During the Second World War Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti was subject to forced labor because he was Jewish and was called up three times. The final time came on May 20, 1944, when he was sent to a German labor camp in Bor, Serbia, where he worked in the copper mines. On May 19, the […]
In Granta’s ongoing Best Untranslated Writers series author of the fantastic East of the West (reviewed on Literalab here) Miroslav Penkov chooses to feature “The Brave Words of Petar Delchev.” Delchev has been a sailor in the Black Sea and more recently been “restoring ruined village houses” and “managing a tailoring factory” all the while […]
“Blood pounded in my temple, and my sweat turned cold. With nowhere else to go, I pressed my entire body against the fence, so hard that the chain links would leave their impression on my back. I couldn’t kill the bird. Our eyes locked, and we stared each other down. As I gazed into the […]
Book World Prague roundup Prague’s book fair just came and went and though I missed seeing a lot of the bigger names and featured events I was left with one strong impression that seems highly significant for Central European literature and the region as a whole. It is that Central Europe is fucked – no […]
Prague’s book fair Book World Prague (BWP) 2013 runs from May 16 to 19, with some events having already taken place in various spots throughout the city. The main fair hosts Slovakia as this year’s Guest of Honor, with a significantly larger and less restricted group of writers attending the event than when, say, Saudi […]
The 20th International Book Festival Budapest runs from April 18 to 21 with Italy as the country Guest of Honor and Michel Houellebecq as the writer Guest of Honor. Houellebecq’s novel Lanzarote will be published in Hungarian for the occasion. Among the Hungarian writers attending the festival are Noémi Szécsi, György Konrád, László Krasznahorkai and […]
Asymptote’s April 2013 issue has just come out and, as always, contains a lot of great prose, poetry and more, some of which comes from the part of the world written about hereabouts. The introduction of Hungarian writer Miklós Szentkuthy continues with an excerpt from Towards the One and Only Metaphor translated by Tim Wilkinson […]
The Jerusalem International Book Fair runs from February 10 to 15 and as always there are a lot of writers and events in literalab’s sphere of interest. At the literary cafes these include Hungarian writer and previous Angelus award winner (link) György Spiró, who will be speaking about his autobiographical novel Dreaming For You. Polish […]
At Project Forum’s Salon German writer Michael Krüger has a fascinating account of the numerous bonds that exist between Hungary’s great contemporary writers and Germany, of how virtually all of them speak excellent German (while, in my experience, many speak little or no English at all), and are extremely well-read in German literature. These connections, […]
British novelist Hari Kunzru has an excellent and chilling article at the New Yorker’s Page Turner on the extreme lengths the current authoritarian right-wing government in Hungary is going to consolidate its hold not only on the country’s political life but on its cultural life, ensuring that theater, film, art and the rest remain Christian, […]
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