opening up its entire archives for 40 days from March 26 to, if I did the math correctly (no sure thing) means until May 5. After that all issues published before 2010 will remain available through the end of this year. Based on a quick […]
‘The Case of the General’s Thumb’ by Andrey Kurkov
“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 […]
Final Cut: An Interview With Jürgen Fauth
The mystery at the heart of Jürgen Fauth’s debut novel Kino extends from the smoke-filled cabarets of Weimar Berlin and the era’s legendary silent films to a Brooklyn apartment of two newlyweds and a decrepit drug-filled house in the Hollywood Hills. The transatlantic story comes from a German-born American writer who tells Readux about the […]
Literary roundup: new award and age-old problems
The newly established Czech Book Award (Cena Česká kniha) has announced its shortlist of 20 titles out of 109 titles submitted by Czech publishers. A list of seven finalists will come out in April and the winner will be announced as part of Book World Prague on May 19. Shortlisted authors that can be read […]
When Russian literature passed through Prague
Prague in the ‘20s was a hotbed of émigré Russian intellectual life In the wake of the Russian Revolution and civil war Prague played a surprisingly large and often unacknowledged role in 20th century Russian literature and thought. While the exiled aristocratic and political exiles settled in Paris and most of Russia’s intelligentsia chose Berlin, […]
Read translated fiction or risk evisceration
An article on Aleksandar Hemon and Nicole Krauss presenting Dalkey’s Best European Fiction 2012, on the good old translation conundrum, on old men no longer reading fiction (from a very good source) and another kind of cut in the publishing industry besides job cuts. Read the full article at Czech Position
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