Literature

Literature

Babel: the Black Sea Bard

The Odessa Review pays tribute to Odessa’s most influential and inspirational literary figure Isaac Babel’s short story collections, ‘The Odessa Tales’ and ‘Red Cavalry’ remain...

Andrea Chalupa Answers Four Questions About Orwell

1.Let us begin with Orwell. There is a resurgence now of interest in the work of Orwell with all of the issues surrounding fake...

Ukrainian Writer Yurii Andrukhovych On Literary Translation And Beat Poetry

Yurii Andrukhovych is perhaps the most renowned prose writer, poet, essayist, and translator in contemporary Ukrainian literature. He was born in the city of...
black sea

An Excerpt from "By The Black Sea" by Mikhail Kapchinsky

This is an excerpt from the 1952 memoirs of the Odessa Film Studio’s legendary first director Mikhail Kapchinsky. The excerpt provides a remarkable historical...

My Path To Bruno Schulz, The Messiah From Drohobych

Bruno Schulz, the great Jewish, Polish and Ukrainian Modernist writer, has become a cult favorite in the decades after he was murdered by a...

My Experiences Of The 3rd International Odessa Literary Festival

On September 28 and October 1, For the third year in a row, Odessa hosted numerous talented and well-known writers, poets and litterateurs who had...

Babel’s Extended Ode to Odessa

'Odessa' by Isaac Babel Translated by Val Vinokur Photo by Igor Sytnik Odessa is a nasty town. Everybody knows this. Instead of saying “what’s the difference,” over...

Mark Twain in Odessa

The Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrim's Progress is the title of the acerbically funny travelogue penned by Mark Twain during his 1867 trip through...

Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Ode to Charms of Odessa

Globally acclaimed historian and author Simon Sebag Montefiore is convinced that Odessa is unlike any other city. About the author: Simon Sebag Montefiore is a...

Eduard Bagritsky’s “Smugglers”

This rendition of a classic modernist poem was translated by Boris Dralyuk, the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. Read our long...