New to the European Review of Books? Here’s a primer.
What is the European Review of Books?
Here’s a primer. In one year we’ve made three book-length issues. We dare say they’re beautiful. They’re also unusual. In print, the pages are uncut: turn them to read, but cut them — easily done with a finger, also satisfying with a bookmark, knife or brillenpootje — to open a second layer, where you’ll find shorter essays, asides, the occasional language game and bursts of color. Rip it to read it.
Read it twice / Lies es zweimal / اقرأها مرتين / Perskaityk dukart
And what is in those pages? We have committed to that form (both old-fashioned and newfangled) because we’re committed to a broad sweep of languages, and to being, well, something else. The « European » intellectual atmosphere is thin, as culture is filtered through national and metropolitan sieves. Our goal is to thicken it. We publish many kinds of writing, in English and in a writer’s own tongue: fiction, travelogue, provocation, poem, come what may. Allergic to « opinion », we gravitate to the essay: avenue to the arcane, the profane, the grand.
We are a small operation. We want the magazine to grow, and we want it to endure. There’s so much yet to be done with the form that we have found. Some things you can do:
And more: ☞ Ask your librarian to subscribe. Pieces in the ERB can enrich course syllabi. They also offer fruitful research and multiple perspectives for foundations, think tanks and other institutions. ☞ Sign up for our newsletter and spread the word.
Here are some good points of entry from our first three issues:
Essays
➞ Europas & bulls: On a logo and where it takes you. ➞ Walter Grünzweig on Robert Habeck, German vice chancellor & novelist-statesman ➞ Adania Shibli on writing between Ramallah and Berlin ➞ Ali Smith on George Orwell ➞ Rem Koolhaas visits Palmyra on the brink of war (« What is a pillar? ») ➞ Peter L’Official on racial metonymy and the art of misidentification ➞ Mathieu Segers on Curzio Malaparte’s Europe — and ours
It’s been one year and we’ve done a lot! Our very small but very dedicated team has produced three stunning book-length magazines (not to mention the beautiful website you are currently reading) full of adventurous, international, interlinguistic and (dare we say) important writing. We asked contributors to read favorite words or phrases from the ERB’s first year:
There is a lot more we want to do! But we need more subscribers in order to do it. Sure, the ERB is sold in 250 shops in nineteen countries, butsubscribers are the ones who really sustain a literary magazine.
Truth is, our very small but very dedicated team has been too busy making the most brilliant and beautiful European magazine to really promote the most brilliant and beautiful European magazine. So now we’re making a push.
If you’ve enjoyed the ERB and want it to endure, here are some things you can do:
This discount offer is valid through the month of June. And as a thank you for every donation, new subscription or gift subscription, you’ll receive a beautiful set of ERB postcards (or bookmarks, or magazine-openers…) created by our designer, Patrick Doan. Call it a keepsake.
See all of the keepsake cards here
A keepsake from the ERB
As a thank you for every donation, new subscription or gift subscription, you’ll receive a beautiful set of ERB postcards (or bookmarks, or ERB-openers!) created by our designer, Patrick Doan. Call it a keepsake.
There sits a donkey before an open book, held between his forehooves in such a way that we can clearly see the pages. It is a family tree of sorts, with eight rows of seventeen standing donkeys.
An iron curtain makes a powerful canvas. Images from Sven Johne & Falk Haberkorn’s Aus Sicht des Archivs, documenting life in the former East Germany in the 1990s.
A friend of mine likes to say that the moon landing was real, but dumb. On astronautical tokenism.
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