Kicking off the series of podcasts, Donald Rayfield discusses the challenges of publishing translated literature, translating Russian, Georgian and Uzbek literature, and draws parallels between Peter Pišťanek and Quentin Tarantino, and Ján Johanides and Hilary Mantel.

lit-cast-slovakia-en-01-donald-rayfield.mp3

Rajendra Chitnis talks about teaching Czech and Slovak in the UK, why Vladimír Mečiar was good for Slovak literature and Franz Kafka is the biggest problem for literatures of small European countries. Also: is knowledge of history needed to understand older Slovak literature and would the world think as highly of Milan Kundera if Ján Johanides had been translated into English.

lit-cast-slovakia-en-02-rajendra-chitnis.mp3

In the third episode of Lit_cast Slovakia, literature scholar and translator Magdalena Mullek talks with Julia Sherwood about living between three countries and multiple languages, the joys of translating living authors, cooperative translating, and forging relationships with publishers.

lit-cast-slovakia-en-03-magdalena-mullek.mp3

In Lit_cast Slovakia #4, American literary scholar and translator Charles Sabatos talks to Julia Sherwood about searching for his Slovak roots, University of Pittsburgh’s Slovak Studies Program and the legacy of Martin Votruba, about translating Pavel Vilikovský’s Ever Green Is... — “a side-splitting satire on totalitarianism, spy mania, Slovaks and nationalism,” as well as about translating Dominik Tatarka and Gejza Vámoš.

lit-cast-slovakia-en-04-charles-sabatos.mp3

In Lit_cast Slovakia #5, world traveler and translator Janet Livingstone talks to Julia Sherwood about reinventing herself in Seattle after living in Bratislava for 16 years, picking up foreign languages, translating Slovak women writers, cultural differences between Europe and the US, and she praises the politeness of the Slovak people.

lit-cast-slovakia-en-05-janet-livingstone.mp3

In Lit_cast Slovakia #6, Jonathan Gresty talks to Julia Sherwood about his British DNA and going native in Slovakia, about translating two very different books – Anton Baláž’s Camp of Fallen Women and Jana Bodnárová’s Necklace/Choker and explains what is skopos theory, and what is wrong with English-language information for tourists and why some Slovak books would benefit from some serious editing.

lit-cast-slovakia-en-06-jonathan-gresty.mp3

In Lit_cast Slovakia #7, literature scholar Katarína Gephardt talks to Julia Sherwood about intrepid women travelers who helped shape an ambivalent image of Central and Eastern Europe in 19th-century Britain, about generational memory and productive nostalgia in the writing of Verona Šikulová and Maroš Krajňak, and about her plans for a Companion to Contemporary Slovak Literature.

lit-cast-slovakia-en-07-katarina-gephardt.mp3

In Lit_cast Slovakia #8, writer and journalist Michael Stein talks to Julia Sherwood about the Central European literary sensibility, the surreal sight of a tourist-free Prague, and the unforced surrealism in the writing of Uršuľa Kovalyk, as well as the subtle irony of Jana Juráňová. He also recommends his other favorite Slovak writers, Pavol Rankov, Dušan Mitana, Peter Karpinský, and Ondrej Štefánik.

lit-cast-slovakia-en-08-michael-stein.mp3