“When a North American or British writer wants to write about new empires that come out of nowhere brandishing stark and memorable symbols, of vanquished homelands and cities made unrecognizable by war, he or she is likely writing a fantasy or science-fiction book. For a Central European writer they need look no further than their […]
The Missing Slate has a host of Central European fare just out. Their story of the week is “How We Killed The Sailor” by Alma Lazarevska, translated from the Bosnian by Celia Hawkesworth. It comes from Lazarevska’s collection Death in the Museum of Modern Art recently published by Istros Books, a book of short stories […]
The shortlist for Slovakia’s largest and most prestigious literary award for prose, the Anasoft litera 2014, has been announced (link in Slovak) and it includes a few Literalab favorites among the 10 books selected out of a total of 194. The shortlisted authors include first timer Uršuľa Kovalyk for Krasojazdkyňa (The Equestrienne). You can read […]
In The Nation there’s a thorough and fantastic article about Bulgarian writer and exiled dissident Georgi Markov titled “A Captivating Mind: How Georgi Markov became the truth-teller of Bulgaria’s communist era, and paid for it with his life.” Playwright, novelist, essayist and journalist, Markov was murdered on orders of the Bulgarian secret service in London […]
The Missing Slate has published an excerpt from the fantastic novel Samko Tále’s Cemetery Book by Slovak writer Daniela Kapitáňová and translated by Julia Sherwood. The book was published in the UK by Garnett Press in 2011 but has yet to find a US publisher. First published in Slovakia in 2000 to great success the […]
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 […]
“Superman, you say?” Vassily mumbled, musing over the name which we all assumed he must have heard of. “And you say he has special powers . . you mean of thinking?” “No Vass, he can leap over a building in a single bound and stuff like that. Get it?” Suzie said. “In fact, no. I […]
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 […]
“What begins as a glance extends into lingering contemplation. She is going through my passport page by page, as if reading a novel. Then she turns to the computer for some corresponding information and back again. Her eyes have lit up. My first reaction is pride, that she likes it, but then I remember that […]
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