In the last four years B O D Y has published a lucky 13 pieces of Slovak fiction, soon to go up to 14. With short stories and novel excerpts – some now published, others still awaiting publishers for their English translations – we have presented some of the best contemporary Slovak writers, including Pavel […]
In 1965 Dušan Mitana published the short story “On a Tram” (V električke) in the Slovak literary journal Mladá tvorba, which tells of a passing erotic encounter between two strangers on a tram. After it was published 12 different women contacted the author claiming to have been the woman in the story. Thirty-six years later […]
On Thurs Oct 6 there will be a launch of The Equestrienne by Uršuľa Kovalyk, translated from the Slovak by Julia and Peter Sherwood. The event will take place at Waterstones Piccadilly. The Equestrienne is the first novel by the Košice-born writer published in English after having a handful of short stories published online and […]
Lukáš Luk’s novel Honey Thieves will be out in Slovak shortly but B O D Y has already brought you a short excerpt from this story of two brothers who gather honey in the forests of the newly Christian Kingdom of Hungary. It was translated from the Slovak by Magdalena Mullek. Read more Saturday European […]
“The moon has gone down, disappeared somewhere; the stars are now a pale yellow colour and fast fading, all the merriment having gone from them. Dew is falling as Ester carries the milk pail, says czokolom, thank you, in their language and tries to squeeze past the old woman on her way out. But the […]
Seven Days to the Funeral is a lightly fictionalized memoir left unfinished at the death of the Slovak journalist, critic and translator Ján Rozner, who had emigrated to Germany in 1976. Yet it is also much more than that – it is a document of the process of normalization in Slovakia following the Soviet invasion […]
“Beginning in reverie and a nostalgic glance back at the protagonist’s early life and dreams, Jana Juráňová’s Ilona. My Life with the Bard subtly shifts to a tone of gentle and increasingly piercing irony towards Slovakia’s national poet, with moments of almost nightmarish confinement, as it becomes clear that there was a heartlessness at the […]
UK audiences tired of hearing about the troubled present will have a chance to hear about the troubled history behind the Iron Curtain, with appearances by Albanian and Slovak authors at various locations throughout the week. Oct. 15th sees the book launch of False Apocalypse by Fatos Lubonja and translated from the Albanian by John […]
“‘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? […]
