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Czech BooksLost and found in translation: writers discuss the complexities of literature across frontiers
Last month Prague hosted Bookworld, one of Europe’s major international
book fairs. Writers from around the world, whose work covers a Babel of
different languages, converged on the Czech capital. As part of the event,
six of the writers got together to talk about how literature can play a
role in helping to build understanding between cultures. A lively
discussion emerged, chaired by Radio Prague’s David Vaughan.
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This week in Mailbox: The Czech pavilion at World Expo 2010, listening on
shortwave, details to be included in reception reports, Bookworld 2010.
Listeners quote: Chun-Quan Meng, Steven Bell.
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Czech BooksChanging narratives from the smaller countries of Europe
If you are a writer from one of the smaller countries of Europe, writing in
a language spoken by a few million or perhaps just a few hundred thousand
people, your chances of finding an international readership are almost
non-existent. The organization Literature Across Frontiers has been working
to redress the balance, helping to draw attention to writers from all
corners of the continent, and above all struggling to get their work
published and translated internationally. At the recent Bookworld book fair
in Prague, the driving force behind the organization, Alexandra Büchler,
chaired a fascinating discussion involving four young writers from smaller
European countries. Afterwards they all joined me to talk about some of the
themes that came up during the discussion:
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Czech BooksA new novel by Jáchym Topol and a prize nobody wants to win
Wolves in Poland, Shakespeare in Japan and the pitfalls of literary
translation. These are just three of the many subjects that came up when I
visited to the Bookworld international book fair in Prague last week.
Bookworld is a huge and diverse event, by far the biggest of its kind in
the Czech Republic. It would be impossible to cover everything that was
going on, even during the few hours that I was there, but here at least is
a taste of the event. More
Czech BooksThe Bookworld international book fair rises from the ashes
Less than six months ago, a disastrous fire reduced an entire wing of
Prague’s historic Industrial Exhibition Hall to a pile of twisted metal
and masonry, but the building has made a remarkable recovery. In a few
days’ time it will be housing the Czech Republic’s biggest annual book
fair, Svět knihy or Bookworld, which will be taking place for the
fifteenth year running, and seems remarkably unscathed either by the fire
or the rages of the world economic crisis. To find out more, I managed to
steal a few minutes with the busy and energetic Bookworld director, Dana
Kalinová, and amid the organized chaos of her Prague office, she told me
about the event’s priorities.
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Czech BooksLandscapes of Loneliness: New writing from Latvia hits Prague
This week Czech Books comes from the main exhibition ground in Prague,
where the Bookworld - or Svet knihy - festival has been taking place. It
was founded in 1997 by Czech publishers and booksellers, mainly to promote
literature in the Czech Republic, but in the past years it has grown very
much from a simple book fair into quite a major literary festival with
writers from many parts of the world coming here. The theme of this year's
Bookworld is "Literatures of the North" and the special guest of
honour is the Latvian Literature Centre.
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Current AffairsUK writer Neal Ascherson discusses NATO, EU on Prague visit
The journalist and author Neal Ascherson is one of Britain's leading
experts on central and eastern Europe. He first visited Poland in 1957,
and has spent a great deal of time in the region in the decades since
then. Mr Ascherson recently paid a visit to Prague, where I spoke to him
at an outdoor café. Before getting on to the recent eastwards enlargement
of the European Union, I asked Neal Ascherson if that other alliance,
NATO, was still relevant, so many years after the end of the Cold War:
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