The Book of Bratislava was launched on 28 April before a packed audience at Artforum bookshop in Bratislava. The event was chaired by Dado Nagy, with Isabella Barber of Comma Press introducing the series Reading the City of which this anthology forms a part, and the volume’s two co-editors, Radoslav Passia and Julia Sherwood, explaining how the selection came about. The authors featured in the anthology were represented by Eva Vozárová, who spoke about and read from her story “Summer in the City,” and Igor Hochel in the audience. John Minahane gave a spirited reading from his translation of Ján Rozner’s story “The Day After the Front.”
On 15 May the anthology was presented at the symposium ‘Plots, Paths, Polyphony: Writing and Mapping European Cities’ organised at University College London’s European Institute by its director Uta Staiger, as part of the Institute’s longer-term project, Lost & Found: A European Literary Map of London (the interactive map features samples from works by three Slovak writers: Gejza Vámoš, Pavel Vilikovský and Zuska Kepplová). The presentation was chaired by Tim Beasley-Murray, and the panel included Comma Press’s editor Isabella Barber, the anthology’s co-editor Julia Sherwood, and two of the translators. Barbora Hrínová was unable to attend in person but sent a recording of a reading from her story “In the Beautiful City” and answered a few questions from Isabella Barber. Translator Paul Kaye spoke about and read from Eva Vozárová’s “Summer In the City,” and Peter Sherwood, who translated a story by Lajos Grendel, gave a potted history of Hungarian in Bratislava.
