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.

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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.

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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.

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In Lit_Cast Slovakia #4, American literary scholar and translator Charles Sabatos talks to Julia Sherwood about searching for his Slovak roots, University of Pittsburg'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.

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