As noted in the preview of Book World Prague 2014, the 2014 Jiri Theiner Award was given to historian Peter Demetz. Index on Censorship has an article on it though it’s more about the background of the award. (The article was written by Pavel Theiner, the son of the award’s namesake, and he quotes himself […]
The new issue of Asymptote is out with a lot of great content in many languages and formats – fiction, poetry, drama, graphic novel, video and an especially interesting section of non-fiction including Arnon Grunberg on J.M. Coetzee and ghost stories collected on the streets of Berlin. From Central and Eastern Europe there are three […]
A feminist version of Don Juan, a 900-page work of Greek surrealism that is a mixture of Joyce, Freud and Breton, one of the best Russian novels of the 20th century – and 27 more to go. The European Society of Authors released its third annual Finnegan’s List at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, with […]
“The mist that came from the Mediterranean sea blotted out the city that Pilate so detested. The suspension bridges connecting the temple with the grim fortress of Antonia vanished, the murk descended from the sky and drowned the winged gods above the hippodrome, the crenellated Hasmonaean palace, the bazaars, the caravanserai, the alleyways, the pools […]
Are English and American writers missing an opportunity to write political novels? And Jo Nesbø talking about the ethics of a fictional treatment of last year’s mass killing in Norway. Last week was rough for novelists. First their ability to write philosophical novels was questioned, now they are being taken to task for their inability […]
The Prague Writers’ Festival (PWF) kicks off on April 14 with a typically diverse and impressive list of writers coming to Prague to read and discuss their work. Festival director Michael March sees the event as an opportunity to acquaint the local audience with some major talents that are far less-known here than they should […]
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 […]
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