Three String Books

Scherr, Barry

The Old Man and The Counterfeit Coin

Although The Old Man has been performed only rarely and The Counterfeit Coin has not even been translated into English until now, both works are deservingof far more attention than they have received.  Here, Gorky moves beyond the social themes that...

Alexander Rojavin

The Predictability of the Past

A bear self-begets in an ordinary Russian family’s bathroom, Pushkin accidentally survives his duel with d’Anthès, and the ill-fated family of a small boy born in prerevolutionary Russia stumbles through the 20th century all the way...

Yevsey Tseytlin, translated by Alexander Rojavin

Long Conversations in Anticipation of a Joyous Death

Yevsey Tseytlin’s Long Conversations in Anticipation of a Joyous Death  came about as the result of an unusual experiment. The subject of this book is unusual and deceptively simple: two authors, one young, one old and ailing, maintain a...

Magdalena Mullek and Julia Sherwood (eds.)

Into the Spotlight: New Writing from Slovakia

"There are stories that could have taken place anywhere - of love and hate, beauty and ugliness, illness and music - stories distinctly and intriguingly Slovak..."     Into the Spotlight features the best of what Slovak literature has to offer...

Jan Novák; edited by Craig Cravens

So Far, So Good: The Mašín Family and the Greatest Story of the Cold War

This is the true story of three young Czech men whose daring exploits of anti-Communist resistance and 1953 flight to West Berlin set off the largest manhunt in the history of the Eastern Bloc. To this day, whether the Mašín brothers were...

By Valentin Rasputin, Translated by Margaret Winchell

Ivan’s Daughter: Short Stories and a Novella

For more about Ivan's Daughter, read our interview with translator Margaret Winchell.  As E. L. Doctorow noted, “The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.” Understanding present-day...

By Boris Poplavsky, Translated by John Kopper

Apollon Bezobrazov

This is the first title in Slavica's new imprint, Three String Books. Three String Books is an imprint of Slavica Publishers devoted to translations of literary works and belles-lettres from Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and the other...

by Bohumil Hrabal, translated by Timothy West

Murder Ballads and Other Legends

“Some texts, after I’ve written them, have woken me up in the night so that I break out in a sweat and jump out of bed.” With this confession Bohumil Hrabal concludes Murder Ballads and Other Legends, a genre-bending collection of...

Anna Starobinets, translated by Katherine E. Young

Look at Him

Journalist, scriptwriter, and novelist Anna Starobinets-often called "Russia's Stephen King"-is best known for her work in horror and her writing for children. In this groundbreaking memoir, Starobinets chronicles the devastating loss of her unborn son...

Pavol Rankov, translated by Madgalena Mullek

It Happened on the First of September (or Some Other Time)

Winner of the European Union Prize for Literature. "It's where we've ended up. Not because of our own mistakes, because of politics. We weren't able to live our own lives; we had to live the way we were told to." - Maria (excerpt from book) "It...

Talasbek Asemkulov, translated by Shelley Fairweather-Vega

A Life At Noon

“He could not have said exactly what he was hearing. A baby’s sweet babbling? A hesitant declaration of love? He does not know. But the sound moves him as if he might discover in it something eternally important, something unlike he has...

Translated by Henry R. Cooper, Jr.

Kata Nesiba: The Authentic and Illustrated History of a Belgrade Whore and Her Struggles for Her Constitutional Rights, 1830-1851

The nineteenth century in Serbia began with two uprisings against an Ottoman overlordship that had oppressed not only the Serbs, but all of Southeastern Europe for almost four hundred years. Fired by memories of their medieval empire and determined to...