SHORT READS
December 2025
We asked our contributors what they were reading this winter—eager to gather their recommendations into a list of translations et al. from Turkic and/or Slavic languages (loosely defined). Here are the books they wrote us about:
WINTER READING IN
TURKIC + SLAVIC
recommended by
ALEX NIEMI
Alex's poetry and translations from French, Russian, and Spanish have appeared in The Offing, Columbia Journal, Asymptote, and other publications. She is the translator of For the Shrew by Anna Glazova (Zephyr Press, 2022) and The John Cage Experiences by Vincent Tholomé (Autumn Hill Books, 2020). She also is the author of the poetry chapbook Elephant. Her most recent translation—The Endless Week by Laura Vazquez—is now out from Dorothy. Her translation of three poems by Alina Dadaeva appear in Turkoslavia's inaugural issue.
The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky: Unexpurgated Edition
ed. Joan Acolcella, tr. Kyril Fitzlyon
I am currently reading The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky. In these diaries, Nijinsky, the famous Russian ballet dancer, details his thoughts during an extended episode of psychosis. The diaries had been previously published in a different version, heavily edited by his wife, and this edition presents us with his unfiltered experience in a rather jagged translation.
One of the things I find most jarring and interesting about this book is its total refusal of logic. Nijinsky will contradict himself in consecutive sentences, for example, “He went to church because people look for god there, but god is not in the church. God is in the church and everywhere where he is sought, and therefore I will go to church. I do not like church, because in church they speak not of god but of science.” As someone with an armchair interest in psychology, I find this to be a fascinating read.
Excerpt available here.
Voracious
I heartily recommend Voracious by Małgorzata Lebda, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. A beautiful quiet book about rural life, illness, the power of nature, our response and relationship with it. There is so much silence between the pages, yet so much warmth; poetry seeps through almost every line—the gentle unfolding of life.
И леглото ни е зеленина
During a recent visit to Bulgaria, I read И леглото ни е зеленина (also our bed is green)—a sweeping experimental historical fiction set between the lands of the Ottoman Empire and the United States that tells the story of one Ivan Klyandov and his so very different lives: the inward and the outward. The narrative offers a deep insight into human relationships and social changes in Southeast Europe in the early 20th century. My reading experience was a very physical one. Through the pages pulsate images, sounds, smells, tenderness and warmth, pain, and anger. Radkova’s language is simple and beautifully crafted. The book is available in Bulgarian, and Ekaterina Petrova is taking care of bringing it to an Anglophone audience.
This realistic family saga is the perfect book to curl up to on a cold winter’s day. The narrative portrays an immigrant family at the end of the 20th century in all its complexity. Hüseyin, a Turkish migrant who spent thirty years working hard in Germany, so he could provide for his family and save enough to buy an apartment back in Istanbul, dies just as his dream is about to become true. I loved Aydemir and Cho-Polizzi’s language and the rich tapestry they weave of all that is life—resentments, complex familial relationships, secrets, unanswered questions and silences, and so much love. This is the story of a family’s reconciliation with the past and with each other, of the quest for identity and the desire to belong. These are the human stories behind forced or chosen migration, and of all those people who society has labelled as "other."
recommended by
YANA ELLIS
You can find Yana's work—translations of fiction and creative non-fiction from Bulgarian and German—in Trinity Journal of Literary Translation, No Man’s Land, The Common, SAND Journal, Trafika Europe, and Words Without Borders. Her first full-length translation—of Zdravka Eftimova's The Wolves of Staro Selo—was shortlisted for the Peroto National Award and was granted a PEN Translates Award. For Turkoslavia's fourth issue, she translated an excerpt from Elena Alexieva's The Tales of Mr. Kaboda.
recommended by
ÁGI BORI
You can find Ági's work in 3:AM, Apofenie, Asymptote, The Baffler, B O D Y, The Forward, Hopscotch Translation, Hungarian Literature Online, the Los Angeles Review, Litro Magazine, MAYDAY, Northwest Review, Points in Case, The Rumpus, Tablet, Trafika Europe, and elsewhere. Her translation of an excerpt from Miklós Vámos’s 1979 novel Én és én (Me and Me), written in Hungarian, appears in Turkoslavia's spring 2025 issue.
Newton’s Brain by Czech author Jakub Arbes in Josef Jiří Král’s translation is a timeless and haunting romanetto with an uncomplicated plot that has a sensational and phantastical premise, which, among other things, includes time travel, a brain transplant, and a flying machine. A friend of the author obtains the brain of the renowned English polymath from a British museum and manages to accomplish wonderful and supernatural things with it. Arbes set out to reflect on mankind’s relationships and failures with technology, civilization, and ideology and, by the end of the book, had successfully done so. I love the visionary and artistic approach the author used to get his point across, especially considering that this novel was published in the late nineteenth century.
The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes by Tatiana Țîbuleac— translated by Monica Cure and coming out in January 2026—is written by one of Moldova's most exciting contemporary women writers. This is a moving coming of age story, about an adolescent with delinquent tendencies, a family rift and somehow finding a way back to each other when faced with severe illness. It sounds like a topic that's been done to death, but feels fresh and lyrical with Țîbuleac's and Cure's evocative prose.
Canzone di Guerra by Daša Drndić, translated by Celia Hawkesworth—is both an elegy to a country that has been divided and destroyed by war, as well as a battle cry for immigrants everywhere who find it difficult to fit in, accept wordlessly all that is happening around them and be grateful to their adopted country. Prickly, ironic and constantly curious, the author's voice is one that is hard to forget.
recommended by
MARINA SOFIA
Marina is a literary translator from German and Romanian, critic, and editor at Corylus Books, a publishing house she co-founded that specializes in translated crime fiction. She has also published poetry and flash fiction (her own and in translation) in Sublunary Edition’s Firmament, GFT Press, Zoetic Press, Cerasus Magazine, Bangor Literary Journal, and elsewhere. Her translation of “X-rays” by Adrian Diniș was a highly commended first-time entrant at the Stephen Spender Translation competition. Her work appears in issues two and four of Turkoslavia—with "Ismail and Turnavitu" by Urmuz, and two poems by Adrian Diniş.