Reviewed by Anna West

Libuše Moníková’s Transfigured Night (2023, Karolinum Press) was published in German in 1996 under the title Verklärte Nacht and was only recently translated from German into English by Anne Posten. It is the last completed novel by a writer of Czech origin who nevertheless identified herself as a German author.

by Richard Pupala
Translated from Slovak by Julia and Peter Sherwood

The faces around Soňa, the curious ones as well as those who were shocked, gradually turned expressionless as if something had switched them off, all but one that remained unforgivingly distinct. She had to flee from Peter’s gaze into the only arms that remained for her.

by Natalka Marynchak
Translated from Ukrainian by Lada Kolomiyets

everyone will have their own story 
of broken paths and breathlessness 
everyone will have their own defended territory 
of roaring and laughing
I now have a heart 
of reinforced concrete
it knows neither pity  
nor comfort 

by Dan Sociu
Translated from Romanian by Monica Cure

I had been in anguish, in anguish, in the light,
from where I had been sent
back into the world, I went into the old dream
where everything was different now though somehow the same
though other
or I was someone else

by Doina Ioanid
Translated from Romanian by Monica Cure

To be exposed to the harsh air, saturated and heavy with those who came before you. To come into the world as fog takes big bites out of the bark of birch trees and foxes hop around drunk.

by Krista Szöcs
Translated from Romanian by Monica Cure

they say love will save me from the distances I can’t cross
the distance from here to many meters away measured in footsteps
love will also save me from tiresome fantasies
that inflate my ego and self-confidence
where is my ego and self-confidence?

by Yevhenii Monastyrskyi

When we made the decision to leave our homes in the midst of a war zone, each one of us consciously chose to remain within the boundaries of our own nation. This choice necessitated a shift from our local identities to our national ones;  perhaps more accurately, it involved allowing our national identities to encompass and overshadow our local ones.

By Ubah Cristina Ali Farah
Translated from the Italian by Clara Hillis

Scarlette would go to sea. She was a towering and statuesque person, with steadfast legs, wearing tall boots and a black raincoat. Even during the war, after we evacuated, when the estuary would just erupt fountains of sulfur. Steaming geysers would spray into the sky, and she would go to sea. Even when the city caught all ablaze and was devoured by a white heat. Ashes everywhere: an opaque veil against the sun covered the trees, the houses, and every single rowboat. 

by Bianca Bellová
Translated from Czech by the author

It’s an interesting thing, you know: since the border’s been open, the deer still won’t cross over into Germany. They couldn’t when it was divided by the Iron Curtain, there used to be a live wire fence which would always shoot flares whenever anyone touched it. The deer learn territoriality from their mothers, right, they memorize where they lead them and so the Czech deer still walk on Czech paths and the German deer on the German paths.

by Kateryna Zarembo
Translated from Ukrainian by Kate Tsurkan

Here, everything seemed unchanged—calm and quiet, as if worries, haste, and war were nonexistent. All you had to do was overlook the remnants of the burned down house across from theirs and the furniture marked by debris, not to mention the occasional air raid alerts on the phone. It was her citadel where nothing was scary.

by Ada Wordsworth

As we looked up at the plaque listing the names of the writers who had lived here, an air raid siren sounded around us. The sound intermingled with children’s voices in the playground in Slovo’s yard. Many of the writers whose names are on the plaque outside Slovo have been lost to time—their works are unknown even to the most learned of Ukrainian scholars.

by Marek Šindelka
Translated from Czech by Graeme Dibble

At this point, words were still too heavy a weapon for the boy. But one day, thought Petr, one day he will accomplish things with them. He’ll use them like a picklock to break into the world of various girls and women, make money using words, weave them together into a huge nest of prestige. He might go far: already you could see he had staying power.

by Vasyl Stus
Translated from the Ukrainian by Bohdan Tokarsky and Julius Kochan

If people carry on writing books
for another couple of centuries
then what will our descendants do?

What taught people to sharpen knives
was screams.

by Munawwar Abdulla

Elect a baby as king, why don’t you? I am
played in, loved in, traded in, not
fenced in. Nor do walls protect me.
Perhaps the desert does.

by Khrystia Vengryniuk
Translated from Ukrainian by Kate Tsurkan

Lolita went to the windowsill and lit the last candle; the others had already been burning for some time. Peering outside, she noticed the evening settling in. She arched her back with a feline-like stretch, scratching it lightly with her slender, sharp nails. Then she ran her fingers through her straight hair—slightly greasy from rosemary oil—elegantly twisting it into a bun and securing it in place with a hairpin.

by Elsa Court

As Ivan develops into a state of numbness, Lutsyshyna shows what can happen to the heroes of a revolution when the revolution itself is declared over. He reminisces about his past and experiences no hope for the future, only nostalgia. He becomes emotional at remembering his childhood friends, some of whom have left Uzhhorod and another of whom has died of alcoholism.