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57 books match the query 'Europe (General)' and 5 start with b

cover of Bait

Bait

David Albahari

Northwestern University Press, 2001

In self-exile in Canada after the collapse of Yugoslavia and his mother's death, the narrator of Bait is listening to a series of tapes he recorded of his mother years before. As her story is told, he reflects on her life and their relationship, attempting to come to terms with his Jewishness and his own new life in a foreign culture.
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cover of Balkan Beauty, Balkan Blood: Modern Albanian Short Stories

Balkan Beauty, Balkan Blood

Modern Albanian Short Stories

Robert Elsie

Northwestern University Press, 2006

Although Albanian literature dates back to the 1500s, creative prose in that nation is very much a twentieth-century phenomenon; and much as the early literature in Albanian was interrupted by Ottoman rule—and oppression—its later emergence was stymied and stunted by Stalinist politics and propaganda. What this volume documents is, then, a literature at once venerable and nascent, a tradition in the making, however deep its roots. In these stories representing the last three decades of Albanian writing—especially the burst of creativity in the newfound freedom of the 1990s—readers will encounter work that reflects the literary paradox of Eastern Europe in the late twentieth century: the startling originality of the new uneasily coupled with the strains of history; the sophistication and self-consciousness of late (or post-) modernity married to the simplicity of a literature first finding its voice; a refusal of political influence and pressure expressed through frankly political subject matter.

Albania's more established writers (including Dritëro Agolli, Ismail Kadare, Teodor Laço, and Eqrem Basha) appear here alongside newer talents (such as Ylljet Aliçka, Mimoza Ahmeti, Elivra Dones, Lindita Arapi, and Kim Mehmeti), providing English-speaking readers with an elucidating and entertaining overview of the recent history, and the future, of the nation's literature.
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cover of Boat Number Five

Boat Number Five

Monika Kompaníková

Seagull Books, 2021

A fierce, unapologetic eye captures the universal quest for connection in post-communist Eastern Europe.

Emotionally neglected by her immature, promiscuous mother and forced to care for her cantankerous dying grandmother, twelve-year-old Jarka is left to fend for herself in the social vacuum of a post-communist concrete jungle in Bratislava. She spends her days roaming the streets and daydreaming in the only place she feels truly safe: a small garden inherited from her grandfather. One day, stopping at a suburban railway station, she impulsively abducts twin babies.

Teetering on the edge of disaster, Jarka struggles to care for the children, and in the process, begins to discover herself. Boat Number Five—which was adapted into an award-winning Slovak film—brilliantly captures the ache and emptiness of a fractured society.

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cover of Border State

Border State

Tonu Onnepalu

Northwestern University Press, 2000

Winner of the 1993 Baltic Assembly Prize

An immediate sensation upon its 1993 publication in Europe, already translated into more than a dozen languages, Border State is a brilliantly realized account of a man in the grip of Western excess, emotionally crippled by a world that is subsuming his own and inhabiting a West in which "all countries have become imaginary deserts of ruins where crowds of nomads roam from one attraction to the other." His tale, in which disillusion and murder become inextricably linked, is a compelling exploration of scarcity, longing, and madness.
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cover of Bride of the Mountains

Bride of the Mountains

František Švantner

Karolinum Press, 2026

A classic work of twentieth-century Slovak literature that blends naturalism and depictions of rural life with the supernatural.

After many years, Libor returns to his native village, where he has been appointed gamekeeper. His childhood sweetheart, Zuna, is waiting for him there. But his homecoming is far from idyllic. He has “tasted city life” and soon becomes an outsider to the villagers. According to them, Zuna has become a local prostitute who sleeps with anyone who pays her. Zuna’s father, an old miller, has gone blind because he made a pact with the devil. The mill where Libor and Zuna used to play as children has fallen into disrepair and ruin. The more Libor gets to know the world that he has returned to, the more confused he becomes. The village is full of superstitions, secrets, and hostility. He meets the charcoal burner Tavo, who lives high in the mountains, and learns from him the mysterious and bloody story of Zuna’s birth. He also learns what matters most to him: Zuna is pure and innocent. Libor starts a relationship with her from scratch. But just when their forgotten love might finally come to fruition, He appears—a vagabond who can transform into a wolf—and Libor discovers that Zuna is meeting with him. Is it a monster that gouges people’s eyes out? The devil, or our immaterial, dark alter ego? Reality, dreams, and fantasy blend in Libor’s mind as his hopes seem crushed beyond redemption.

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