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.

Topol on Tolstoy at 2paragraphs

Jáchym Topol, author of The Devil’s Workshop, is featured this week in the 2paragraphs International Writers Interview.

Topol, along with 20 other celebrated writers from around the world — including Ben Okri, Kamila Shamsie, Eduardo Galeano, and Valeria Luiselli — responds to the following:

Tolstoy wrote: “I know that my unity with all people cannot be destroyed by national boundaries.” Is a similar belief essential in your work? Or are cultural and national distinctions a critical component of your voice? Who do you write for?

Read Topol’s answer here: http://2paragraphs.com/celebs/jachym-topol/.

Look for Topol’s new novel, Nightwork, out in May from Portobello Books, translated by Marek Tomin.

And don’t forget to vote for The Devil’s Workshop in the finals for the Typographical Translation Award! (You can vote till this Thursday, December 19. The winner will be announced on Friday.)

World Literature Today Names Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop “Notable” for 2013

World Literature Today yesterday named Alex Zucker’s translation of Jáchym Topol’s The Devil’s Workshop (Portobello Books) to its second annual list of “the year’s most exciting translations,” 75 Notable Translations 2013.

WLT, founded as Books Abroad in 1927, is published out of the University of Oklahoma, in Norman, OK.

If you’re reading this we hope you’ll vote for The Devil’s Workshop in the finals for the Typographical Translation Award. Voting is open till Dec. 19. The winner will be announced Dec. 20.

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 in New York for New Lit From Europe Fest Next Week

New Yorkers are in for a treat next week, as charismatic Czech author Jáchym Topol comes to town for the New Literature from Europe festival, November 14–16 (Thursday to Saturday).

NOTE: Topol himself is confirmed only for the Nov. 15 and 16 events. 

The Times Literary Supplement called Topol’s latest book — The Devil’s Workshop, translated by Alex Zucker and published by Portobello Books — “a miracle of compression, its scope greater than ought to be possible for a book of its length.”

The TLS added: “It should help to cement Jáchym Topol’s reputation as one of the most original and compelling European voices at work today.”

The Guardian described the book’s humor as “so treacly black it almost chokes you.”

You can read an excerpt of The Devil’s Workshop, Topol’s fourth book in English so far, on Topol’s page at the NLE website.

Joining Topol for the New Literature from Europe festival, now in its 10th year, will be eight other authors — from Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, and Spain — including Ilija Trojanow, the Bulgarian-German author recently barred from entering the United States for reasons he believes were connected with his criticism of U.S. surveillance programs.

The festival consists of three events: Thursday evening at the Center for Fiction in Manhattan, Friday evening at Melville House in Brooklyn, and Saturday afternoon at the New York Public Library main branch in Manhattan.

All events are free and open to the public.

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.”

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.

Swastika, or Hammer and Sickle? The Story Behind the Cover of The Devil's Workshop

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Czech author Jáchym Topol's latest novel, The Devil's Workshop, translated by Alex Zucker and published by Portobello Books, is officially released today in the UK.*

Appropriately, the book's amazing cover (designed by Bobby Evans at Telegramme Studio) was featured yesterday by the Casual Optimist (Dan Wagstaff).

Cover of The Devil's Workshop
Bobby Evans/Telegramme Studio

He picked it up from Jemima at Jackie Magpie, who had this to say about it:

High five, Portobello – a double whammy on this week’s Book by its Cover! Designed by Bobby Evans of Telegramme Studios, this cover is quite dark and masculine; miles away from the flowing, whimsical cover of The Emperor of Paris. I love the bold and busy geometric design and the way you have to work to read the title (nosy people on the Tube will probably think you’re reading ‘Evil Work Shoe’). It’s clever and eye-catching – a winner in my book!

There's a story about the design, though, that I've held off on sharing till now: I got my first look at the cover in January 2012, while I was still working on the translation. Originally, there was no hammer-and-sickle, and the square just above the walking man in the lower right-hand corner contained a swastika:

Original cover of The Devil's Workshop
Bobby Evans/Telegramme Studio

As I wrote Philip Gwyn Jones, the director and publisher of Portobello Books:

The cover looks great! My only concern is that, crime-wise, the novel is as much about the Soviets as it is about the Nazis, so it seems unfair that there's a swastika but no hammer-and-sickle. This is tremendously important, because we in "the West" still have a much stronger moral stand against the crimes of Nazism than the crimes of Soviet communism, and as Timothy Snyder's book Bloodlands made devastatingly clear (my fantasy, actually, is to have Tim do a foreword for Jáchym's novel), in this part of Europe, for Jews and non-Jews alike, the killing came hard and heavy from both sides, sometimes in alternation and sometimes all at once. This is something people in Czechoslovakia, people probably in most of the former Soviet bloc, have known all along, but it's only just beginning to sink in for us. That's my two cents. 

In the end, the swastika had to be replaced for legal reasons, since many countries in Europe wouldn't have allowed the book to be displayed in shops if it had a swastika on the cover. In any case, the SS runes are an excellent substitute.

Now I'm just looking forward to reading reviews of what's inside the book.

* I'll be honest and say it didn't occur to me till today that the date — 6/6/13 — might be interpreted as having some connection to the novel's title or subject matter. But it doesn't; it just worked out that way.

"A Little Honey," by Jáchym Topol, featured on PEN Atlas

In advance of Czech author Jáchym Topol's appearance at European Literature Night tomorrow in London, English PEN posted his short story "A Little Honey" on PEN Atlas last week. The story was translated by Alex Zucker.

Czech author Jáchym Topol

PEN Atlas described the story as "a moving piece of writing . . . about a man and his ailing mother."

Topol's visit to London comes in advance of the publication of The Devil's Workshop, his latest novel in English translation, out from Portobello Books in June.

Appearing along with Topol at the British Library Conference Centre tomorrow night will be authors Norbert Gstrein of Austria, Miha Mazzini of Slovenia, Erwin Mortier of Belgium, Jordi Puntí of Spain, Ece Temelkuran of Turkey, Birgit Vanderbeke of Germany, and Frank Westerman of the Netherlands.

Rosie Goldsmith of the BBC will chair the event, which as of this writing was sold out.

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.

Devil’s Workshop wins English PEN Award

On November 26, 2012, English PEN named The Devil's Workshop by Jáchym Topol as a recipient of the 2013 English PEN Award for Writing in Translation.

The press release said the award was given to recognize "translated works of fiction, non-fiction or poetry which contribute to inter-cultural understanding and promote freedom of expression."

As the publisher of Topol's novel, the London-based Portobello Books will receive support from English PEN to help promote The Devil's Workshop in the UK.

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.