Welcome to the European Review of Books
What is the European Review of Books? A primer, if you are here for the first time.
Jesus in the pines
Refugees and border guards in the Białowieża Forest. Scenes of violence play out behind a thick cover of trees, in a remote corner of Poland.
Jezus w świerkach
Migranci i strażnicy graniczni w Puszczy Białowieskiej. Prastare drzewa ukrywają ekstremalną przemoc.
The size of longing
Jacob Israël de Haan’s Palestine, Arnold Zweig’s novel of post‑Zionist disillusionment, and « Israel’s first political murder ».
« We are the winners of Eurovision »
Lithuania has lost the Eurovision Song Contest thirty times.
« Mes esame Eurovizijos nugalėtojai »
Lietuva pralaimėjo Euroviziją trisdešimt kartų.
The anarcho-astrologer
Javier Milei, literarily considered
« Everything starts with fire »
— Interview with Hélène Cixous
Hans Ulrich Obrist interviews French-Algerian writer and philosopher Hélène Cixous.
Reviews
Jezus umarł w Polsce
Reviewed by Zuza Nazaruk
My Stupid Intentions
Reviewed by Madeline Gressel
The Centre
Reviewed by Michael Erard
Ariane, a Young Russian Girl
Reviewed by Fiona Bell
Villa Verde oder das Hotel in San Remo: Das italienische Exil der Familie Benjamin (btb, 2022).
Reviewed by Ian Ellison
Theory of the Solitary Sailor
Reviewed by Ben Carver
More
On learning to write again
Ramallah, downtown, fifth floor. The phone rings and the caller’s number appears on the screen. It’s an unknown number. And yet a call that comes at this hour must be answered.
تعلُّم الكتابة من جديد
رام الله، وسط البلد، الطابق الخامس. يرن الهاتف ويظهر رقم المتّصل على الشاشة. إنه ليس لأحد معارفنا، فالرقم غير معروف. مع ذلك، يتطلّبُ اتصال هاتفي في ساعة مبكِّرةٍ كهذه الردَّ عليه.
« The hope of future Pan-African socialism »
A group of « skinny Black lads » enroll at Leipzig's Karl Marx University in East Germany. An excerpt from Jackie Thomae's novel Brothers.
Ice queens, sex machines
Insofar as erotica can ever be about something, what is Russia-themed erotica about?
The coldest, cleanest water in Europe
Solitary sailing, and the philosophy thereof: What sort of writing is possible when the mind is at sea and so entirely occupied and swaddled?
Cannibalinguistics
Language-learning and people-eating in Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi's The Centre.
Moscow on the Med
Two winters in Istanbul. If you are a holder of a Russian passport, there are few places in the Western hemisphere that you can go without a visa.
Noise’s grip
On Malta, noise is the norm.
The big beige books
The most important unreviewed books of our times, reviewed. On Xi Jinping’s The Governance of China, Volumes I to IV
Schwarzeneggerology
On Arnold, action cinema & Übermenschlichkeit. « Arnold Schwarzenegger was action cinema’s Adamic man, alternately entering and exiting normal human time. »
« Ça ira! There will be fire and enthusiasm in you »
In search of Anthon van Rappard, Vincent van Gogh’s forgotten friend.
Top pearls
1
From the knacker’s yard
On the fallen animals loved by Heinrich von Kleist & Curzio Malaparte.
2
Five uneasy pieces
How I stopped being an older brother (& other stories)
3
The Mass of Mies
« Less is more »? The scale and shape of his body gave the architect Mies van der Rohe an unequaled weight and architectural authority.
4
On paths not taken
« Genocide Studies » is a house with many rooms. It accommodates and even encourages a broadening of its central concept. And like all academic fields, it presumes its object of study will always be there.
5
Every end has a start
In 2005, Yamandú Roos embarked on the photographic project Europeans: one continent, forty countries, 65.000 kilometers.
Photographer, refugee, king
A family’s travelogue from Phnom Penh to Paris and back
Photographe, réfugié, roi
Carnet de voyage d’une famille entre Phnom Penh et Paris et le retour
Hitchhiker
A story about danger. « She wondered when he was going to ask her where she was going. »
Otostopçu
« Eylül adamın ‘ne tarafa gidiyorsun’ diye sormasını bekledi »
Europe disenchanted
A broad cast of characters who almost all speak to a solitary woe. This is Europe? Ben Judah depicts a continent of islands, hollowed of associational life.
Pigeon Water
Online, pigeon water is what we swim in and slather on ourselves.
The original Dybbuk
A story about afterlife. « A saint! What do you mean he’s a saint! the scholar says. He’s a librarian! Are librarians saints? »
Visit the extractocene!
The Eisenthür silver mine is real; the village below is entirely fictive.
Corrupted, yet intact
On the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Europe of European integration. An excerpt from The Origins of European Integration: The Pre-history of Today’s European Union, 1937–1951.
On location
Mission: Impossible and Eurocentric stunts, from Hollywood to Hong Kong. What does an action movie want to be?
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