“The stout man looked at Israel for the first time since he’d walked into the restaurant. He placed his glass on the table and said, ‘You should go away. You aren’t suited for this country and you don’t like it. Dov loves it. Too bad he’ll come to such a stupid end.’ He gazed into […]
The latest issue of Asymptote is out with an awesome Latin America Fiction Feature, including work by Sergio Chejfec, Cristina Peri Rossi, Lina Meruane and Julián Herbert as well as an essay by César Aira on Osvaldo Lamborghini. The esteemed translators bringing this work into English include many who have worked with B O D […]
On June 13 the British Library is holding a seminar entitled “Balkan Day” with an absolutely fantastic lineup of Balkan writers that includes Dubravka Ugrešić, Vladislav Bajac, Igor Štiks, Andrej Nikolaidis, Muharem Bazdulj, Dragan Kujundžić, Christina Pribicevic-Zoric and Alex Drace-Francis. There will also be an event with Rosie Goldsmith “Balkanisation: the pick of recent Balkan […]
Book Expo America begins on May 29 and among all the books about God, cats, wizards, S&M, self-help and various combinations of these there will be some books in translation in the spotlight. One of these will focus on Marek Hlasko, with an event entitled “Marek Hlasko: Reviving a Literary Rebel”. Participating will be Polish […]
I have been expressing my admiration for Central European crime writing since I was practically a baby, but being a baby no one understood what I was saying, so it took until I started Literalab and began writing about it that my admiration took on intelligible form. Since then I have surveyed regional crime fiction […]
At World Literature Today translator and publisher Ross Ufberg talks about translating Vladimir Lorchenkov’s The Good Life Elsewhere, translation in general and the newly established New Vessel Press. The interview is full of interesting and fairly optimistic takes on publishing literature in translation: “… I have read lots of Russian novels in my life and […]
The 2013 Typographical Translation Award has been announced and the winner is The Devil’s Workshop by Jáchym Topol, translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker. That makes two Topol posts in a row here, which by official Literalab rules should disqualify him from being written about for the rest of the year. However, my Best […]
Russian writer Dmitri Novoselov recently had his English-language debut in B O D Y with the short story “Alevtina”. Now, with the release of the September 2013 Black Markets issue of Words Without Borders he has another work looking back at the chaotic and often absurd decade in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet […]
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