One of Sweden’s great modernists poet and writer Rut Hillarp’s work has never before appeared in English before now. With The Black Curve about to be published by Readux Books in a translation by Saskia Vogel, B O D Y has published an excerpt in Saturday European Fiction. Read translator Saskia Vogel on how she […]
“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 […]
Avrom (Abraham) Sutzkever is known for his powerful, lyrical poetry dealing with the Holocaust that he fought through as a partisan and survived as well other weighty, intense themes in his long life’s body of work. And while this short story has its share of darkness, I think it presents a different side of the […]
Belarusian writer and investigative journalist Svetlana Alexievich has won the Nobel Prize for literature. There is already a lot of commentary, articles and probably interviews. As Philip Gourevitch says in an article in the New Yorker titled “Nonfiction Wins a Nobel”, Alexievich is “the first full-time, lifelong journalist to win the literature prize.” Read from […]
On Monday Oct 12 and Tuesday Oct 13 the Jewish Museum and Berg Orchestra will be co-hosting the fifth Cinegogue screening in which silent films are presented with live orchestral music. The films will be the works of Man Ray, Ralph Steiner and Paul Strand. Like Man Ray, both Steiner and Strand were well known […]
“The war is over. Troy has been looted and burned. A valiant Greek warrior whose name has been lost to posterity and so will be designated as X, loads his ship with treasure, hoists the sails, and sets a course for home.” So begins “The Anti-Odyssey”, a short story of mine in the newly published […]
“The moon has gone down, disappeared somewhere; the stars are now a pale yellow colour and fast fading, all the merriment having gone from them. Dew is falling as Ester carries the milk pail, says czokolom, thank you, in their language and tries to squeeze past the old woman on her way out. But the […]
Alisa Ganieva will be in New York City on Thursday, June 18 for a launch of her newly translated novel The Mountain and the Wall. The event is sponsored by Read Russia and will involve a discussion between the author and translator, publisher and academic Ronald Meyer at Book Culture on 112th St. The novel […]
“What does it matter where you die, where you’re buried? It’s where you live that counts.” My burst of confidence clearly wasn’t being reciprocated. “I’m not so sure that dying in Omsk is any worse than living there,” Adam responded, his eyes staring blankly into a future of factory smokestacks, grimy snow and excessive drinking… […]
“It all began with a rather unusual encounter in a first-class compartment of the Belgrade-Skopje express train.” So begins Aleksandar Prokopiev’s short story “Papradishki” translated from the Macedonian by Will Firth. But from the beginning, which could be the opening chapter of a detective novel with references to Hercule Poirot and Maigret, the story enters […]
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