Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop Nominated for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop, published by Portobello Books, was named yesterday as one of 142 titles in the running for the 2015 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award with a prize of €100,000 [media release here]. If the winning book is a translation, €75,000 is awarded to the author and €25,000 to the translator.

The Devil’s Workshop, one of 49 translated works named to the longlist, was nominated by the Karviná Regional Library and the Třinec Municipal Library of the Czech Republic.

Books are nominated for the award by invited public libraries in cities throughout the world, on the basis of “high literary merit” as determined by the nominating library.

The shortlist will be announced April 15, 2015, and the winner will be declared by the Lord Mayor of Dublin on June 17.

Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop Named to BTBA 2014 Longlist

Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop, published by Portobello Books, was named yesterday as one of twenty-five titles on the Best Translated Book Award Fiction Longlist. The news was also reported in the Los Angeles Times.

The BTBA is presented each year with great fanfare by Three Percent, the online magazine of Open Letter Books, a nonprofit publisher of international literature at the University of Rochester. Prize money for the award comes from Amazon.

Last fall, Daniel Medin, one of nine judges for the 2014 BTBA for Fiction, described The Devil’s Workshop as one of “three titles [he] delighted in” while reading books for the prize, writing:

“. . . in the novel’s second part, the humor grows corrosive. When Czech authorities finally shut down Lebo’s commune, the narrator flees to Belarus where he has been recruited as an expert on ‘revitalization of burial sites’. The remainder of The Devil’s Workshop comprises a surreal descent into that country’s lethal past. Topol’s narrative here is defiantly unrealistic, and many developments are intentionally improbable. But their essence remains authentic. In fact, it is these phantasmagoric passages that allow Topol to pilot the reader through treacherous historical terrain without resorting to customary pieties.”

Over the next few weeks, each of the books will be highlighted on the Three Percent blog, and the finalists will be announced on April 15.

Literalab Names Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop Best Book of 2013

Michael Stein of Literalab, a blog highlighting Central and East European writing, yesterday singled out Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop (Portobello Books) as his “favorite book of 2013,” topping a list of nine in his annual Best Books post.

Stein writes:

Like my favorite book of the year before, my favorite book of 2013 delves into the ultimate horrors that man inflicts on his fellow man, but does so with a surplus of imagination, suspense and humor. Whereas Selvedin Avdić’s Seven Terrors [trans. Coral Petkovich] dealt with the war in Bosnia, Topol focuses on the genocide that took place in what is now the Czech Republic, and more extremely and lesser known to the world, in Khatyn in Belarus. More than that, he shows how the dark and still often obscure chapters of history in the former Eastern Bloc have been used and distorted by westerners for their own more narrowly personal ends. In expounding very complex and provocative ideas Topol has written a novel that has a uniquely surreal effect.

The Devil’s Workshop Wins 2013 Typographical Translation Award

This morning the website Typographical Era announced that the winner of the 2013 Typographical Translation Award is Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop, translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker and published by Portobello Books.

We are extremely excited and grateful, and extend thanks to everyone who voted for the book. Of course we also hope you will pick up a copy of The Devil’s Workshop and read it!

Here are the results of the voting, from both the final and preliminary rounds.

Thank you, too, to Typographical Era for holding the poll and helping to raise the profile of literature in translation. As they wrote, all of the books that were nominated are impressive works, so whichever you read, you can’t go wrong.

Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop Advances to Finals at Typographical Era

Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop has advanced from the initial round of 20 to the final field of 8 in the running for the 2013 Typographical Translation Award. Vote for it here.

Voting is open until December 19, and the winner will be announced December 20. This is the first year Typographical Era has granted the award.

Vote for Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop now!

Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop Nominated for Typographical Translation Award

Earlier this month, Typographical Era, a website devoted to “honest reviews and interesting literary news,” announced the creation of the “first ever Typographical Translation Award,” nominating 20 titles that appeared in English translation in the United States for the first time in 2013.

We are pleased to report that Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop is one of the 20, and the award will be decided by popular vote, so if you liked the novel, please be sure to visit Typographical Era and give us your vote!

Polls close the evening of November 28, with the top eight titles moving on to the final round. The winner will be announced December 19. 

Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop Contender for Best Translated Book Award

Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop, published by Portobello Books, is in the running for the Best Translated Book Award, presented each year by Three Percent, the online magazine of Open Letter Books, a nonprofit publisher of international literature at the University of Rochester.

Daniel Medin, one of nine judges for the 2014 BTBA for Fiction, posted contenders for his shortlist yesterday on the Three Percent blog, naming The Devil’s Workshop as one of “three titles [he] delighted in.” (The other two were Ottilie Mulzet’s translation of László Krasznahorkai’s Seiobo There Below and Ina Rilke’s translation of Hella Haasse’s The Black Lake.)

Medin wrote in his post:

“. . . in the novel’s second part, the humor grows corrosive. When Czech authorities finally shut down Lebo’s commune, the narrator flees to Belarus where he has been recruited as an expert on ‘revitalization of burial sites’. The remainder of The Devil’s Workshop comprises a surreal descent into that country’s lethal past. Topol’s narrative here is defiantly unrealistic, and many developments are intentionally improbable. But their essence remains authentic. In fact, it is these phantasmagoric passages that allow Topol to pilot the reader through treacherous historical terrain without resorting to customary pieties.”

Interview: Czech Author Jáchym Topol Talks With Translator Alex Zucker

On journalism, paying the bills, genocide, the Holocaust, Belarus, and growing up under communism — not in that order

Thanks to Daniel Medin, of the Center for Writers and Translators, and to Scott Esposito, editor of the Quarterly Conversation, Jáchym and I were given plenty of space to explore some of the longer-running themes in his writing.

The Jáchym Topol Interview

Jáchym Topol, Tel Aviv, February 2013
Photo: Pierre Pe'er Friedmann

Today Marks U.S. Release of Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop

As of today, Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop (Portobello Books), winner of the 2013 English PEN Award for Writing in Translation, is available in the United States. Order a copy from your local bookstore now, via IndieBound.

Jáchym Topol, 2007. Photo: Karel Cudlín.

Here are the most important reviews of the book so far, since its release June 6 in the UK:

• “The Irresistible Heart of Darkness: Jáchym Topol and the Devil to Pay,” The Quarterly Conversation, by Madeleine La Rue. A review of all of Topol’s novels published in English so far: The Devil’s Workshop (2013), Gargling With Tar (2010), and City Sister Silver (2000). (His novella A Trip to the Train Station is also available in English, in a 2011 reissue.) Favorite quote: “[Topol’s] restlessness lends speed and urgency to the surface of his writing. His texts are a series of flashes before a vague storm; his characters spend their lives reeling from their thrownness in the world.”
• “‘Horrible, repelling, unusual, and very very good’ – The Devil’s Workshop by Jáchym Topol,” Bookmunch, by Lucy Chatburn. Favorite quote: It’s in the title.
• “The Devil’s Workshop by Jáchym Topol – review,” The Guardian, by Jane Housham. Favorite quote: “. . . the humour turns so treacly black it almost chokes you.”

We’re eager to read what U.S. reviewers have to say.

"I was working 20 years on this book" — Jáchym Topol with Rosie Goldsmith about The Devil's Workshop [video]

Czech writer Jáchym Topol took the stage at the British Library last month for a chat with BBC presenter Rosie Goldsmith about his new novel, The Devil's Workshop.

The event, held as part of European Literature Night 2013, was recorded on video. Below is a transcript of the conversation.

Rosie Goldsmith: We had eight Czech entries this year. It was very, very hard to choose. But The Devil's Workshop, hot off the press this month from Portobello Books and winner of the 2013 English PEN Award for outstanding writing in translation, is unlike anything you'll ever read, ever. And it will stay with you for a very long time to come. And it's proof for me that some of the most interesting writing, and unusual writing, thought-provoking writing, today comes from the former East. It's a privilege to welcome Jáchym Topol, one of the great dissident writers before the Velvet Revolution and a leading prose writer and poet in the Czech Republic today. Jáchym.
     Sit, sit, sit. Nice to see you. Now, when I call you, don't worry, I'll go very slowly.

Jáchym Topol: You know my English is poor.

Goldsmith: I'll be very slow, I promise. OK? And if you want me to repeat something, maybe Teresa can even translate me. Let's just see how we go, OK? Jáchym, I can look into your eyes, OK? We'll try and make it work.

Topol: Yes.

Goldsmith: Now, look, when I call you a samizdat poet or a writer, do you feel proud of that? Is that all the past, all gone, finished?

Topol: When you are a samizdat poet, you know, I remember everything, so I don't think I'm changed. You know, when you write in the time of samizdat — it's the era of communism and you are part of this so-called underground, it's only situation. It's only political situation. But I'm sure that my writing is the same.

Goldsmith: So you don't write differently from underground to overground?

Topol: Absolutely.

Goldsmith: No?

Topol: Especially here in British Library, or where I am, because yesterday I was in Amsterdam. Before I was in Dublin, in the Irish Library, so I think it's overground.

Goldsmith: Well, probably here in the British Library they've got books of yours from before as well. So that's interesting for you to find out. We can ask Janet.

Topol: Because I don't write science fiction, I don't write from future. I think every writer writes from the memory. Graham Greene once told that the memory is one of the most important things for a writer.

Goldsmith: Tell us what you do write. What do you write today? You write novels, poetry, films, theater . . .

Topol: Well, the biggest thing for me is to write novel. It's, I don't know, it's challenge, it's something. It's not easy. You know, now, because I have no time, I am working and so on, I have children, my parents are old, bla bla. So I start to write short stories. [audience laughs] But it's a problem. Because you know I couldn't believe in short story. Because after Bunin, Ivan Bunin. After Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Isaac Babel. You know, all these giants. Or Isaac Bashevis Singer. So short story it's — you should write novel, long book, and you should . . . you think about suicide. You are alone, depressed, drunk sometimes — not now. And it's part of, it's part of your life.
     Sorry. Maybe I'm too pathetic.

Goldsmith: No, it's all right. You're fantastic.

Topol: Because I have small problem to understand your English, you know? When I have reading in Hungaria or Amsterdam, it's OK. But here, I am talking too much, you know. Don't give you time for more complicated questions.

Goldsmith: You don't need questions from me. I can guarantee you.

Topol: We are serious people, you know.

Goldsmith: We can laugh. They're laughing [points to audience]. Now look [holds up book], this is a short novel. Is that easier?

Topol: Yes. My first novel, Sister — it was published in United States — it has 600 pages. And it's, I don't know, 12 years ago. So I feel like this animal. Help me: Lives in the river and eating wood: bobr.

Goldsmith: Beaver!

Topol: Yes! Exactly! So, and I am making from the whole trees, I am making only one [gestures indicating notch]. Yes. So first book, maybe five, six hundred pages. The last one — do you understand my English?

Goldsmith: Yes, absolutely. Don't worry about it.

Topol: Don't be polite. Look, I have no education, so . . . I am trying to do my best. I feel . . .

Goldsmith: Jáchym, you're being brilliant.

Topol: I feel like here in England, I feel like Jimmy Hawkins in the pirate ship.

Goldsmith: Who's Jimmy Hawkins?

Topol: I'm talking about English, British literature. Robert Louis Stevenson, the Island of Treasures. So I feel like this small boy Jimmy Hawkins.

Goldsmith: Let's talk, though, about this amazing book. This book — you've got to believe me — is an amazing book.

Topol: Do you like my book?

Goldsmith: We loved it.

Topol: It's good to be here.

Goldsmith: We really loved it. I mean, where are my judges? Didn't we just love this book? Make the man feel better about it! It's an amazing book. Let's talk about this book, OK?

Topol: It's like LSD.

Goldsmith: Let's give you some more literary LSD. I'm going to take you out of your misery, briefly, to explain what this book is about. I'll give a short description of the book, OK? Then we'll talk a little bit about it.

Topol: Please.

Goldsmith: Just to give you a breathing space here.

Topol: It's very — the book is comedy, but it's very sad.

Goldsmith: It is very sad, but it's very funny too. And who could have thought it could be so funny. It is about, it's about the concentration camps. This is a book in two locations and two parts. It's set partly in the Czech Republic, partly in Belarus. You could not imagine two grimmer locations, because the — I'm not saying the Czech Republic is grim, but Theresienstadt, Terezín, which is where half the book takes place, is, as we all know, one of the great and awful monuments, the ghetto Terezín. And then it takes place partly in Belarus, in Minsk, as well, where, as we also know, but we don't know enough about, how many thousands of people were killed there. And this book is about a young man who grows up in Terezín, Theresienstadt, and in the modern times he gathers together groups of young people, from all over the world, who come to this place to search for information about their grandparents who died in the ghetto. He sets up a commune as an alternative place of remembrance. And they have Kafka T-shirts, they produce "ghetto pizza." Things like this are where it's very funny. They have therapy sessions for all these young people. And this new project is regarded as very unwelcome by the official Theresienstadt tourist memorial people. And the camp is then marked for demolition and one of the survivors then begins this campaign to save it. And then there's a crackdown, and the authorities bulldoze it, the narrator flees to Minsk, and with the aid of two more young people, he — all he takes with him is the key to a safe deposit box and a USB stick storing the contact data of rich Holocaust survivors. And these are meant to be funders of this new project in Minsk. I mean, it's an extraordinary topic. What on earth made you choose this bold, provocative, difficult topic? For in a way a comic novel.

Topol: I was thinking that I was working about twenty years on this book.

Goldsmith: Twenty years?

Topol: Yes, and especially from the year 1989, you know, the time of East European revolutions, I spent never-ending time in Ukraine, in Poland, in Slovakia, in Byelorussia, in Romania — in East Europe, or so-called East Europe. And everywhere I had meetings with these demons, and it became obsession, sort of obsession, and you know, I think it's typical for every writer. Your theme, your topic, must become obsession. And I'm waiting for books ten years, five years, and when it's still here [points to his head] I'm trying to find time to write it down. So this book is about ghosts, or demons, of course. And when you were talking about Theresienstadt you mentioned these young people. It was the biggest shock for me. At the beginning I was thinking, Oh my god, I am still thinking about war and maybe I'm sick and so on. Then I was traveling to Theresienstadt, I was making TV reportage and so on, and I saw there, there were some people, mostly young people, these . . . these . . . freaks, you know. And I find they are the third or fourth generation of Holocaust. Then I was looking at the books, and it really exists, this sort of sickness. So it was the beginning. And I was really in Byelorussia looking for this, well, mmm . . . it's not long, you know.

Goldsmith: Well, there's a lot in it.

Topol: There are so many people here.

Goldsmith: Don't look . . . it's just you and me, just you and me. In the end, are you criticizing the, if you like, the Holocaust industry, the tourist —

Topol: Well, well —

Goldsmith: What are you finally saying about . . .

Topol: You know, I am trying to make some jokes, and I write about this "industry" with black humor. But I am not criticizing. I don't know what to think about [it]. Maybe this is the best way, you know?

Goldsmith: Do you think we should still go to visit these places? I mean, we should still go to these places.

Topol: I mean, I'm from Prague. And in Prague one of the icons, or mascot, or fetish of Prague is Franz Kafka. Franz Kafka T-shirt. And these people in Theresienstadt, they have this idea to make T-shirt with Theresienstadt, just to make another kitsch from it. And I was shocked. And oh my God, and then I was thinking, Why not? Maybe . . . you know . . . it's not easy. If you have for example ghetto pizza in Krakow, you know?

Goldsmith: It's brilliant, you know? It's black and it's bleak and it's —

Topol: The book is full of it, but I am not really criticizing. I don't know what to do with it.

Goldsmith: But it's an absolutely wonderful book, and it makes you laugh, but my God, does it make you cry as well. It really does. Now we're going to hear a reading of this book. We have somebody to read an extract for us. Sarah Sanders is going to come and read for us. It's a reading from The Devil's Workshop, and it's by Jáchym Topol. It's translated by Alex Zucker, and it's published by wonderful Portobello Books. It's been nominated by the Czech Center. Sarah.
     You going to read a little bit in Czech?

Topol: If you . . . short part. Just to show you the beautiful language of Czech people.

[Topol reads in Czech, pages 108–09 from Chladnou zemí]

[Sanders reads in English, pages 123–26 from The Devil's Workshop]

Genocide, History, Fame: Jáchym Topol Has a Lot on His Mind

"Set in the Terezín ghetto and in Belarus, [The Devil's Workshop] continues Topol’s practice of re-examining history through the surrealist-tinted lens of his imagination. The subject of [his latest novel] is Topol’s darkest yet: the Belarusian genocide, propagated by the Nazis as part of Generalplan Ost, the ethnic cleansing of Eastern Europe which led to the death of approximately 4 million men, women and children, about half the population of Belarus. 'Belarus shocked me. I went there because one of my books was published there, and I learned what many people still do not realize: that the country is an unhappy place where the machinery of mass murder was tested,' he said."

—"Author is hemmed in by history," The Prague Post, Oct. 13, 2010

Cover of Chladnou zemí (2009), now
available in English as The Devil's Workshop.

Topol Takes Devil’s Workshop to UK in Upcoming Appearances

Literature fans in the UK will have two chances to see and hear award-winning Czech author Jáchym Topol in the coming days.

Jáchym Topol, author of The Devil’s Workshop

First, this coming Wednesday, May 15, he'll be at the British Library Conference Centre, in London, along with seven other authors, for European Literature Night 2013, hosted by BBC journalist Rosie Goldsmith  (book tickets here).

Next, on Saturday, May 25, Topol will appear at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, speaking to Jo Glanville of Index on Censorship, together with Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng (book tickets here).

Visit the Portobello Books website to purchase your copy of Topol's novel, and follow this blog for news and reviews about The Devil's Workshop, out June 18 in the UK and August 1 in the U.S.

Introducing The Devil's Workshop: a novel by Jáchym Topol, translated from the Czech by Alex Zucker

For starters: the official page at Portobello Books, with links to purchase the novel from Amazon or Waterstone's. UK pub date is June 6, 2013. Ingram will distribute the book in the States beginning August 1. The eye-catching cover was designed by Bobby Evans of Telegramme Studio.