Kinets Kintsem: "The Artist's Voice"

Kinets Kintsem is a literary miscellany about contemporary art. It appears irregularly. (“Kinets kintsem” means “eventually”, “in the long run” in Ukrainian, “kinets” being “an end”.) While Lviv hosts its 2^nd Contemporary Art Week (28 August-6 September) a new issue of Kinets Kintsem was presented. It is called “The Artist's Voice” and features interviews with mostly Ukrainian artists and gallerists (including also a number of artists and gallerists from other countries) as well as texts about Lviv Contemporary Art Weeks in 2008 and 2009 and a text about Fort.missia International Arts Festival.

The artists and gallerists in “The Artist's Voice” include: Vasyl Bazhay, Mykola Bilous, Budda, Hlib Vysheslavskyy, Wojciech Giliewicz, Pavlo Hudimov, Volodymyr Hulich, Ihor Husyev & Serhiy Zarva, Ekaterina Dyogot, Yevhen Karas, vlodkaufman, Pavlo Kovach, Volodymyr Kostyrko, Rostyslav Koterlin, Viktor Lavnyy, Pavlo Makov, Mykola Matsenko, Viktor Miziano, Jerzy Onuch, Ihor Pereklita, Les Podervyanskyy, Yevhen Ravskyy, Vlada Ralko, Oleksandr Roytburd, Arsen Savadov, Andriy Sahaydakovskyy, Viktor Sydorenko, “Siniye nosy”, Yuri Solomko, Oleh Tistol, Vasyl Tsaholov, Illya Chichkan, Oleksandr Furdiyaka, Oleksandr Shchelushchenko, and Yaroslav Yanovskyy.

The issue’s editor-in-chief is Rostyslav Koterlin, the issue’s editor is Anatoliy Zvizhynskyy, and volunteers are Budda and Bohdana Pinchevska. Izdryk is the issue’s literary editor. Email Kinets Kintsem: end@bitep.com.

Antanas A. Jonynas at Lviv Book Fair (10-13 September)

One of my favorite poets, Antanas A. Jonynas from Lithuania, will visit this year's Lviv Book Fair (10-13 September). Here's one of his poems translated by Vit Bakaitis:

THE LAST POEM

Man I don't know whether this

world that can demolish worlds

will crumble away in flames

you cannot even make an ant

and what's it really worth

knowing substantial doubt:

if it's fear that makes me doubt

I only hold my fear in doubt

and though madness prevails

I don't go berserk I just write

human life alone

has value there's no

                             thing I ask for

"120 Pages of Sodom": A Contemporary World Queer Literature Anthology (2009)

120 Pages of Sodom is the first contemporary world queer literature anthology published in Ukraine (and, for that matter, the first one in what is called the CIS). The book includes works by 30 authors from 15 countries. The publisher is the trustworthy Krytyka (Kyїv), and the initiators of the project are three young Ukrainian poets: Albina Pozdnyakova, Iryna Shuvalova, and Oles Barlih. A lot of well-known Ukrainian authors contributed to the volume: Andriy Bodnar, Serhiy Zhadan, Ostap Slyvynskyy, Dmytro Lazutkin, strongowski, etc. 120 Pages of Sodom will be presented at this year’s Lviv Book Fair (10-13 September).

Contemporary Ukrainian Literature: A Review in English (2009)

90 authors & more than 280 texts: such is the scope of contemporary Ukrainian literature today. The OpenUkraine Foundation is publishing the very first review in English of contemporary Ukrainian literature. The review will be presented at this year’s Lviv Book Fair (10-13 September). You can download the review here. Simultaneously, a literary miscellany in English featuring works by 5 young Ukrainian authors is published (thanks to, among others, the British Council in Ukraine): Lyubko Deresh, Irena Karpa, Kateryna Khinkulova, Svitlana Pyrkalo, and Ostap Slyvynskyy.

"Poltava" in Ukrainian

Peter Englund's Poltava (1988) is now available in Ukrainian. The translators are Olha Senyuk and Oleksandr Butsenko.

Самюель Бекет і Україна

Ні, Бекет ніколи не бував в Україні; і навряд чи знав, що щось таке існує. З усього матеріалу, що можна знайти про письменника, є, здається, тільки 2 факти, що кружними шляхами єднають його з Україною:

1) Ален Боске, письменник, кілька віршів якого Бекет переклав англійською (з французької), народився в Одесі.

2) Ґюнтер Айх, письменник, пам'яті якого Бекет написав короткий прозовий твір As the Story Was Told (1973), був у Львові як солдат Вермахту під час Другої світової війни (і навіть написав про Lemberg вірша).

Lili Marleen by Serhiy Zhadan

Serhiy Zhadan’s new book Lili Marleen includes his selected poems and new and previously unpublished poetic texts and several essays. The book features also pictures by Ihor Neshcheret. (I haven’t got the book yet, but I will.)

“What is reading but silent conversation?”

Silent Conversation is a new literature platform game from Gregory Weir. The levels in this game are literally literature, made of words taken from poems and stories in the public domain. The game opens with a quotation from Walter Savage Landor: “What is reading but silent conversation?” In the game you operate a lonely walking letter “I”. Your goal is to touch as many words in the text as you can, highlighting them one at a time. While “There is an old pond…” by Matsuo Bashou takes some seconds to pass—it being a haiku—The Nameless City (Part 1) by H. P. Lovecraft, for instance, craves a good deal of patience on your part. :-) Why not try a poem by William Carlos Williams or The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot? Even if you've already read these poems to death, you've never read them like this. Silent Conversation invites you to read attentively, savoring every word.

*

(In the text I use some words from a review of the game @ JayIsGames.Com. Visit Jay is Games!)

Gao Xingjian: "Fiction is the actualization of language and not the imitation of reality in writing"

In her “Translator’s Note” in Gao Xingjian’s Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather (a beautiful title) Mabel Lee provides some interesting insights into the author’s art of fiction [italics mine]:

“While still in Beijing Gao wrote a brief postscript for his seventeen-story collection [...] in which he warns readers that his fiction does not set out to tell a story. There is no plot, as found in most fiction, and anything of interest to be found in it is inherent in the language itself. More explicit is his proposal that the linguistic art of fiction is “the actualization of language and not the imitation of reality in writing,” and that its power to fascinate lies in the fact that, even while employing language, it is able to evoke authentic feelings in the reader.”

Lviv Book Fair 2009: 10-13 September

Lots of men & women "of letters" will fill the streets of Lviv in a month. Lviv Book Fair (the biggest one in Ukraine, & number 16 this year) will be the talk of the town. New books and new authors, prose and poetry, the unique atmosphere. These four days in September provide literary inspiration for the next whole year.

The Complete Works of Bohdan Ihor Antonych

Bohdan Ihor Antonych was one of the greatest Ukrainian poets of the 20th century. 2009 marks his centenary year. The Complete Works of Bohdan Ihor Antonych is published by Litopys Publishers (Lviv). The book will be presented at Lviv Book Fair (10-13 September).

woolym ii: "біографія | раздва" Дáвіда Вікґрєна (2009)

У другому «волюмі» свого проекту woolym Дáвід Вікґрєн поезію «знаходить» — «серед хвиль» ефірів телебачення та радіо. «Чому? Тому!» «Воно витало в повітрі.»

Диск із вкладишем називається «біографія | раздва» і містить два треки: «раз» (2:45) і «два» (5:40). Це «hittpåesi» («найдена поезія»), «Tecken & teknik» («Знаки & техніка») — «Dav:d»’a «V:kgren»’a.

«раз» — електронна композиція, де текст узято з документального фільму Snickeriet («Столярка», 1993); Spångens snickeri — місце праці більш або менш психічно хворих людей у Норрчепінґу. «Оригінал» тексту, який наговорює один із працівників «Столярки» — тут. А цілий фільм можна переглянути тут.

«два» — електронна композиція, де текст узято з радіопрограми Шведського радіо «За бунтами». Це дещо препарований монолог поліцейського, який намагається дати своє бачення причин бунтів підлітків-емігрантів, що відбувались у передмісті Мальме — Rosengård'і.

«Волюм» «біографія | раздва» вийшов украй ангажованим у суспільні проблеми сучасної Швеції. А проте це таки поезія — «найдена».

*

woolym • Inägogatan 33D • 418 74 Göteborg • woolym@rocketmail.com

woolym

Проект Дáвіда Вікґрєна woolym тепер має свій сайт: woolym.org.

(Про 2 "волюм" проекту - вже незабаром.)