literalab

“‘It seems like you’re an unhappy person. Isn’t that true? Learn to be happy in your unhappiness like Alyosha Karamazov,’ says the lunatic. Alyosha Karamazov? Shit, who’s that? His scar-faced accomplice from the Russian mafia?” From Ondrej Štefánik’s short story “Man On A Toilet”, translated from the Slovak by Janet Livingstone. This is the second […]

Literature is filled with requests for cigarettes, but I doubt there are many that resemble the one found in Ondrej Štefánik’s “To Sacrifice Yourself For Someone Else”: “Do you have a smoke?” I hear a squeaky voice from somewhere. It’s not the voice in my head. I shiver. I look around. Not a soul. “So? […]