Tag Archives: Illegal Liaisons

A whiff of terrorism in the air

As I made my way through Frankfurt Airport on the way back to Prague from the book fair a strange incident took place, something that reflects a new and interesting trend in writing from Central and Eastern Europe – certainly in terms of the books getting translated into English – but which almost got me […]

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Literary roundup: Translation practices and Einstein’s definition of insanity

“Jasieński clearly believed that new convictions required a new formal approach, and as such he reinvents his language every fifty pages or so, and entirely rethinks how a metaphor might be used … it once seemed logical that a political revolution needed a corresponding revolution in the arts. Now the politics struggle to change while […]

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Literary roundup: Poets of our mad, transitory world

“To your mad world—one answer: I refuse.” – from new translations by Ilya Kaminsky and Jean Valentine of Marina Tsvetaeva’s “Poems to Czechoslovakia.” The latest issue of Poetry magazine features a number of selections of the work of Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva. I will soon be writing something about Tsvetaeva’s brief but impactful time living […]

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