Interview with French Philosopher Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray is widely acknowledged to be one of France’s most prominent thinkers. A self described ‘Anarchist Hedonist’ he is an original and important...
The Art and Science of Translating Babel
In 1929, the great American literary critic Lionel Trilling read a book “about Soviet regiments of horse operating in Poland” that disturbed him, charged,...
Ukrainian Literature’s Boy Wonder Goes West
A profile of Ukraine’s most ambitious young writer.
On the surface, Andriy Lyubka is hardly an intimidating presence. With his boyish face and long, sandy hair,...
The Escape
Translated from the Ukrainian by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler. “The Escape” was published in Andriy Lyubka’s 2016 book of short fiction “A...
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...
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...
Mickiewicz in Odessa by Artur Grabowski
Mickiewicz had been sentenced by trial a few months earlier, instigated by the emperor against a group of Wilno university students for an...
On “Jews And Ukrainians: A Millennium Of Co-Existence”
The newly published volume “Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence”, authored by the historians Paul Robert Magocsi and Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern is a prodigious coffee...
Justice in Quotes
First I had dealings with Benya Krik, then with Lyubka Shneyveys. Do these words mean anything to you? Do they leave a taste in...
Taking Isaac Babel to Canada
Hip Hop innovator ‘Socalled’ reflects on adapting Babel’s Odessa Tales for Canadian audiences – in Yiddish!
I had first discovered Babel’s writing by accident rummaging...