“Sasha noticed some busses bearing the coat of arms with a fanged beast. The curtains in the bus windows trembled. People were sitting in those busses, waiting for an opportunity to step out, to run out, clutching rubber mallets in tough fists, looking angrily for somebody to hit, and to hit them with flourish, to […]
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 […]
There is a some environmental and personal catastrophe in Kazakhstan and a story in interwar Central Europe ending in a journey to the concentration camps. Then a very different journey from Moldova pointing towards the promised land of Italy, some Ottoman intrigue and conversations with Orhan Pamuk, and three works by Chekhov. […]
Natasha Perova, editor of Glas New Russian Writing, has a very interesting piece in PEN America on the Russian literary scene in which she discusses the young generation of writers (some of which Glas publishes due to their association with the Debut Prize) and what differentiates them from the writers of the Russian and Soviet […]
“I was flying along at Uncle Gleb’s side, holding his hand. He yanked me off the escalator—you can’t look back—and into the underground snow palace, a kingdom of marble and white stone, with pillars instead of columns, with a never-ending dome stretching to infinity instead of a ceiling. Never in my life, my life on […]
“One Autumn evening I was sitting at home, writing a story about love. Simply about love. About love and nothing but. A young man meets a girl. Through the narrow alleys of some little seaside town, they reach the sea and plod along the beach… Deserted. Dusky. Empty of people. Because it’s already November. Winter. […]
At Deutsche Welle there is article about the new Berlin-based publisher Frisch & Co. Run by E.J. Van Lanen the e-book publisher is putting out a fascinating selection of novels in translation from Germany, Austria, Spain, Argentina and Italy. I have just read the debut novel they put out by Argentine writer Carlos Busqued, Under […]
“Alevtina” is a short story by Dmitri Novoselov, translated by Will Firth, recounting a woman’s odyssey through different husbands, lovers and wild turns of fortune whose chaos is highly suggestive of the post-Soviet Russia during which her adult life has played out. Read more Sunday European Fiction Photo – Russian graffiti that says “Kitchen and […]
“Look at this be-me-ne,” he’d say unfurling a hand-woven striped headscarf, “The El-Dzhamans of Baghdad wore them on their heads. The old El-Dzhaman — by the way, he let me have it for a sky-high price — told me that it once belonged to Queen Be-me-ne from the clan of El-Dzhamans. She strangled her husband […]
“Here Sasha and I are on our way, on the road, walking along a strip of asphalt through the woods. Around us it is May, the first green leaves, the first butterflies. After the winter we crawl out of Moscow into the big wide world as blind as moles, crusted with fungus and mildew. We […]
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