Liars' League

Extract from African Electronics by Jan Krasnowolski

African Electronics MP3

Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, read by Avin Shah

He took the kid to the restaurant at the end of the first passenger deck. Most of the seats were already occupied, mainly by football fans on their way home from an away match. A few dozen blokes in their club colours – they all looked rather sour-faced, which showed unambiguously that the match hadn’t ended favourably for them. Some of them had already opened their first cans of beer, and were loudly fulminating against the “sodding French”. Rybka managed to get a seat in the corner, right by the window, where there was also a view of the television set suspended from the ceiling.

 

Extracts from The Zitkova Goddesses by Katerina Tuckova

The Zitkova Goddesses MP3

Translated from the Czech by Andrew Oakland, read by Sarah Feathers

A shared inheritance

She remembered the girls coming to Surmena, mostly in the evening when the light was failing so that even if seen they wouldn’t be recognized. They came shyly but full of hope. Surmena would take them out into the dark, guided only by the flickering flame of an oil lamp, which Dora’s gaze would follow from the window until it disappeared beyond the crest of the hill.

 

Extract from Pigs' Feet by Tadej Golob

Pigs' Feet by Tadej Golob

Translated from the Slovenian by David Limon, read by David Mildon

Jani is a struggling writer and comic book artist living hand-to-mouth with his wife and young son Simon. He's just received a mysterious call from a publisher interested in his work …

I knocked but there was no answer. I waited a moment and then tried again, but nothing, so I went in, as his name was written on the door. There was no one there, but it was obviously the secretary's office and she had gone somewhere, I don’t know where; in the next room, the boss's, there seemed to be someone in there, so I knocked.

"Yes," and then some mumbling and "come in."

I opened the door and there was a guy sitting there, underlining something on paper, which he was holding in place with his other elbow, while the hand held a banana.

 

Extract from Limited Liability by Nora Bossong

Limited Liability MP3

Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch, read by Gloria Sanders

Luise Tietjen compared the house number to the address that she carried with her in her father’s restless handwriting. She found his name on the buzzer, the door sprang open with a hum, it all fit together, but Luise still didn’t know how she fit in there. A uniformed police officer opened the door of the fourth-floor apartment for her, a scuffed metal door.

“You are…? May I see your I.D., miss?”

 

Extract from Darkness & Company by Sigitas Parulskis

Darkness & Company MP3

 Translated from the Lithuanian by Romas Kinka, read by Sean Patterson

Thalita, cumi ('Little girl, I say to you, arise')

The day after the mass killing of Jews outside a small Lithuanian town, Vincentas, assigned to the killing squad by an SS officer, goes to photograph the dead lying in a pit.*

On the school blackboard someone had written 'angel' in chalk. Perhaps it had been a part of a sentence. All the other words had been erased. Angel of Punishment, Angel of Salvation – it could have been either one.

He got up and very quietly, so as not to wake the men sleeping on the floor, went out into the yard. The guard was nowhere to be seen, he was most probably snoozing in some spot he had found. The Germans were staying in the police station. Mattresses had been laid out on the floor in the small town's school for the squad to sleep on and after all the drinking at the local restaurant, one could hardly tell most of the men from the mattresses they were lying on.

 

Near & Far: New European Fiction - Tuesday 9th June

For the first time in Liars' League's eight-year history, as part of European Literature Night 2015, we throw open our doors to brand new European literature in translation from a sparkling selection of continental writers. This showcase of fiction, never before heard in English, celebrates fresh talent from Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Slovenia and the Czech Republic. Authors Jan Krasnowolski and Sigitas Parulskis will also be attending. 

NEAR & FAR - LINE-UP:

- "Thalita, Cumi" from DARKNESS & COMPANY by Sigitas Parulskis, read by Sean Patterson
- Extract from AFRICAN ELECTRONICS by Jan Krasnowolski, read by Avin Shah​
- Extract from LIMITED LIABILITY by Nora Bossong, read by Gloria Sanders
- Extract from PIGS' FEET by Tadej Golob, read by David Mildon​
- Extract from THE ZITKOVA GODDESSES read by Sarah Feathers​

Please join our Facebook event if you reckon you might come - it really helps us plan!

Our professional actors will read fiction from some of the most exciting European authors working today, featuring extraordinary characters such as Sigitas Parulskis’s World War II photographer, Jan Krasnowolski’s drug-runner turned people-smuggler, and Kateřina Tučková’s Czech witches. From Nora Bossong’s bereaved businesswoman, adrift in New York, to Tadej Golob’s struggling comic-book writer, these fictions will take you far from home, bringing the foreign into focus and turning the familiar strange.

Tuesday 9th June, 2015 - Doors open at 7pm (19:00), show begins at 7.30 (19.30) 

Admission: £5 (on the door)

Downstairs at The Phoenix
37 Cavendish Square
London W1G 0PP
T: +44 (0)7808 939 535

NB: This month's book quiz will feature fabulous foreign fiction to win! There may also be strudel!

This event is part of the European Literature Night VII, 13 May – 9 June 2015, www.europeanliteraturenight.co.uk 

Organised in partnership with EUNIC, Czech Centre, Goethe Institut, Lithuanian Culture Institute, Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania, Polish Cultural Institute and Republic of Slovenia Embassy in London.