“And this handsome but utterly stupid young man, who had never had to deny himself an eighth dumpling in his life and was playing at being a committed left-winger, even taking the liberty of professing a kind of ideological solidarity with her, he wasn’t even capable of finding out the most basic information about her […]
The opener of B O D Y’s Winter Issue in 2022 is an amazing short story “The Relay” by the author of Aberrant, Marek Šindelka, translated from the Czech by Graeme Dibble. The story comes from Šindelka’s 2014 collection Mapa Anny (A Map of Ann). Read the story here Read my interview with Šindelka in […]
The Winter Issue of B O D Y will be published throughout February and has an even more European, literature-in-translation focus than usual. There will be fiction, poetry and interviews ranging from Wales to Moldova and Croatia. Tune in tomorrow for a newly translated short story by the author of Aberrant, Marek Šindelka. Read more […]
With Prague Book World coming up a series of events are being held in conjunction with the English-language publication of J.R. Pick’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a tragicomic novel of a thirteen-year-old Czech boy sent to the Terezín ghetto. On Thursday, May 10th at 6:30 pm, Karolinum Press and The Bubny […]
“The German Casino in Růžová Street, to which Mr. Kopfrkingl had dragged himself with his leg behind him and his body bent forward, had a white marble-covered entrance with three steps. ‘I love white marble-covered entrances with three steps,’ thought Mr. Kopfrkingl and slowly crossed the street to the pavement opposite…” From The Cremator by […]
“…and he coughs decorously and goes off decorously to his study. Where he decorously. Straightens. Some papers. Slowly. Carefully. Tap-ping them. To cut off the edges. It’s very important now. To the millimeter exactly. At the edge of the table. And we’re each of us alone again… Ah, yes: childhood! Land of terror…” From Alexandra […]
The first week of B O D Y’s month-long Czech issue was finished off with a powerful short story, “Cedar and Hammer”, by the award winning writer Jan Balabán, whose literary output is all the more impressive considering he died at the age of 49. There is next to nothing of Balabán’s work available in […]
One of the great Czech modernists Richard Weiner has finally been translated into English, with the novel The Game For Real in a translation by Benjamin Paloff being published by Two Lines Press this week. Read an excerpt in B O D Y here Like Kafka, Weiner never lived to see his writing appreciated, this […]
Daniela Hodrová began writing A Kingdom of Souls in 1977 but the book, like the rest of her work, didn’t appear until after the fall of the communist regime in 1991. In 2012, Hodrová was awarded the prestigious Franz Kafka Prize, which had previously been awarded to the likes of Philip Roth, Haruki Murakami and […]
If you’re at the London Book Fair today you can attend a discussion this evening on the broader and still broadening scope of contemporary Czech writing with translators Julia Sherwood, Alex Zucker and hosted by editorial director of Words without Borders Susan Harris. Sherwood is the translator of B O D Y’s most recent Saturday […]
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