Czech graphic artist Kája Saudek finally gets his due with new Prague museum The artistic style is unmistakable to Czech eyes: cowboys, aliens, machine gun-toting gangsters, stylish super cars and an abundance of scantily-clad, big-breasted women. With the opening of Kája Saudek Comics Museum off of Prague’s Wenceslas Square, the artist’s work will gain the […]
The story of Dickens baring his soul Russian-style to a visiting Dostoevsky looks to be as invented as any of their respective novels The influence of Charles Dickens on the novels of Dostoevsky seems fairly evident. In his study of the Russian writer’s work Joseph Frank recounts the impression made on Dostoevsky by reading Dickens’ […]
In a burst of end of the year cheer British political philosopher John Gray wrote an article on the BBC about the myth of progress in light of the ongoing collapse of European institutions, if not of free-market capitalism altogether. I can see his point as far as puncturing simplistic, utopian tendencies – as if […]
One of the features of Franz Kafka’s writing that some critics have had the biggest difficulty coming to terms with is his ability to take the reader from dark, despairing moments to scenes of almost slapstick comedy and then back again, sometimes in an instant, revealing parallels that both mock our sense of tragedy and […]
A selection of fiction from the Czech Republic to Russia noted by critics in the year’s “Best of” lists The “Best of” lists that come out at the end of the year tend to confirm received opinion for the most part and so it is not a big surprise that translated fiction does not make […]
Czech dissident publications are put on display in New York, helping to bring a dark, courageous chapter of modern history back to life Since the death of Václav Havel on Sunday, Czech television has been filled with scenes from the ‘60s through the ‘80s documenting the dissident movement the former president and playwright played such […]
The second part of an article in Berlin’s Readux on the Literature in Flux program and the river it took place on. Stories of piracy, swimming feats, drowning and love – some true, some fictional and some a combination of the two. What they all have in common is The Danube. Continue Reading Photo – […]
The director of films as brilliant and varied as Night and the City, Du rififi chez les hommes and The Naked City was born a hundred years ago today in Middletown, Connecticut. Considering he was blacklisted in 1950 and spent almost the entire rest of his life (he died in 2008 at 96) in Europe, […]
In the 21st century it is impossible to write the kind of melodramatic historical adventure novels made famous in 19th century France by the likes of Alexandre Dumas and Eugene Sue. It would be hopelessly archaic, a ridiculous undertaking, unless perhaps you add a few postmodernist touches, such as ambiguous multiple narration and piles upon […]
It is “best reads of the year” time, so for this Best Reads I am writing about one of the best books I read in 2011. Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual by Michael Scammell (The US edition is titled Koestler: The Literary and Political Odyssey of a Twentieth-Century Skeptic) In the early decades of the 20th […]
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