The latest issue of Words Without Borders is devoted to contemporary Bulgarian writing, brought to you by director of the Bulgarian National Book Center Svetlozar Zhelev and translator extraordinaire Angela Rodel. They kick off the issue with a baseball-cap worthy-title essay “Making Bulgaria Great Again” where the case is made for culture being worth saving […]
Milan Kundera’s first novel in 13 years, The Festival of Insignificance, will be published in Linda Asher’s English translation next month and the New Yorker has just published an excerpt, though it’s being promoted as a short story, “The Apologizer”. The novel was published in Italy in 2013 and then in France and Spain. Bulgarian […]
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 […]
The NEA has announced its literary translation fellowships for 2014 and there is some great-looking work from Central and Eastern Europe being supported as well as some translators whose work has appeared in B O D Y. Among them is Adam Siegel, for his translation from the Russian of Vasilii Golovanov’s The Island: or, A […]
In The New Republic, Adam Thirlwell reviews Michael Hoffmann’s translation of a collection of Gottfried Benn’s poetry entitled Impromptus: Selected Poems and looks at the obscurity that Benn has fallen into due to his Nazi past. It’s a fascinating article, both for grappling with the moral issues that the reputations of these “disgraced” writers bring […]
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