Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904–1991) was one of the most famous representatives of Yiddish literature and a laureate of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Literature. In his works, he touched upon various periods of life of Eastern European Jewry yet some topics interested him constantly since they stemmed from the experiences of the twentieth century. Those were obsession with ideologies and demons; the justification of God who allows the unchangeable to happen; ethical co-existence with others, animals in particular; and a choice not to cause harm. (more…)
The book by Bella Shaier, an Israeli writer born in Chernivtsi, consists of two novelettes and a short story. The first novelette is dedicated to the Chernivtsi streetlife of the 1960s. Its characters are children yet this delicate psychological work full of precise observations is not for children. The second piece tells about the twenty years of life of two Tel Avivians, Galit and Gordon, touching upon the topics of love, family relations, and unrealizable dreams. The storyline of the short and dramatic story Fortwo revolves around the issues of loneliness, emigration, and family relations and also takes place in Israel.
The book Children’s Mate was shortlisted for the prestigious Israeli Sapir Prize and awarded the prize of the city of Ramat Gan. This is the first complete translation of the book.
After the occupation of Yugoslavia by German forces in 1941, the Slovenian city of Maribor, historically a German-speaking town with a large German minority, is annexed to the Third Reich. In the city renamed Marburg an der Drau, neighbours and friends of yesterday are torn apart and a resistance movement is organised in the surrounding hills. The three characters at the heart of the novel, Valentin, a partisan resistance fighter, his girlfriend Sonja, and the SS officer Ludwig, once called Ludek, each try in their own way to defend their love from the senselessness of evil and the downfall of human dignity. The war upsets their perception of the world and of themselves and inevitably breaks their lives.
This book is the first collection of Ukrainian translations of prose by Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938). The volume contains his main prose writings (The Egypt Stamp, The Noise of the Time, Feodosia, and others), critical essays on literature (The Morning of Acmeism, The Talk about Dante, and others) and culture, especially on Ukrainian topics (essays about Kyiv and the Berezil Theatre, and The Spy film review) as well as texts inspired by Crimea and Mandelstam’s only prose piece published in Ukraine during his lifetime: the film review Shop of Cheap Dolls. (more…)
