Revolver Revue
Eurozine
Revolver Revue
2006-06-23
Summary for Revolver Revue 63 (2006)
In an interview for RR some time ago, the translator Helena Stachová mentioned her young Ukrainian colleague Andriy Bondar, who translated Gombrowicz's novel Ferdyduke and who "not only has not been paid for this but also buys copies of the book and gives it to his friends now and then." This issue presents Bondar's own poems. Journeys to distant and wild lands is one of the motifs of the extensive new novel entitled Journeys to Siberia by Martin Rysavy, which will be published in the RR edition and from which we offer an excerpt. A short story by a Polish author Wojciech Kuczok is another piece of fiction published in this issue.
"Like all the astute people she was also somewhat malicious", is how Robert Walser, a Swiss author with a reputation for being an enigmatic writer, describes one of his heroines. Walser did not enjoy widespread recognition during his lifetime and his texts were only gradually rediscovered, deciphered, and appreciated. Today he is considered one of the most important figures of European literature of the first half of the twentieth century; his life and work is often compared to that of Fernando Pessoa. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the writer's death, we are dedicating a large section to his work, as translated by Radovan Charvát, covering all important phases of Walser's literary career. This section also includes appraisals of his work from writers such as Hermann Hesse, Robert Musil, Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Elias Canetti, Walter Benjamin, and Christian Morgenstern, as well as excerpts from a book by his friend Carl Seelig, who recorded Walser's years in an asylum, are also presented here. Veronika Tuckerová describes the current state of the research on Walser, which often proves to be very exciting.
In RR 32 (1996), a collage of texts illustrating Jakub Deml's relationship to Vítezslav Nezval and Vladimír Holan was published; here we print Deml's letters addressed to Jaroslav Durych. During his stay in Topolcianky, Deml invited Durych to visit Slovakia: "When you arrive we will set off for the mountains full of boars and bears, so take a gun." "I spent six years editing without having a single day off", Eckhard Thiele admits to Katerina Záhorová in an interview concerning the edition Tschechische Bibliothek which introduces selected pieces of Czech literature to German readers. In the "Studios" section, Viktor Karlík and Karel Cudlín visit the sculptor Michal Blazek. Jan Cumlivski presents Russian ruderal design in words and pictures: "Many things seem very familiar in Russia. There you can find the products that used to be available in our country: the Charkov electric shaver with rotating blades in the shape of a fan and above all the Zhiguli, Gaz, Vaz-Volga, Uaz, Paz, and Lada cars. They not only look familiar but also have widely known social attributes." Kveta Pribylová and Kvetoslav Pribyl present their photographic project entitled A Journey; Jan Sekal worked in the French National Library before photographing it. Karel Haloun contemplates the work of Jaroslav Prokop who has, among other things, been photographing Czech rock and folk-rock singers for many years. In addition to our permanent New Works section, in this issue you will find also our regular critical Couleur.