Twisted Spoon Press

Now available: The Folded Clock, text and images by Gerhard Rühm, trans. by @wordkunst.bsky.social who also translated Rühm's Cake & Prostheses for us last year. Both incorporate images with the text and lexical play with roots in Dada.
More info here: www.twistedspoon.com/folded-clock...

Enjoying, in a literary sense, rather than it filling my soul with innocent glee, this from @twistedspoon.bsky.social

Interview with Alexander Booth | PDF An interview with translator Alexander Booth about his work on Gerhard Rühm, Alexander Kluge, et al., in the October 2025 issue of The Berliner.

Good interview with translator @wordkunst.bsky.social in this month's issue of @theberliner.bsky.social . Alex's translation of The Folded Clock by Gerhard Rühm is out soon.
www.scribd.com/document/929...

In time for Banned Books Week, The Tigress by Walter Serner is now available and on the way to the distributor. Serner's only novel, it's a nihilistic "love story" where a grifter and an escort team up to scam the casino crowd of the Riviera.
More info here:
www.twistedspoon.com/the-tigress....

Lovely to revisit Bookart bookshop near Old St tube 🚇 post-renovation - like my new bag and bought something intriguing from the @twistedspoon.bsky.social list

Possibilities in Transformation: A Review of Ceilings by Zuzana Brabcová - Asymptote Blog [Ceilings] and its setting dwell in a place where play and terror occur simultaneously. . .

Great review of Z. Brabcova's Ceilings (tr. @terez-veve.bsky.social ) by Garrett Biggs in Asymptote:
"[Novická] has bravely and fluently rendered Brabcová’s work, and her talents are most evident when she captures the author’s dark humor."
www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/08...

A Prague Flâneur – Vítězslav Nezval Prague surpasses its “practical necessity” and expands into a dynamic host for memories

James Dyer on V. Nezval's A Prague Flaneur for @fullstopmag.bsky.social

"A Prague Flâneur reads as an individual’s lonely account of being with people in a city that inspires dreams to no end."

www.full-stop.net/2025/08/11/r...

This @twistedspoon.bsky.social novel is deeply intriguing, unsettling and funny. The tale of the narrative voice becomes a palimpsest of characters, times and places.

A nice review of Gerhard Rühm's "cake & prostheses" (in my translation)

www.complete-review.com/reviews/aust...

"It's a fun collection, especially in the creative stage-experiments. Rühm is not unserious, but there is a humorous edge to many of the pieces -- and quite a few are quite erotically charged as well. There's nice variety here, too, making for a good sampler of Rühm's work and language-play ..."

My round-up of recent translated fiction is now online (details of the books reviewed are below).
www.irishtimes.com/culture/book...

Too pasty.

In this weekend's The Irish Times, a roundup on recent translations by Declan O'Driscoll, who says this about The Arsonist: "First published in 1935, the novel is beautifully written, with a narrative style that whispers confidences to the reader."

Thanks JS : "Its raw, unapologetic narrative slips seamlessly between voice and perspective, continually cross-referencing itself, to create a world—one woman’s world, past and present—that for all its surreal elements is cohesive, sympathetic and real."

Dream follows dream: Ceilings by Zuzana Brabcová Drink them up, swallow those clouds, gulp them down with all your might, because all you’ve got to look forward to now are ceilings. As Ema, the fifty year-old protagonist of Zuzana Brabcová’s Ceil…

Dream follows dream: Ceilings by Zuzana Brabcová, tr by Tereza Veverka Novická @twistedspoon.bsky.social
roughghosts.com/2025/07/07/d...

In bookshops this November, back from the printers in summer.

For more info and individual orders:
www.twistedspoon.com/the-tigress....
www.twistedspoon.com/folded-clock...

#dada #demimonde #translation #germanliterature #alexanderbooth #walterserner #gerhardruhm #centraleurope #vienna #paris

Thanks Daniel Barbiero for such an incisive review of A Prague Flaneur: "The streets, bridges, buildings, and cafés “where Prague lives” provide a wealth of stimuli to which Nezval responds with a catalogue of memories."

compulsivereader.com/2025/06/07/a...

B O D Y | Berlin Variations by Alexander Booth Alexander Booth is a poet and translator who lives in Berlin. His collection of poems Triptych was published in 2021 and Kantor in 2023.

Happy that these 3 poems have found a home in Prague's BODY journal . . . thank you @sdelbos.bsky.social

www.bodyliterature.com/2025/05/27/a...

That's too bad. Interesting cause for their ceasing though.

Tonight at Riffraff in Providence, RI, 7 p.m., Agniezska Taborska will be discussing The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks. Stop by if you're in town.

www.twistedspoon.com/unfinished-l...

"I have to say up front that Hostovsky’s writing is wonderfully individual and quite hypnotic."

Congrats to Selena Kimball on receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship.

If you're in or around Providence next Monday, on April 21, at 6:30 p.m., Metcalf Auditorium at Rhode Island School of Design, Agniezska Taborska will be presenting The Unfinished Life of Phoebe Hicks.

It's free and open to the public.

Info here:
involved.risd.edu/event/11193857

New review: Egon Hostovský's 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐴𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡 www.complete-review.com/reviews/cesk...

"The surreal imagery, the shifts of location, the fluidity of her identity are all brilliantly rendered by Brabcova, and the result is an exhilarating and sometimes dizzying work which leaves you a bit stunned."

For an introduction to Czech #poetry and to have a beautiful book in content and design, you can't do much better than May, by Karel Hynek Macha, from the glorious @twistedspoon.bsky.social

Zuzana Brabcová’s Ceilings (Book acquired, 22 March 2025) I’m excited about Zuzana Brabcová’s novel Ceilings, in English translation by Tereza Novická. Here’s publisher Twisted Spoon’s blurb: Kin to the work of Leonora Carrington a…

Zuzana Brabcová's Ceilings (Book acquired, 22 March 2025) biblioklept.org/2025/03/30/z...

“Get reading. Get walking” – A Prague Flâneur by Vitezlav Nezval “For readers of Walter Benjamin’s One Way Street or Pamuk’s Istanbul, this could stand as a companion piece. Like them it is full of literature and life and is a worthy inclusion on Twisted S…

Missed this from a few months ago, but Richard Clegg at Bookmunch wrote about A Prague Flaneur: "Nezval’s marvellous narrative takes us back into an earlier period. [...] The book is worth reading for its set pieces that have the fluency of the River Vlatava."
bookmunch.wordpress.com/2024/12/13/g...

Boho redux via @twistedspoon.bsky.social 🥄📖