On Thursday, May 1, I will be reading and talking about Central European writing and publishing together with award-winning Czech poet Petr Hruška. The event will take place at the T. G. Masaryk Czech School in Cicero. Hruška will be reading from I Caught Sight of My Face, his latest collection translated by Joshua Mensch. […]
The latest issue of The Continental is out and includes my essay, “Fatherlessland”, a work about my father’s death, Prague as a city and film set, Nazis past and present, and a few other topics as well. The issue also includes an interview with Fran Lebowitz, a ghost story by film director Abel Ferrara, an […]
The latest issue of Budapest-based Panel is about to be published, Panel 7, offering the “best fiction, poetry and literary translations from Central and Eastern Europe.” And that will include my short story “White Light”, a tiny excerpt of which illustrates the Facebook announcement. There will be a launch party (details coming soon) as well, […]
The most recent episode of Julia Sherwood’s excellent podcast series on Slovak literature in English is me. I talk about the pros and cons of a virus-emptied center of Prague, the Central European literary sensibility and why I like it and especially about some of the Slovak writers I’ve read, written about and published in […]
Budapest-based Panel Magazine is holding a contest for original short fiction from Central and Eastern Europe. The 2020 Ruritania Prize, named after Anthony Hope’s imaginary Eastern European kingdom of in The Prisoner of Zenda, is accepting short fiction between 1,000 and 4,000 words by July 31. To qualify you have to live or have lived […]
The Central European Short Story Issue kicks off its second week with a short story that harks back to Prague’s more fun and disreputable days of the early 90s. “That afternoon he took a taxi ride, bought a second-hand violin on the street of Alchemists, visited museums, had lunch and drank the best Austrian wine, […]
“I didn’t shine a light there. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to. I only heard it. You and your friends. I started to see why you were thinking like an insect in the last days. I wasn’t disturbing you. I let the flies and worms and maybe even the rats continue on. […]
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the fall of various walls and a curtain, B O D Y editors Jan Zikmund and myself are publishing short stories from liberated but hardly problem-liberated Central Europe. It begins with an introduction, as most things do. There will also be some reviews of short story collections to give […]
“When a North American or British writer wants to write about new empires that come out of nowhere brandishing stark and memorable symbols, of vanquished homelands and cities made unrecognizable by war, he or she is likely writing a fantasy or science-fiction book. For a Central European writer they need look no further than their […]
Romanian writer Mircea Cărtărescu has won the Leipzig Book Award for his trilogy Blinding. The novel originally came out in three separate parts in 1996, 2002 and 2007 respectively, while its outstanding English translation by Sean Cotter was published as a single book by Archipelago Books in 2013. The award’s full name is the “Leipzig […]
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