Bohuslav Reynek (1892 – 1971) was one of the giants of 20th century Czech poetry and Karolinum press is making an extensive selection of his work available in English in a translation by Justin Quinn titled The Well at Morning: Selected Poems, 1925–1971. You can read two of those poems in B O D Y […]
The great Tadeusz Różewicz passed away on April 24, 2014, the last of a great generation of Polish poets to experience the country’s turbulent 20th century from the Second World War through communism and its aftermath. Today, B O D Y publishes his poem “Wishing Well” in a translation by Kasia Pilat. There have also […]
1. The Devil’s Workshop by Jáchym Topol (translated by Alex Zucker) Like my favorite book of the year before, my favorite book of 2013 delves into the ultimate horrors that man inflicts on his fellow man, but does so with a surplus of imagination, suspense and humor. Whereas Selvedin […]
The US consulate in Poland has opened a photography exhibition in the central Polish city of Kielce titled “American Milosz.” The show consists of photographs of the poet Czesław Miłosz while he was living in the US taken by his brother Andrzej Miłosz in Berkeley in the 70s as well as by a Chicago-based Polish […]
“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 […]
“The ambulances’ ominous horns wailed in the black tunnels of the streets, like a lonesome scream for help. The dancing stopped here and there and the unsettled crowd quickly dispersed to their homes. In Montparnasse, the Latin Quarter and a few other districts inhabited by foreigners, dancing continued. The horns howled relentlessly, mournful and terror-stricken.” […]
Czesław Miłosz is known primarily as a poet, then essayist and man of ideas. What he is definitely not thought of as is a writer of science fiction. Yet according to his biographer Andrzej Franaszek, as reported in Polish weekly Przekrój (and translated by Project Forum website Salon), he was working on a science fiction […]
From October 19 to 21 neighbor of my former graduate school Claremont McKenna University is hosting a cenntenial festival devoted to Czesław Miłosz with a interesting program and varied array of guests. Absolute tops in terms of title is Polish intellectual, historian and journalist Adam Michnik’s talk – Miłosz: Man Among Scorpions, which seems to […]
There must be something in the air. The Center for the Art of Translation’s Two Lines just came out with its annual anthology, titled “Counterfeits,” including a special section edited by Luc Sante focusing on noir literature. Then, Words Without Borders’ September 2011 issue came out with an issue devoted to an elevated form of […]
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