In this collection of tales, in turns lyrical and brutal, Oleg Ermakov, probably Russia’s foremost writer on the Soviet war in Afghanistan, depicts the war from multiple points of view: a boy on a date a couple of days before he heads off to basic training, a raw recruit forced to commit an act he […]
Read more "“Afghan Tales” by Oleg Yermakov"What a fabulous find! I’d never read any Estonian literature before encountering this book, so naturally I jumped at the chance. It’s the late 1690s, and Laurentius Hylas, accompanied only by his parakeet Clodia, has come from Lieden, where he ran into trouble at the university there for his unusual views, to the University of […]
Read more "“The Willow King” by Meelis Friedenthal, trans. Matthew Hyde"In “The Hideout,” a Czech engineer writes letters to his wife, Hanichka, from his hiding place in occupied France. In them, he describes how he went to Paris in 1939 without her knowledge in order to chase after another woman, only to be trapped there when the Nazis, who have taken Czechoslovakia, declare him a […]
Read more "“The Hideout” by Egon Hostovsky"In “Wolf Hunt,” the threads of village passions come together as a group sets off on a wolf hunt that serves as a pretext for something even more murderous. Living side-by-side for decades, right through the upheavals of WWII and forced collectivization, has inflamed resentments rather than drawing people together, leading to a violent denouement. […]
Read more "“Wolf Hunt” by Ivailo Petrov"What do you do when you’re an idealistic young journalist whose hometown suddenly turns into a war zone? Obviously, you grab your camera and your notepad and you start gathering stories. Only it turns out that a brutal civil war in your own country is more than just another story. There have been many appalling […]
Read more "“The Sky Wept Fire” by Mikail Eldin"
E. P. Clark: Author, Book Reviewer, and All-Around Literary Handiwoman 