Cultural Writing. Translation. Translated from the Czech and Slovak by Gerald Turner. Foreword by Vaclav Havel. The letters printed in this volume were written during Milan Simecka's stay in prison (the author's crime: smuggling his texts out of the country to be published abroad.) Not allowed to mention politics, Simecka--one of the most widely translated dissidents opposing the Communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia--wrote instead about people and human relations. The selection presented here contains philosophical reflections as well as practical advice for his wife and sons, bearing witness to both his attitude towards others and to the period in which he lived. Similar to Vaclav Havel's Letters to Olga, Simecka's LETTERS FROM PRISON give us a glimpse into the difficult struggle undertaken by Czechoslovak dissidents in opposition to a Soviet-style regime that was considered the most hard-line in Eastern Europe.

Letters from Prison

Havel, Václav

Šimečka, Milan

Turner, Gerald

Arts & Photography

Twisted Spoon Press

Poetry. Sandor Kanyadi is from a small ethnic Hungarian village in Transylvania. He has lived his life in Romania where through his work as writer, translator, and editor he has endeavored to keep his language and culture alive amidst an often hostile environment. There is probably no Hungarian town or village of any size in the whole Carpathian Basin that Kanyadi has not visited to recite in schools and libraries. Like all great poets, his work encompasses many styles and forms, often incorporating elements of folk songs and popular myth. A recipient of many literature awards in Europe, including the top prizes in both Romania and Hungary, this is the first comprehensive volume of his poetry to be published in English. Translated by Paul Sohar.

Dancing Embers

Literature & Fiction

Sohar, Paul

Kanyadi, Sandor

Poetry

Seemingly a collection of prose ballads about a mythical village facing the trauma of 1990s-style economic transformation, the book gradually reinvents itself as a novel. Considered one of Poland's leading contemporary writers, Stasiuk brilliantly blurs the line between genres as he explores the fissures in existence where there is often little difference between the living and the dead, death and sleep, dream and reality, the real and the televised, and between civilization and nature.

Tales of Galicia

Stasiuk, Andrzej

Nafpaktitis, Margarita

Literary

Poetry. Robert Gal is one of the freshest voices to come from Prague over the past few years. His writing is a mix of philosophy and prose poetry that explores the tenuousness of one's identity and existence. Ironical in his outlook, Gal's aim with this volume is to bring the great Romanian philosopher E. M. Cioran into the present in the same way that John Zorn, whose music provided the impetus for writing this book, brought Ornette Coleman into the present with Spy Vs. Spy. This volume is a composition of aphorisms, longer and shorter fragments of thought, and the photographs of Lucia Nimcova, which were taken specifically for this collection.

Signs & Symptoms

Robert Gal

Beginning with the highly imagistic "The Doors of Life," the eight stories contained in this volume detail the contours of the lives and visions of a collection of Prague inhabitants, from a prostitute bound to the decay of the old Jewish Quarter, to a man caught in the memory of a lost love and a shoemaker whose knowledge of the world has been constricted to the view from the window of his cellar workroom. Amidst their differing circumstances what these characters share is an intense desire for lasting human contact and the fated disappoinment of all such aspirations. Binding their personal histories, woven into their most intimate details, is Prague itself, the city whose nature, mythical and yet all-too-real, gives shape and force to their desires while simultaneously determining their frustrations.

OTHER'S PARADISE

Leppin, Paul

Howard, Stephanie

Nestor, Amy

It's Halloween! When George and his friend, the man with the yellow hat, go to Mrs. Gray's house, George is excited to find out that it is a costume party. After seeing his friends dressed up as astronauts, mummies, witches and more, George gets to pick out his own costume. But George accidentally wraps himself up in a tablecloth and gets mistaken for a ghost! Will everyone enjoy George's Halloween trick or will he scare away the party guests? This edition features both English and Spanish text set in two different colors for ease of reading. For more monkey fun, investigate www.curiousgeorge.com.

Second-Hand Souls

Cotter, Sean

Danilov, Nichita

Selections from the original six volumes of surrealist, erotic literature and illustration from 1931 available for the first time. Because of censorship laws, Edition 69 series was never for sale, nor was it made available to libraries. The books were exclusively for subscribers, collectors, and a circle of friends, the Czech avant-garde investigating the taboos of bourgeois culture. This volume includes the two most important texts in the series: * Nezval's Sexual Nocturne * Styrsky's Emilie Come to Me in a Dream * an original essay from psychoanalyst Bohuslav Brouk, a founding member of the Czechslovak Surrealist Group and much influenced by Max Ernst.

Edition 69

Vitezslav, Nezval

Contemporary

Launched in 1931 by Jindřich Styrský, Edition 69 consisted of six volumes of erotic literature and illustration that followed the path marked out by Louis Aragon's Irene's Cunt and Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye. Including the first Czech translation of Marquis de Sade's Justine and Pietro Aretino (both illustrated by Toyen), three volumes were from contemporary Czech avant-garde artists, and these were all illustrated by Styrský himself, who also contributed the text for the last volume of the series. Bringing together original English translations of the three Czech contributions to the Edition 69 series, this volume comprises Nezval's “Sexual Nocturne”; Halas's erotic poetry collection “Thyrsos”; and Styrský's “Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream,” including the original essay from psychoanalyst and fellow Surrealist Bohuslav Brouk, all complemented by Styrský's artwork, ranging from pen and ink drawings to graphic collages to pornographic photomontages. Influenced by Max Ernst's collage-novels, Andre Masson's illustrations, and the book as object, Styrský's overall conception for the Edition 69 series rank it among the notable achievements of European Surrealism, representing as well a sustained attempt by the interwar Czech avant-garde to investigate the taboos of bourgeois culture.

Nezval, Vítězslav

Styrsky, Jindrich

Halas, Frantisek

Poetry. Tomaz Salamun is perhaps the most popular and prolific poet in Central Europe today. Thanks to the translation of his work he has also been widely acclaimed abroad. To date he has had four collections of selected poetry published in English. A BALLAD FOR METKA KRASOVEC, originally published in the 1980s by Harcourt, at the mid-point of Salamun's career, is considered by the author to be one of his finest works. The volume is characterized by often striking imagery and sexual turmoil. It is the first complete single volume of his to appear in English translation. The translator is Michael Biggins, who is a Slavic and East European Studies librarian at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle. SPD also carries Salamun's FOUR QUESTIONS OF MELANCHOLY (White Pine).

A Ballad for Metka Krasovec

Šalamun, Tomaž

Biggins, Michael

Called by Thomas Mann a "sexual hell" as well as "pure artistry," The Maimed is set in Prague and relates the story of a highly neurotic, socially inept bank clerk who is eventually forced to have sexual relations with his widowed landlady. At the same time he must witness the steady physical and mental deterioration of his lifelong friend who is suffering from an unnamed disease. Part psychological farce, Ungar tells a dark, ironic tale of chaos overtaking one's meticulously ordered life. Having died young, Ungar wrote only two novels, in addition to a handful of plays and short stories; this is the first time his work has appeared in English.

The Maimed

Ungar, Hermann

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Books by Twisted Spoon Press

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Twisted Spoon Press publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Letters from Prison

Dancing Embers

Tales of Galicia

Signs & Symptoms

OTHER'S PARADISE

Second-Hand Souls

Edition 69

Edition 69

A Ballad for Metka Krasovec

The Maimed