Martin Riker - Böcker

This issue publishes short stories by Catalan's most exciting contemporary writers, providing readers a unique opportunity to view both the life and art of Catalonian culture.

To celebrate the publication of a revised translation of Georges Perec's masterpiece, "Life: A User's Manual," as well as other debut Perec translations due in 2009, Dalkey Archive is reissuing one of the most popular issues of the "Review of Contemporary Fiction" in a newly expanded edition.

This issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction presents new Slovak fiction in translation, congregating such significant writers as Dusan Dusek, Brano Hochel, Michal Hvorecky, Jan Johanides, Daniela Kapitanova, Monika Kompanikova, and Dusan Simko, among others most of whom have never before been translated into English to form a literary portrait of contemporary Slovak identity, framed by traditionalism and yet striving to engage the modern world with a voice all its own.

Editions P.O.L is perhaps the most innovative and important French publisher today, welcoming richly challenging and experimental literature into its fold to appear side by side with books belonging squarely in the mainstream. This issue of TheReview of Contemporary Fiction pays tribute to this remarkable publisher with essays, images, and excerpts from previously untranslated works, and an interview with founder and director Paul Otchakovsky-Laurens.

"The Review of Contemporary Fiction" was founded in 1981 to promote a vision of literary culture that is not limited to the immediately popular, and to ensure that important world writers outside popular attention continue to be written about and discussed.