Three Chestnut Horses

Author(s): Margita Figuli / Language(s): English

This gem of Slovak naturalism was written in 1940. The story takes the reader to a mountain village. The protagonist narrates the vicissitudes, suffering, and success he experiences as he pursues a love affair, resulting in the triumph of pure love. Peter has been in love with a girl—Magdalena—since childhood and asks her to marry him. But he is too late, because a rich man, Jano Zapotočný, has already proposed to Magdalena, a proposal that her greedy mother promptly accepted on her behalf. Magdalena, out of respect for her mother's wishes, accepts the engagement. However, Magdalena promises Peter that she will put off marrying Jano and will marry him instead if he can prove that he truly loves her. He must build a house and earn a living. After almost two years Peter returns to show her that he kept his promise. But Magdalena is already married; Jano has raped her and she is pregnant. Desperate, Peter is tempted to take out his anger on Jano, nevertheless he resists the impulse. In the end, the author finds a way to reward Peter's faith in love and morality.

Muzej melanholije

Author(s): Velimir Ćurgus Kazimir / Language(s): Serbian

Ovo je zbirka od dvanaest priča i četiri projekta teško odredivog književnog žanra, moglo bi se reći sinkretičkog, jer je posredi pastiš priča, eseja, pripovedanja i analiza, stvarnosti i njenih refleksija u umetnostima, društvu i našim ličnim čitalačkim ogledalima. Sećanje i melanholija su prirodno okruženje u kojem se mešaju i druže stvarni i izmišljeni likovi, autentični događaji i konfabulirane situacije. Atmosfera koja ispunjava ovu knjigu izrazito je beogradska, ukoliko taj izraz još ima neko značenje, ne samo zbog velikog broja beogradskih toponima već i zbog asocijacija i retorike. Projekti, odnosno predlozi projekata, prirodno se naslanjaju na naraciju i beogradsko okruženje. Oni su ujedno vizije nekog novog grada i društva koje će umeti da ga ceni. Reč je, najzad, o svojevrsnim otkrićima u vezi sa životom u Beogradu, njegovim zamkama, iluzijama i darovima. Ova knjiga glasnik je nekog novog doba koje ideje crpi iz naših nostalgičnih sećanja, ali će biti satkano od vrline i okrenuto budućnosti.

Male tajne

Author(s): Goran Marković / Language(s): Serbian

Oslanjajući se na stvarne događaje i ličnosti koji pripadaju jednom burnom periodu istorije Beograda i istorije jednog pozorišta, autor se, po sopstvenom priznanju, nije libio da ta zbivanja prekraja, izmešta iz vremena u kome su se odigrala, a da osobe koje su u njima učestvovale menja, kombinuje njihove osobine ili ih, jednostavno, izmišlja. Knjiga Male tajne počinje odlukom bogataša Petra Radovanovića, milionera, čija je supruga nestala u Bad Klajnkirhenu na skijanju, da osnuje pozorište. Njegov kraj, uz ispijanje šampanjca do jutra 6. aprila, gde na brokatnom čaršavu, dok padaju bombe na Beograd, stoje dve flaše Perrier – joueta i dve čaše, puna za nestalu suprugu i jedna iz koje je pio, kao da je slika iz literature, a ne iz života…Čitaocu će se neizostavno nametnuti pitanje: Da li je Petar Radovanović postojao? I da li je ikada ispijen taj šampanjac?

The House of a Thousand Floors

Author(s): Jan Weiss / Language(s): English

A man with no memory wakes up on the deserted staircase of a gigantic building. Gradually he learns about his identity and mission: he is Petr Brok, a detective sent to rescue Tamara, the princess kidnapped by the ruler of the monstrous Mullerdom, the house of a thousand floors. Ohisver Muller is a ruthless tyrant with many faces, eyes and ears in the most remote corners of his empire. But a revolution is spreading through the floors. Yet Petr Brok soon realises that, parallel to his Mullerdom adventure, he is living another life into which he keeps drifting against his will. What is dream and what reality? What is the flickering light inside a skull he sees in the darkness? And what is Mullerdom, a nightmarish reality or a figment of a fevered imagination, an allegory of the capitalist world or a dystopian vision of the future? With its humanistic message and imaginative power, Weiss’s The House of a Thousand Floors, first published in 1929, is a masterpiece of many genres, both unconventional and still contemporary, that has withstood the test of time for close to a century now.

Der Statthalter des Satans

Author(s): Károly Szalay / Language(s): German

Der Statthalter des Satans ist ein unegewöhnlicher historischer Roman. Schauplatz ist Ungarn in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Noch befinden sich die Türken im Landesinnern. Der Habsburger Kaiser ist bereits Herr über das Land, teilt aber seine Macht mit den Aristrokaten. Die herausragenden Gestalten dieser Epoche sind der später unter geheimnisvollen Umständen verstorbene Miklós Zrínyi, der Palatin Ferenc Wesselényi, der Theoretiker der Gegenreformation Péter Pázmány sowie der grosse siebenbürgische Fürst Gábor Bethlen. Der Held des Romans ist eine aus unsicheren Quellen hervorgegrabene, schriftstellerisch trefflich bearbeitete satanische Figur: László Listius. Dieser vom Teufel besessene Giftmischer, unbarmherzige Mörder und unzüchtige Päderast hat möglicherweise bei den Jesuiten gelernt und auch Gedichte geschrieben. Seine Intelligenz stellt er aber in den Dienst seiner unbändigen Leidenschaften. Mit teuflischem Erfindungsreichtum hält er den Palatin in Schrecken, und durch die Alchimie gerät er auch in Kontakt zum Kaiser selbst. Gleichzeitig terrorisiert er auf sadistische Weise seine Umgebung und entschlüpft immer wieder den Fängen des Gesetzes. Die mitreissende Erzählung enthält entsprechend der Intention des Autors eine wichtige Erkenntnis: In der Gesellschaft sind fast immer unerklärliche dunkle Kräfte verborgen, die, wenn sie an die Oberfläche dringen, nur um den Preis schwerer Opfer zu bezwingen sind.“Károly Szalay has dug himself so deep in the 17th century that it clearly deserves admiration: for instance, he publishes two letters in the novel which we read in the total belief that they are contemporary documents. However, in actual fact, they were both written by Szalay! That is, once again we experience the style mimicry that Kálmán Thaly produced with the “authentic” 17th century Kuruts poems… However, our author is able to evoke the air of the 17th century not only with the style of the era but also with his ability to create the right atmosphere… I am truly surprised that no one has yet considered turning this novel into film…”(The Governor of Satan)Albert Beke (1996)

Szerelmes éveink

Author(s): Károly Szalay / Language(s): Hungarian

“I believe that not many in Hungarian literature painted love so coarsely in its charm. Theconcept is consistent and succeeds in creating its own peaks: expressing the rich contents of eroticism,of bodily fulfilment.Szalay also describes the lives of funnily pitiable characters. There is an archangel hoveringover the destructively filthy flow and flood of university expulsions. Luis Majer’s shrunk astral body,too, turns to nothing, just like a shadow when dusk falls. …Yet, the subject of our nostalgia is youth,that of our sympathy is the omniscient fog-knight, and that of our love is Gabi Udvari.Are you still alive, and where have you disappeared to, Gabi?Her character turning into a woman, a mature human being, enchants not only the characters ofthis book but also the reader. Because, after all, in their lamented boyhood, who was not wrappedaround the fingers of a genuine city student girl in the process of learning what love is? However,Gabi is more than that. She is the missed opportunity, the eternally regretted completeness…What we have unfolding before us is a dimming picture, yet glittering with colourful lights,which is animated and enjoyable throughout, a peculiar drawing, with exciting shades, of the lostimage of our common ground.”(Our Years in Love)József Domokos (1985)

Bikakolostor

Author(s): Károly Szalay / Language(s): Hungarian

Our Years in Love (1985) and Parallel Relations (1988) only cover a period of ten years: from1947 to 1956. Bull Monastery covers thirty. The first volume is that of youth, full of blaze, energy,impulse, irony and eroticism. Sweeping style, vibrating action, spiced up with colourful sexual images.Bull Monastery is a novel of manhood and, simultaneously, of the case history of absurdity (a slovenlysociety – using Elemér Hankiss’s term), full of painful nostalgia, memories, bitterness, frustration,resignation, and desperate, “opposing” pantheism just for the sake of it: insistence on the sincere loveof sincere nature. It is slower-moving but none the less witty in style for it, with a flow of internalmonologues disguised as long dialogues, anecdotes radiating a wry atmosphere, philosophicalthoughts, and a manic adoration of the truth.”

Párhuzamos viszonyok

Author(s): Károly Szalay / Language(s): Hungarian

“The book was one of the great successes of the 1988 Book Week…The sex scenes, perhaps overly explicit in their details, the action carryingthe reader away, and mainly, however, the most convincing, most authenticand most sincere description to date of the events of the 1956 uprising,which form integral parts of the story, probably all contributed to thesuccess. This topic has been manipulated by so many and in so manydifferent ways that we who actually experienced them in real life recognizethem at last.”(Parallel Relations)Emil Kolozsvári Granpierre (1988) “I do not particularly wish to celebrate this kind of elimination of traditional taboos sinceliterary criticism, as is widely known, has, for a long time, been of the opinion that the bluntdescription of erotic topics is aesthetically indifferent; the only thing that matters is how the subjectfits into the novel composition, and what aesthetic value the description in itself has. Well, in thisrespect, the eroticism of the Szalay novels is aesthetically correct and is, at times, assigned none otherthan a “poetic” role… Csarody, the protagonist of the novels, is incessantly faced with thedevelopments of tyranny.. mostly, however, with the political comedy of the era which is described bySzalay in a series of particularly apt episodes. These episodes are real satires…”(Parallel Relations)Béla Pomogáts (1989)

Leon i Leonina ili priča o istrajnosti

Author(s): Svetlana Slapšak / Language(s): Serbian

Knjigu sam pisala za svog tadašnjeg štićenika i mlađeg prijatelja: prvo poglavlje je napisano oktobra 1981, kada sam mu odnela prvo poglavlje romana u žanru koji je voleo (a tada ga nije bilo mnogo) za rođendan. Nastavili smo svakog petka, ja sam pisala, on davao smernice i primedbe. Eksperiment je za mene, tada još uvek mladu naučnicu, bio zabavan i koristan – izučavala sam žanr, i ovaj – pustolovno-ljubavni roman – bio je jedinstven primer kontinuiteta: bez prestanka je živeo od prvog veka naše ere pa sve do danas. Nekih šesnaest godina docnije napisala sam i objavila i studiju o ovome žanru. Knjiga je bila gotova maja 1982, porasla je do kupusare od skoro 700 strana. Da podsetim, to je bilo doba kada se kucalo u mašinu. Prijatelji su savetovali da damo roman u štampu. Saglasila sam se, s tim da knjiga bude objavljena pod pseudonimom: izabrala sam F.A. Suli, jer je zvučalo francuski, a pročitano kao jedna reč znači “pasulj” na grčkom (prosto k’o pasulj), pa još u muškom rodu. Knjiga je uistinu izašla dve godine docnije u dva dela, u uglednoj biblioteci dečije književnosti Plava ptica.

The Brothers Seven. A Tale. Translated into English from the Finnish by Douglas Robinson

Author(s): Aleksis Kivi / Language(s): English

Seitsemän veljestä (The Brothers Seven), the 1870 Finnish novel by Aleksis Kivi (1834-1872), is one of the most (in)famously unknown classics of world literature—unknown not only because so few people in the world can read Finnish, but also because the novel is so incredibly difficult to translate, the Mount Everest of translating from Finnish. It is difficult to translate not only because it blends a saturation in Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, and the Bible with a brilliantly stylized form of local dialect, but because it is wild, grotesque, carnivalistic, and laugh-out-loud funny on every page. It has been translated 58 times into 34 languages—but somehow the translations always seem to fall short of their flamboyant original.Douglas Robinson’s new translation is a bold attempt to remedy that. He aims to make Kivi as rhythmic, as alliterative, as brash, as grotesque, and as funny in English as he is in Finnish. Since Kivi deliberately used an archaic Finnish, but used it playfully—and since Kivi was steeped in Shakespeare, to the point of memorizing whole plays—Robinson translates him into a playful Shakespearean register. As he notes in his Preface, this makes the translation a bit difficult to read—but the original is difficult for Finns to read as well, and the Finnish readers who love Kivi (and that is most of them) read him with pleasure despite the words they don’t know, because his prose is so intensely alive.

Ağrıyan

Author(s): Sadık Yemni / Language(s): Turkish

“New York korkunçtu Sarp.” Dedi Helga. “Çatışmalar, o çürümeyen cesetler ve çıplak ayaklı insanımsıların neden olduğu bunaltı. Çok ağır bir baskıydı. Paris ve İstanbul’a bakarak bütün dünya da aynı durumda denebilir. Ağrı’da bizi neyin beklediğini biliyor musun?” Ağrı dağından gelen bir sinyali araştırmak için oraya giden uluslarası bilim insanlarının içine sızmış fanatik bir grubun yaptığı sabotaj dünyanın çivisini çıkartır. Kitlesel yıkımı engellemenin tek yolu Ağrı dağında aktif durumda bulunan kötücül reaktörü çok geç olmadan durdurmaktır. Yazarın Muska, Yatır ve Öte Yer romanlarından tanıdığınız Sarp Sapmaz New York, Paris ve İstanbul’dan gelen beş kişiyle birlikte tehlikenin göbeğine dalar. Küresel ihtiraslar, kadim kurgu ve yapay zekâlar arası mücadele.

Koráb pohádek

Author(s): Eduard Bass / Language(s): Czech

This richly illustrated book presents the writer Eduard Bass as a talented storyteller of short fairy tales. Inspired by the German tradition of storytelling, it contains a first ever edition of 43 fairy tales from around the world paraphrased by Bass. A part of the texts were published in magazines during his lifetime and some appeared later in selected works. However, twenty stories were left in the remains, untouched. The complete edition has been prepared by Hedvika Landová, a graduate of the Faculty of Arts. The result is a carefully crafted book which will captivate children and adults alike.

Lutak

Author(s): Radmila Karlaš / Language(s): Bosnian

It is difficult to describe the way Radmila Karlaš writes, because it really is not something that is encountered every day. Her stories take place in an undefined time that may be ours, but it may also be fifty or a hundred years ago, because they are deprived of everything that could be burdensome in terms of a specific timeline, and focused on the essential. There are only people in them, their mutual relations and the forces that affect them, and which do not have to be from this world. And it's something that sometimes makes you shudder, because those stories are sometimes on the verge of fantasy, but it's not epic, or science fiction, or some fiction from horror literature, but something that strikes at the very core of our collective imagination and doesn't stop until we don’t stop with reading, and sometimes after. Radmila's language is extremely polished, her descriptions are clear and we can easily imagine everything she writes about in front of our eyes. And because of that, everything we read leaves an even stronger impression on us.

O twórczości Andrzeja Zimniaka

Author(s): Adam Mazurkiewicz / Language(s): Polish

The monographic outline is devoted to the work of Andrzej Zimniak. He is a writer who has been active creatively since 1980. Not only the most well-known aspect of his writing, i.e. science fiction, is included; the artist's popular science essays were also recalled, which is combined with fiction and not very well-known poetry (Zimniak is the author of one volume, entitled “Fraszki rubaszne” [Epigrams coarse], 2012). The overriding goal of the monograph was to show the evolution of selected motifs, the most characteristic of Zimniak's prose, which at the same time are reflected in the popular science reflection of this writer (these include m.in the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial civilization, potential ways of human self-evolution to the level of “homo superior”, ecological themes and reflection on the challenges posed by expansive – and at the same time less and less controllable – technological progress. The issues listed here have been discussed in the broad context of civilizational, social and political changes, which significantly affect Zimniak as a writer and popularizer of science, active from 1980 to the present day. This context is accompanied by a reconstruction of the evolution of the writer's philosophical and anthropological views, which are a reflection of the times in which he created.The monograph was accompanied by a bibliography constructed in such a way that it not only attested to the works referred to in the considerations. First of all, it is to be a starting point for the reader's own reading searches interested in deepening knowledge on the topics discussed in the study.

Cesty autorské pohádky po roce 2000 v České republice a v Bulharsku

Author(s): Martina Salhiová / Language(s): Czech

This monograph deals with a genre of children’s literature (literature for children and young adults) – the contemporary authorial fairy tales published between 2000 and 2020 in the Czech Republic and in Bulgaria. Using a comparative method and analysis of the works, the monograph follows the development shifts in the genre of authorial fairy tale in both national literatures. The work is selective, focused on the most distinctive types of authorial fairy tales. The division of the monograph into four parts (folklore-influenced fairy tales, diary and calendar fairy tales, lyricized and rhythmic fairy tales, humor and nonsense fairy tales) tends to be more orientational and approximate thanks to the mixing of different literary genres.

Portobello Fotoğrafçısı

Author(s): Neptune E. Kosi / Language(s): Turkish

Bazı zamanlar öyle düşsel anlar vardır ki, sizi büyülü bir hayal gücünün koluna girmiş bir şekilde karış karış gezdirir şehrin sokaklarında. Kimi düşler hayal gücünün çengeline takılır, kalır orada asırlarca. Bazısı bekleşir şehrin en kasvetli, en sisli sokağında…Londra’da çoğu insanın hayal bile edemeyeceği bir dünya var; kuzgunların, perilerin, meleklerin, yarı kuzgun yarı insan yaratıkların ve diğerlerinin şehri…Portobello yolunda başlayan bir cumartesi sabahı, Mila için yepyeni bir Londra’nın da başlangıcı oldu. O uyandığında, Londra’nın yukarısında ve aşağısında pek çok bilinmeyen uyanıyordu. Londra artık eski Londra değildi. İnsanlar ve Kuzgunlar da.Londra her zaman gridir, ama bu şimdiye kadar gördüğü en tehditkar griydi!

Portobello Photographer

Author(s): Neptune E. Kosi / Language(s): English

Sometimes there are moments that are so dreamy that they take you through the streets of the city in the arms of magical imagination. Some dreams get caught on the hook of the imagination and stay there for centuries. Some wait on the gloomiest and foggy street of the city…In London, there’s a world most people could never even dream of. A city of ravens, fairies, angels, half raven half-human creatures, and the others…A Saturday morning that started on Portobello Road was also the beginning of a brand-new London for Mila. As she awakened, many unknowns were awakening above and below London. London was no longer the old London. People and Ravens too.London is always grey, but this was the most threatening grey she has ever seen!

Въ сѣнката на Назорянина. Идилия

Author(s): Petko Todorov / Language(s): Bulgarian Publication Year: 0

Nirini izazovi

Author(s): Elma Kaunitz,Pavle Kaunitz,Esmir Prlja,Neven Misaljević,Filip Andronik / Language(s): Bosnian

Nira preko ramena baci posljednji pogled na svoj odraz u ogledalu i, zadovoljna viđenim, pokupi ruksak i svoje nove role. Danas je važan dan. Na konkursu za suradnike-volontere lokalne radio stanice čekaju je testovi. Danima se spremala i sada je bila spremna, puna samopouzdanja i sigurna u sebe. „Danas je moj dan!“ pomisli i jurnu uskom ulicom prema centru grada i zgradi Radio-stanice.

Në aventurë me shpëtimtaren e botës

Author(s): Arbënora Millaku / Language(s): Albanian

The novel "On the adventure with a savior of the world" by the author Arbënora Millaku deals with the role of artificial intelligence, the book, the archive, the library and above all social humanity. The main character is Matilda, who aims to save the world. This is a girl who comes from an intellectual family and has moved all over the world. The event takes place in several countries and in particular in Luxembourg. The novel has three chapters and twelve subtitles. In the first chapter there are the following sub-topics: unusual night, coincidence, mysterious book, rare day, in the second chapter there are these topics: The train, the grandmother, the way to the archive, the archive and the fifth chapter are the following sub-themes: end of the world, nature, great palace, mission completed.