by Oleksandr Boichenko
Translated from the Ukrainian by Oleksandra Boychenko

Appelfeld’s novel “Katerina”, translated by Viktor Radutskyi and Ivan Bilyk, has thus far not gained a whole lot of publicity in Ukraine. Which is a pity: for what it is worth, the novel is written from the perspective of a Ukrainian village woman who saves Jewish children from other Ukrainian villagers.

by Mikhail Iossel

It was a characteristically damp and cold November morning, the third after the sixty-fifth anniversary of the October Revolution. I was nearing the end of my fourth semiweekly twenty-four hour shift as a security guard at the Roller Coaster Unit of the Krestovsky Island Amusement Sector of the Leningrad Central Park of Culture and Leisure (TsPKiO). At seven-forty, I was still fast asleep on the long and narrow leatherette couch on the second floor of the Amusement Sector’s administration cabin—the uneven, cracked black plastic-coated fabric under me; a stinking, ancient communal goatskin over me; my head propped on the pillowy lump of my rolled-up sweater—when my replacement arrived, twenty minutes ahead of schedule, and started banging on the bolted and latched cabin door downstairs.

by Oksana Zabuzhko
Translated from the Ukrainian by Nina Murray

Today it is impossible for me to recapture all the details of what I felt, when, as a child, I looked at the stars and sensed (at night—I couldn't do it during the day when the stars were invisible) that the sky is alive—and knowing this made me utterly happy.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Oleksandra Boychenko

Long story short, 1968 was setting out to be perhaps the happiest year in the lives of all these extra-ordinary people, and the next one promised to be even better. However, one October night, having hung out at a dinner table in Slavic style, Komeda and Hlasko decided to take a walk around Beverly Hills. Nobody knows what exactly transpired that night; there was no one around. According to Hlasko’s fumbled testimony, he jokingly pushed Komeda in the shoulder and he suddenly disappeared in the darkness.

Reviewed by Sandra Joy Russell

The title itself, Minor Heresies, speaks to Murray’s disruptive, iconoclastic poetics, within which she attentively punctures deeply held beliefs while also exploring her own lived experiences as a foreigner in the U.S.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Oleksandra Boychenko

Ukrainian readers enjoy grumbling about contemporary Ukrainian literature. I, too, grumble sometimes. We don’t have this, we don’t have that, this is not enough… The only thing I have no complaints about is the almost complete lack of the so-called “big novels”. I do not need them. I have had enough. I consumed so many of them in my previous professional life that I am still a bit nauseated. Instead, I need at least a few books like I accuse Auschwitz by Mikolaj Grynberg.

Reviewed by Kate Tsurkan

Like the author, many of the main characters in these twenty-one thought-provoking, often humorous stories are Polish women living in the United Kingdom. They are working mothers, grieving widows, emotionally unfulfilled wives.

Translated from the Ukrainian by Oleksandra Boychenko

No, our European neighbors mostly do not consider us to be at fault and certainly do not justify Russia’s actions. But they are tired and they are scared. Unable to convince them that Putin is a good guy, the Kremlin propaganda is ever more successfully inoculating Westerners with the idea that Putin is bonkers and, if necessary, will indeed turn their ancient cities into radioactive dust. Thus, many of them, blushing internally, are ready to sacrifice Ukraine – in order not to provoke the aggressor too much.

by Justina Dobush

I have known it since I was seven years old. I will be a writer, I am a writer, no matter what’s going on, literature is the only answer. Since then, I have written thousands of pages—fairy tales, diaries, poetry, prose, short stories, reportages, interviews, columns, book reviews and so on. Why haven’t I been able to finish any of the books which I so badly wanted to write? 

Interviewed by Khrystia Vengryniuk

I avoid killing my favorite characters, however, I still experience painful moments that evoke strong emotions, both in me and for my readers.

by Alta Ifland

When the US skating championship started in mid-February, Ben’s presence in our house was so common that we were left alone on the brown suede couch in front of the TV with a huge bowl of popcorn between us, and more than once, when he went home, it was close to midnight.  Usually, Mother sat with us until about ten, joining me in my kibitzing. 

BY ALEX TAPER

by Andreea Iulia Scridon

But when the thunderstorm leaked
through my cardboard sanctuary,
like Hamlet’s, the walnut tree
(which, by tradition, we know must be
the victim of our torture, for rules are rules),
I was alone in the world,
I was alone in my life.

by Arvis Viuls
Translated from the Latvian by Jayde Will

One morning upon awakening he understood,
that actually his entire life
he had wanted to be a saw and nothing else,
and he decided to follow his dreams.

by Juris Kronbergs
Translated from the Latvian by Māra Rozīte

Mouths that mouth in different tongues
none are mine
none are yours
A star shines a crown glows
Nothing’s mine

by Inga Pizāne
Translated from the Latvian by Jayde Will

While doing a writer’s residency
I went to beach every afternoon
to look at the sea.
There was neither the beginning
nor final credits.

by Tereza Riedlbauchová
Translated from the Czech by Stephan Delbos

When she came from abroad I was waiting for her
she was startled she sat on the stool behind the door
bent her legs and hugged them she had dark blue knees

by Lyosha Gorshkov

My past, or my imagined past if you will, was brutally erased overnight by the goblins of traditional values poisoning Russia with homosexual panic and the exploitation of its darkest servants: the Government, Law Enforcement, the Church and Propaganda.

by Karla Marrufo Huchim
Translated from the Spanish by Allison A. deFreese

i never knew her name
but i watched her die in the clearest instant
heard her body
open, the crack of bones
at the end of her agony,

by María Negroni
Translated from the Spanish by Allison A. deFreese

When I return to my castle of origin, I will write a nocturne with a clair de lune and call it My Poetic Astronomy. I will imbue it with the excitement of the night, as it has been recorded over centuries--with its priestesses, its crimes, its waters that cross the borders of the world and disappear into nothing.