The Ones Who Survive Are Real — a Review of Bora Chung’s ‘Red Sword’
Reviewed by Kate Tsurkan
Bora Chung’s “Red Sword” wastes no time plunging readers into an alien world that is both cruel and enticing, immediately challenging humanity to find a way to reclaim itself. We are first introduced to the narrator — a woman who remains nameless for most of the novel — as she recounts her budding intimacy with a lover aboard a slave ship traversing the far reaches of a galactic empire, only to witness his death shortly after they are cast onto what is dubbed the white planet. What starts as a flicker of dread from her lover’s untimely death swiftly grows into an unrelenting tension that saturates the novel from start to finish.
When the Air Held Its Breath — on the Poetic Record of War in Oksana Maksymchuk’s ‘Still City’
Reviewed by Anya Avrutsky
Written in the few months leading up to and following Russia’s full-scale invasion, the book bridges a documentary and surrealist style, capturing a city on the brink. Maksymchuk, a Ukrainian poet and translator from Lviv, began writing Still City six months before February 24th, from a building overlooking an old prison courtyard where political prisoners had been executed during WWII. Such a setting serves as a reminder of how little time has passed since the last war that ravaged Ukraine.
‘In the passing’ and other poems
by Alexandra Magearu
a tumult of birds
like a little chaos
thick and fluttering
with treasures in their toothless mouths
cruel in the glacial light
(…)
Two wartime poems
by Olena Herasymiuk
Translated from the Ukrainian by Viktoria Ivanenk
I am standing on the stage that
no longer exists
it’s not a stage — it’s a mass grave,
under it
buried alive, lie thousands of
men, women, and their children —
the dead, the living, and the unborn
An excerpt from the novel ‘Swan Song’
by Miklós Vámos
Translated from the Hungarian by Ági Bori
As an officer of the armed forces, he made certain to stare the defiant privates in the eye until the last moment. However, he couldn’t stop the wrinkles from forming on his forehead.
A Room without Shadows
by Andriy Sodomora
Translated from the Ukrainian by Sabrina Jaszi and Roman Ivashkiv
There before me was a bare window without even the sheerest covering, and in an instant I took in the whole room: It was lit by a bright incandescent bulb dangling from the ceiling on a long wire. In the middle of the room, on a little stool directly under that light, sat an old woman, wrapped in some dark garment, her head covered by a dark kerchief.
Night Shift
An excerpt from the novel Vanilla Ice Cream by Đurđa Knežević
Translated from the Croatian by Ena Selimović
After nearly two consecutive shifts—afternoon into early morning—her body teetered between numbness and pain. Or rather, when at rest, it grew numb, and when she’d had to move, the pain would flare through her whole body, not just in its moved part.
Reading ‘The Eyes of Gaza’ From Wartime Ukraine
Reviewed by Kate Tsurkan
Reading “The Eyes of Gaza” from Ukraine, I was reminded of how no war occurs in a vacuum — the fight for survival, freedom, and justice is never isolated, but part of a larger human story.
Irena Karpa: “If fear arises, I always go and do what causes it”
Interviewed by Olena Lysenko
“I’ve never had any taboos when it comes to humor. However, I would never joke about the victims of violence, and I do not support sexism or victim-blaming. That’s unacceptable for me. Humor always remains somewhat incorrect and absurd.”
Confronting the silence: An Interview with Monica Cure
Interviewed by Irina Costache
"For me, being able to read these stories fills in a lot of gaps. Many times, it's not because anyone in my family or the Romanians that I grew up with in Detroit are withholding that information, but something that particularly writers can do is make a whole world come alive, a whole time period come alive."
“We Migrating Birds”: Translating the Poetry of North Korean Defector, Imu Baek
Interviewed by Sandra Joy Russell
“Many of the circumstances Baek depicts in her works are dire. In addition to the hunger, cold, and violence the narrator describes, there is a general feeling of helplessness which echoes throughout the work. This made it difficult to continue to translate for extended translation sessions.”
Between Nostalgia and Uncertainty: A Review of Libuše Moníková’s Transfigured Night (2023, Karolinum Press)
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.
Soňa and children
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.
Three wartime poems
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
Untitled (from "Stitches")
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.
K. 7:00
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?
We, Internally Displaced Persons
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.
Phoenix Ashes
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.
The Dam Keeper
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.
