The Attic is Danilo Kiš’s first novel. Written in 1960, published in 1962, and set in contemporary Belgrade, it explores the relationship of a young man, known only as Orpheus, to the art of writing; it also tracks his relationship with a colorful cast of characters with nicknames such as Eurydice, Mary Magdalene, Tam-Tam,and Billy Wise Ass. Rich with references to music, painting, philosophy, and gastronomy, this bohemian Bildungsroman is a laboratory of technique and st...

Written when he was only twenty-five, before embarking on the masterpieces that would make him an integral figure in twentieth-century letters, Psalm 44 shows Kiš at his most lyrical and unguarded, demonstrating that even in "the place of dragons . . . covered with the shadow of death," there can still be poetry. Featuring characters based on actual inmates and warders—including the abominable Dr. Mengele—Psalm 44 is a baring of many of the themes, patterns, and preoccupa...

Written between 1980 and 1986, the six stories that constitute The Lute and the Scars (as well as an untitled piece by the author, included here as "A and B") were transcribed from the manuscripts left by Danilo Kiš following his death in 1989. Like the title story, many of these texts are autobiographical. Others resurrect protagonists belonging to Kiš’s fellow Central European novelists, allowing readers to identify, perhaps, depending on the level of obfuscation, fantasy,and hi...

'For once there had been false idols and asses' heads drawn on the walls...'Sleepers awake in a remote cave and the ancient mystic Simon Magus attempts a miracle, in these two magical, otherworldly tales from one of the greatest voices of twentieth-century Europe.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here ar...

2013 may be the best year yet for Best European Fiction. The inimitable John Banville joins the list of distinguished preface writers for Aleksandar Hemon's series, and A. S. Byatt represents England among a luminous cast of European contributors. Fans of the series will find everything they've grown to love, while new readers will discover what they've been missing!

The launch of Dalkey's Best European Fiction series was nothing short of phenomenal, with wide-ranging coverage in international media such as Time magazine, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, and the Guardian; glowing reviews and interviews in print and online magazines such as the Believer, Bookslut, Paste, and the Huffington Post; radio interviews wi...

Now in its third year, the Best European Fiction series has become a mainstay in the literary landscape, each year featuring new voices from throughout Europe alongside more established names such as Hilary Mantel, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, Ingo Schulze, George Konrad, Victor Pelevin, and Enrique Vila-Matas.For 2012, Aleksandar Hemon introduces a whole new cross-section of European fiction, and there are a few editorial changes as well. For the first time, the preface will ...

THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR OF FLESHIt is 1948 in Russia and Aleksandr, a major in the MGB (the forerunner of the KGB) is sent to an isolated psychiatric clinic to investigate one of the patients there. The patient is a man long presumed dead - a now severely incapacitated veteran of the Second World War, who seems unable to remember any of his past.Twenty-four years later, Aleksandr is haunted by the case. With his Stalinist faith under t...

From Belarus to Wales! Translated from more than 25 languages and highlighting the future luminaries and revolutionaries of international literature. Fans of the series will find everything they've grown to love, while new readers will discover what they've been missing!

Vladimir Mayakovsky was one of the towering literary figures of pre- and post-revolutionary Russia, speaking as much to the working man as to other poets. His fascination with sound and form, linguistic metamorphosis and variation made him a sort of 'poet's poet', the doyen, if not the envy, of his contemporaries, (Pasternak among them). His poetry is strangely akin to modern rock poetry in its erotic thrust, bluesy complaints and cries of pain, not to mention its sardonic humour. It is of...

Moscow Stations, Venedikt Yerofeev's autobiographical novel, is in many ways the successor to Gogol's Dead Souls. The two works are comic historical bookends, with Gogol's novel portraying the sloth and corruption of feudal Russia and Yerofeev's novel portraying the sloth and corruption of feudal Communism. The truth is that while the streets of Moscow may be clogged with Volvos and Mercedes sedans these days - in keeping with the new capitalism - the angu...

"The beginning of this tale of bygone days in Odessa dates to the dawn of the twentieth century. At that time we used to refer to the first years of this period as the 'springtime,' meaning a social and political awakening. For my generation, these years also coincided with our own personal springtime, in the sense that we were all in our youthful twenties. And both of these springtimes, as well as the image of our carefree Black Sea capital with acacias growing along its steep banks, are ...