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 […]
Sometimes in the world of literature in translation when it rains it pours. So it is that on May 12th it will be pouring a fantastic new selection of books, including a Czech modernist in English for the first time, a surreal Czech novel written during Czechoslovakia’s normalization after the Soviet occupation and a Russian […]
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 […]
Hana Andronikova’s novel of a family odyssey beginning in prewar Czechoslovakia and ending up in modern-day North America, with stops in the by turns exotic and horrifying locales of India and Auschwitz won the Czech Magnesia Litera Award in 2002. Now The Sound of the Sundial is finally appearing in English translation edited and adapted […]
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 […]
The New York Times has an article that uses the occasion and course of the Prague Marathon to venture into Czech dissidence and history as well as some very interesting issues of a renewal of interest in political debate among the younger generation of artists and writers and how this is controversial. The whole article […]
Czech writer Magdaléna Platzová is appearing in New York City for the New Literature From Europe festival from Dec. 5 to 6, and for the occasion I have an interview with her in Words Without Borders, where her short story, “This Time Last Year”, ran in last month’s Czech issue in a translation from Czech […]
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 […]
PEN has announced its 2014 Translation Fund Winners and there are some cool and unusual writers that will be coming into English from this part of the world, and by this part of the world I mean in this case from a few blocks away from where I’m sitting writing this. One of the grants […]
European Literature Night takes place May 14 in cities throughout Europe, with readings, performances, panel discussions and more. Prague’s Literature Night will take place in Žižkov and includes work from writers near and far, as well as a former classmate of mine from university who I’m willing to bet large amounts of money doesn’t remember […]
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