Jiří Voskovec (1905-1981) was a Czech actor, writer, dramatist, and director who became an American citizen in 1955. Throughout much of his early career he was associated with the Liberated Theatre, which he co-directed with fellow actor and playwright Jan Werich. He immigrated to the US in 1939 and again in 1948 with the onset of … Continue reading
Equus Press is starting a mini-series of articles which bring first-ever English translations of primary and critical texts to do with the under-explored topic of Prague Dada. This instalment combines three articles published between 1925 and 1927: “Dada Creative”, on the strenghts of German dada, by prominent literary critic Bedřich Václavek, “Dada and Surrealism”, a … Continue reading
DAGGER 1 The sun fell down on California. Inside a large beach villa, lights flared. The place belonged to Pete Dagger, all‐star American writer. Dagger was among the biggest of the writers, perhaps the largest of the era. He was a top multi‐millionaire popular artist who was loved by the critics. He was huge with the academics, who sucked from … Continue reading
*Republished courtesy 3AM Magazine ‘Valorised by the Situationists as a demographic of urban drift and a manifestation of the “no work” ethos, this sub-proletariat is the very opposite of anything that could be called a movement let alone a class, and is perhaps better considered according to the sense of Bataille’s l’informe : that non-category of … Continue reading
*Lecture presented on 29 March 1935, at the Mánes Gallery in Prague and, later on, at the end of April in Zurich. This translation departs from the Czech translation of the original version delivered in Prague. In the French original, the lecture was published in André Breton, Position politique du surrealisme (Paris: Éditions du Sagittaire, … Continue reading
*Lecture presented on 29 March 1935, at the Mánes Gallery in Prague and, later on, at the end of April in Zurich. This translation departs from the Czech translation of the original version delivered in Prague. In the French original, the lecture was published in André Breton, Position politique du surrealisme (Paris: Éditions du Sagittaire, … Continue reading
*Lecture presented on 29 March 1935, at the Mánes Gallery in Prague and, later on, at the end of April in Zurich. This translation departs from the Czech translation of the original version delivered in Prague. In the French original, the lecture was published in André Breton, Position politique du surrealisme (Paris: Éditions du Sagittaire, … Continue reading
*Lecture presented on 29 March 1935, at the Mánes Gallery in Prague and, later on, at the end of April in Zurich. This translation departs from the Czech translation of the original version delivered in Prague. In the French original, the lecture was published in André Breton, Position politique du surrealisme (Paris: Éditions du Sagittaire, … Continue reading
“It starts with no story but a circular / It starts with no story but a spinning / It starts with no story but a spinning into before that is to come…” Daniela Cascella’s Singed: Muted voice-transmissions, after the fire starts not with creation, but destruction – a library ravaged by fire. What of the singed debris can … Continue reading
Equus Press is proud to be taking part again in this year’s Small Publishers Fair at Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq, London. Equus books will be available for sale on Friday & Saturday, Nov 10 & 11, from 11am to 7pm daily.
*Adolf Hoffmeister (1902-1973), Czech writer, playwright, painter & caricaturist. His reviews and interviews with the avant-garde scene in 1930s Paris & New York have been collected in Podoby (1961; Images) and Předobrazy (1962; Adumbrations). His most notable works include his interviews with James Joyce and his 1932 first-ever Czech translation of “Anna Livia Plurabelle” a fragment of Work … Continue reading
*“Afterword” to André Breton, Co je surrealismus? Tři přednášky [What is Surrealism? Three Lectures], Brno 1937 NOTE: Well-known are André Breton’s visits, in 1934-35, to Prague, during which he delivered three crucial lectures, hailing the city as “the magical capital of old Europe […], one of those cities that electively pin down poetic thought, which is … Continue reading
I can’t remember. We’re just below the hospitality hoax at the riverend. By then I was sold: low ebb of gravity hence had already the vision. The things that hatched out of the eggs resembled lizards.[1] Readability bears this mourning: a phrase can be readable, it must be able to become readable, up to a … Continue reading
JUAN GOYTISOLO +4.6.2017 “And it’s true that my own birth as a writer coincides in fact with the destruction of my literature, of the literary moulds which in routine fashion I took from tradition.” So reflected the author of alienation & exile, Juan Goytisolo – who this Sunday passed away – in a 1984 interview … Continue reading
By Lisanne Meinen From April 10th to April 13th, Týden Diverzity, or DiverCity Week, will be taking place in a recently renovated building at 4 Hybernská Street. This free four-day festival, run by Charles University, is themed on ‘City and Emotions’, connecting Prague with exhibitions, lectures, discussions and workshops. Events begin at 10am and continue … Continue reading
In the chapter of his book, Design and Debris: A Chaotics of Postmodern American Fiction, devoted to what he calls American “proceduralism,” Joseph M. Conte makes further distinction between proceduralism and mere structural formalism. Whereas the value of the latter—common to all literary writing observant of formal/generic conventions—is largely based on its conformity with the … Continue reading
*Excerpt from Thor Garcia’s long-awaited opus magnum Pink Alligator, forthcoming with Equus Press in autumn 2017. Editor’s Introduction My experience working with Captain Chip Traybon Walkner, which included editing this manuscript, was illuminating and rewarding. In addition to his other attributes, Captain Walkner is a gifted observer and interpreter of human behavior. I think you’ll agree … Continue reading
*Marking the 35th anniversary of his death, David Vichnar’s piece reviews George Perec’s oeuvre in terms of its commitment to experimental innovation in the best modernist fashion. Even today, more than thirty years after his death, Georges Perec (1936-82) is still a member of the Oulipo group, which—and this ties in with what has been … Continue reading
End of radio blackout. Equus Press is proud to announce the release of the 2nd “pocket” edition of Louis Armand’s The Combinations aka The Big Combo. Order here or enter the Goodreads giveaway here (starts Mar 8), or write directly to us for review copies. Why bother with firebricks when you can stuff 139 of these … Continue reading
*Marking yesterday’s passing of the great (and only) American Oulipian writer Harry Mathews is David Vichnar’s article below, reviewing his novelistic career from the 1960s to the 90s. The article is extracted from the forthcoming study, The Avant-Postman: James Joyce and the Postwar French & Anglophone Avantgarde. Harry Mathews (1930-2017) was a writer officially Oulipian, who was born in New … Continue reading
*By Louis Armand; republished from The Organ Grinder’s Monkey: Culture after the Avant-garde (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2013) 1. “Savage thought,” in Claude Lévi-Strauss’s oft-repeated dictum, “can be defined as analogical thought.” Analogical thought: a primitive mode of reason inhering in the grammar of to, with, between – hence a predilection for, and dependence upon, tropes of … Continue reading
*By Tim König, co-translator of Melchior Vischer’s 1920 Dada masterpiece Second through Brain (Equus: 2015). Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.[1] An “instrument of terror”[2] For a long time, Arno Schmidt was an underdog of German literature in the Anglophone world. After 2016, this could change, as his huge … Continue reading
*Originally published online in 3AM Magazine on Aug 16, 2016. ‘Armand distrusts authentic reader/writer experience no matter how ironised or sentimentalized. He’s seen it happen, the domestication of ‘experimental writing’ where ‘independent’ and maverick’ become code words for ‘rogue vested interest.’ ‘Realism’ becomes a matter of having the last word ‘whilst handing over scapegoats if only to … Continue reading
*Equus Press is proud to announce the planned publication (for April, 2017), of THOR GARCIA’s new novel Pink Alligator. Why does the pink alligator choose YOU? That’s the question Chip Walkner and his wife Jaycee must confront when Crunchie the pink alligator appears on their doorstep. The growing, always-hungry gator adds excitement and adventure to their flagging … Continue reading
*Equus Press is proud to announce the planned publication (for April, 2018), in one volume, of PHIL SHOENFELT’s novel trilogy Stripped. A memoir of Shoenfelt’s New York years (1979-84), Stripped examines what follows after all social norms have been rejected, detailing the struggle with the legion of demons lurking at the bottom of every addiction, drug or other. Remembering a New … Continue reading
*To mark the recent passing of David Antin, and in anticipation of his obituary (to be posted here shortly), Equus Press reprints Lou Rowan’s 2001 homage essay on Antin’s “talk pieces” (The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 21 No. 1, April 2001). Reprint courtesy of author. David Antin’s four books of talk pieces afford us … Continue reading
*Richard Makin’s essay “Makimonos” was recently published in a screw in the shoe Anthology of Challenges (Golden Handcuffs Review). Composed as a series of reflections on Makin’s writing methods, the text can also be read as a defence of unorthodox and experimental approaches to fiction, including such works as Louis Armand’s panoramic novel The Combinations, which was shortlisted for The Guardian‘s 2016 Not-the-Booker Prize. Imagine the outskirts of a vast, futuristic … Continue reading
Second Through Brain begins with the stuccoist Jörg Schuh, distracted by “the huge bosom of maid Hanne from the skyscraper opposite,” losing his footing and falling forty stories to the “sundripped concrete” below where, forty-seven pages later, his brain “radiantly spattered.” As Jörg falls episodes from his life—both “made-up & true”—pass by in thirty-five vivid … Continue reading
*From the recent collection LITERATURA IN PRESTOR, eds. Katarina Rakušček & Julija Ovsec (Ljubljana: 2016), by David Vichnar I Just as so many other literary-historical labels, concrete poetry, it seems, is what we make of it, what we include and exclude, where and what against we draw the line. This provisional and necessarily pragmatic character of … Continue reading
*In order to mark the passing of the great French experimentalist, Equus Press brings a critical overview of Michel Butor’s oeuvre from 1950s to 1970s and its modernist heritage. A general overview of Butor’s multifarious and extremely prolific output would include four early novels, a dozen other book-length works of unique genres, half-a-dozen volumes of essays, an … Continue reading
Equus are very pleased to announce that Louis Armand’s The Combinations has been shortlisted for this year’s Not the Booker Prize. With 123 votes, it became by far the most popular title of the 147-item long list. We thank all those who have cast their vote for this book. Below is a baker’s dozen of the best of the reviews … Continue reading
“We are living in the Left Bank of the Nineties.” When legendary International Herald Tribune correspondent and founding Prague Post editor Alan Levy wrote these words, about “living in an historical place at an historical time,” he forecast a literary renaissance in Prague that many doubted and few recognised when indeed it did occur. For … Continue reading
… the beautiful engineers are all dead, the secret technicians conspire for their own glamour in the Future… – Allen Ginsberg, “Král Majáles,” 7 May, 1965 There are cities in the world that exercise a particular influence over the minds of writers, artists and historians because they seem to manifest a type of spirit, … Continue reading
by BONITA RHOADS & VADIM ERENT *Originally published in Avant-Post, ed. Louis Armand (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia Books, 2006) 85-113. It is a critical commonplace to observe that, following the procession of one ascendant modernist art movement after another, today the cluttered multiplicity of artistic production institutes no single prevailing orientation. Incorporating bio-tech experiments in genetic manipulation … Continue reading
* Originally published in Subtexts: Essays on Fiction (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2015) 51-63. As Pound noted in his portrait of the artist as an ironic man, the demand of the twelve years that had come to constitute his London “age” was first and foremost that of the “image.” Hugh Selwyn Mauberley surveys his 1908-1920 London period, … Continue reading
*Originally published as introduction to Avant-Post: The Avant-Garde under “Post-” Conditions (Prague: Litteraria Pragensia, 2006) pp. 1-17 The day will come when one original carrot will be enough to start a revolution. —Cézanne Is an avant-garde viable under the conditions of post-modernism? This question immediately gives rise to others, concerning the status of avant-gardes historical or … Continue reading
PHOTO ESSAY by Penny Anti “Set fire to the old hypocrisies. Let the light of the burning building scare the nightingales and incarnadine the willows. And let the daughters of educated men dance around the fire and heap armful upon armful of dead leaves upon the flames.” – Virginia Woolf, urban terrorist “The condemnation, though … Continue reading
