“The place where the executions took place was right under the ramparts of the castle of Matthew III Csák of Trenčín. The condemned were hanged, beheaded, caned, broken on a wheel, quartered, and witches were burned – he was learning the art of torture.” – from “Signs“, which is an excerpt from Dušan Mitana’s final, posthumously […]
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 […]
“The Romany and their tragicomic lives, the lives of the wheeler-dealers, the inhabitants of settlements and other peculiar characters and figures are the subject matter of the book. The trafficker Ferdy was promised the young and beautiful Sabina as compensation of a debt, but she fled and found the love of her life. The book […]
“Perhaps he’s gone crazy, it occurs to me. Or have I gone crazy? The inspector inside me applies her most powerful lever – my conscience – but I can no longer weep. Even my tears are stuck somewhere beneath my eyelids. I’ve been living on the trolleybus for two weeks now. The passengers are peculiar. […]
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 […]
One of the most striking stories in the Slovak fiction issue of Dalkey Archive Press 2010 Review of Contemporary Fiction was Uršula Kovalyk’s “Mrs. Agnes’s Bathroom,” a story of an ordinary old woman’s descent or release into an unreal tropical dream world that just happens to appear in her bathroom one night. A poet, fiction […]
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