by Artem Cheh
Translated from the Ukrainian by Olena Jennings and Oksana Lutsyshyna

“Val, this louse, is sitting at the third line of defense, calling his wife and rambling on about how he was picking the guts of his friends off the ground.” My commander was telling the story about one of the soldiers with despair in his voice. He nearly shouted.

by Tanja Maljartschuk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins

do the stooped stoop
do the blind squint
do those who love fall in love
would mothers have borne their mothers
had they the choice
can you stop a war with war

By Artem Chapeye
Translated from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins

He even felt jealous of that old lady. The crowd splashed out of the metro into the Akademmistechko Station. People flooded the stairs from wall to wall. And that old woman was walking in the opposite direction with a vengeful look and squabbling loudly. “This is a mob! People can’t even get through!” She genuinely viewed herself as separate, as different. As if she wasn’t a part of the mob. He felt jealous of that lady because it just didn’t work for him like that anymore. 

by Lyubko Deresh
Translated from the Ukrainian by Patrick John Corness

So, von Liebig was a courteous person. In his lectures, however contentious the issue under debate might be, he always acted with decorum when speaking of his critics, noting their strengths and praising their achievements. This completely won over Stefan Lange, who was at the time a third year student in the languages department of the University of Vienna.

by Victoria Amelina
Translated from the Ukrainian by Zenia Tompkins

After Tarik was gone, and the Egyptian government had yielded its positions, I closed my laptop and walked up to the window. It was spring, and it wasn’t yellow leaves, as on that distant day in the fall of 1989, but now the white petals of an old pear tree that swirled in the yard between the hanging linens and the maples, abloom with the green heartlings of newborn life.

BY JULIA DRAGAN

by Iryna Tsilyk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Vitaly Chernetsky
feat. the photography of Ruslan Hruschak

Be as it may,
every year begins and ends with
Christmas.
You will be standing somewhere on the porch
of your multi-apartment homeland
looking out for the first star
above the dark eyes of nervous cars

Interviewed by Oksana Chmil

Sometimes genres intertwine, as in literary reportage, but they are entirely different tools that are equally necessary. It is like asking what is more important: eating healthy food or doing morning exercises. Both are important.

Interviewed by Kate Tsurkan

Actually, I lucked out with where I settled down in America. Sometimes I think to myself, what if I had chosen Chicago, Philadelphia, or some other provincial New Jersey town—what then?

by Ondřej Hanus
Translated from the Czech by Nathan Fields

the first verse decides
through Holešovice underpass back into Mother
airtight sleep of narration spawns flaring micronarratives
a thing is the ekphrasis of essence and essence is the ekphrasis of God
that is the last use of matter

by Petr Hruška
Translated from the Czech by Jonathan Bolton

That’s him.
It happens.
Selective mutism,
as learned people call it,
the sudden loss of speech.

BY TEREZA KONÍČKOVÁ

by Lucie Faulerová
Translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker

It was the worst moment of her life—except for all the others, that is. It was the worst moment of my life—except for all the others, that is. Except for the ones behind me now, waving to me with that look of satisfaction from a job well done, and except for the ones looking forward to me, shuffling their feet in anticipation, watching out for my arrival, chins lifted and arms spread wide.

by Marek Šindelka
Translated from the Czech by Nathan Fields

The grain is smooth and shines like a pearl. Hardly half a millimeter in length. Its origin is unclear. Maybe the remains of undersea mountains on the bottom of the ancient ocean, maybe a tiny particle of Saharan sand transported by subtropical wind from continent to continent. Maybe (and this is most probable) it is just ordinary debris without meaning or past. The grain, along with a number of others, is stuck onto a tiny piece of apple pulp full of putrid bacteria. The pulp glistens and ferments.

by Bianca Bellová
Translated from the Czech by Julia Sutton-Mattocks

There’s no avoiding it. Everyone suffers from it up here, even if they don’t speak about it. It grips your bowels like a citrus juicer. Vertigo seizes you with such strength that it paralyses you right from the tips of your fingers to your respiratory muscles. You have to resist it from the very first and crowd it out, as fast as you can, or it will eat you alive.

by Jana Šrámková
Translated from the Czech by Andrea Goldbergerová

And then there was an awful humming sound, and it already fell down, flying crossways, it just cut out a portion of our house from the side like this. Wouldn’t you go hide in the cellar? We would, we had been there three times at night, but there was no time, I don’t know why they did not sound the alarm, nobody was expecting it.

by Pavel Kolmačka
Translated from the Czech by Nathan Fields

LIVING IN HARMONY
even with blossoming trees.
We shout, we laugh,
we carry, we lift,
we load hives, lids, pedestals,
we tighten straps
and drive in wedges.

by Alena Mornštajnová
Translated from the Czech by Andrea Goldbergerová

That year, the smell of disinfectant filled the air instead of spring. The houses were huddled to one another, as if they wanted to be comforted in the desolation also surrounding the figures walking through the town streets. Feuds and neighborly quarrels—which seemed important a few weeks ago—were put aside and all conversation revolved only around powerlessness, fear and disease.

Interviewed by Oksana Chorna

After the war is over, and it will take many years to come, only then we can hope for really good novels about the war. Why? Because really good prose takes time.

Interviewed by Justina Dobush

In order to become dependent on a reader, one needs to have a clear idea of what his/her reader is like. One has to believe in his existence. Who is this reader, what does he want from his author?