Tanja Maljartschuk
is one of the most prolific and audacious young authors currently writing in Ukrainian, with a hallmark style blending searing social commentary with heartwarming humor and an appreciation for the human condition.
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A Biography of a Chance Miracle explores the life of Lena, a young girl growing up in the somewhat vapid, bureaucracy-ridden and nationalistic Western Ukrainian city of San Francisco. Lena is a misfit from early childhood due to her unwillingness to scorn everything Russian, her propensity for befriending forlorn creatures, her aversion to the status quo, and her fear of living a stupid and meaningless life. As her friends enter college, Lena sets forth on a mission to defend the abused and downtrodden of San Francisco—be they canine or human—armed with nothing more than an arsenal of humor, stubbornness, chutzpah and no shortage of imagination. Her successes are minimal at best, but in the process of trying to save San Francisco’s collective humanity, she may end up saving her own. At first glance a crazy and combative girl, Lena just may be the salvation that the Ukrainians of San Francisco sorely need.
…a wonderful novel by one of the most talented and original contemporary Ukrainian literary voices — Tanja Maljartschuk. You will irresistibly fall in love with the young protagonist, Lena, with her courage to face the harsh realities of life in her country, her charmingly optimistic and occasionally witty stubbornness in opposing the social forces of dominance and governance, and her idealistic determination to create a better world…—Zoran Živković, World Fantasy Award winner
With haiku-like precision, Tanja’s deceptively simple writing style blends surrealism and magical realism with satirical wit, occasionally outlandish humor and poignant social commentary. The German literary media has described her depictions of contemporary Ukraine as full of humor and absurdity, but “more exact and harsher” than those of her peers, comparing her to the 19th-century Russian satirist Saltykov-Shchedrin and hailing her as “a name to be remembered.” This work, her most provocative to date, was a finalist for the 2012 BBC Book of the Year Award in Ukraine, and has been lauded as “simply ingenious” by fellow Ukrainian authors.
Winner of the 2018 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the top prize at the Festival of German-Language Literature, for her short story “Frösche im Meer.” This literary event, held annually in Klagenfurt, Austria, recognizes outstanding works in the German language, and this year Tanja Maljartschuk took the top prize at the event with the very first story she has written in her second language, German.
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About the author
Tanja Maljartschuk is one of the most prolific and audacious young authors currently writing in Ukrainian, whose hallmark style blends searing social commentary with heartwarming humor and an appreciation for the human condition. The author of eight books of prose, her work has been translated into ten languages and is widely available in German. Tanja’s writing has been supported by various governmental and private fellowships from the Chancellery of Austria, the Academy of the Arts of Berlin, the Polish Ministry of Culture and KulturKontakt Austria, among others. She is a past winner of the Joseph Conrad Korzienowski Literary Prize (Poland-Ukraine) and the Kristal Vilencia Award (Slovenia). A Biography of a Chance Miracle, Tanja’s first novel and sixth book, was a finalist for the prestigious BBC Book of the Year Award in Ukraine, an award she subsequently won in 2016 for her novel Forgottenness. Individual stories of Tanja’s are available in English in the anthologies Best European Fiction, Herstories and Women in Times of Change, as well as in literary magazines such as World Literature Today (“The Demon of Hunger”), Words Without Borders, Belletrista (“Canis Lupus Famliaris”) and Apofenie (“Losers Want More”). A Biography of a Chance Miracle is Tanja’s first book to be made available in English; an English translation of her novel Forgottenness is in progress.
About the translator
Zenia Tompkins holds graduate degrees from Columbia University and the University of Virginia and began translating after fifteen years in the education and private sectors. She is the founder of The Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation (TAULT), a nonprofit literary agency and translation house. This, her first translation, won the 2017 Kovaliv Fund Prize, a biennial American award for best translation of a Ukrainian work. Zenia is proficient in eight languages and translates exclusively from Ukrainian. She currently lives in Latin America as the spouse of a U.S. Foreign Service Officer.
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Translated from Serbian by Randall A. Major
Part of The Zoran Živković Collection
In a carriage of the Paris metro, nine people cross paths one ordinary Friday morning: a retired office worker who comes there purely to read; a tourist revisiting the memories of sixty years ago; a funeral mourner who has discovered the beauty of cemeteries; an author in search of her characters; a young man with a reality problem; an elderly woman with memory issues; a military administrator with a secret hobby; a jilted woman who has the key to the perfect match; and a secret agent high on adrenaline. Each in turn encounters that ubiquitous and unavoidable gadget: the cell phone camera. Each comes to a realization that changes their life forever. But who is the tenth person in the carriage, and what do her photographs tell her about the other nine that they could not possibly know themselves?
The author’s latest masterpiece, finally available in English!
Long-listed for the 2019 International DUBLIN Literary Award
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The genius of Cadmus Press author Zoran Živković of Serbia has been recognized with his selection as European Grand Master for 2017 by the European Science Fiction Society. The awards were announced on the 17th of June 2017 at the 39th Eurocon in Dortmund, Germany.
The ESFS presents awards to outstanding science fiction in several categories each year, and selects one European Grand Master to be added to their “Hall of Fame.”
Previous ESFS Grand Masters are:
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Translated from Serbian by Alice Copple-Tošić
Part of The Zoran Živković Collection
A quiet, somewhat neurotic undertaker spends his days caring for his exotic fish, and of course his silent bodies as they arrive. One day, quite out of the ordinary, he receives a ticket to the movies. The movie, however, turns out to be of him, apparently filmed without his knowledge! Convinced that he is being targeted by a TV reality show, he plays along, only to be dragged from one adventure to the next, in a fantastic journey that evolves into a story of love, of death, and of ultimate creativity.
And through his travails we discover new perspectives on our own roles in an increasingly insensitive and scripted world.
Hidden Camera was nominated for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
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Youchan Itoh, the talented artist who is handling the cover art for the Zoran Živković collection, has published a lovely blogpost on how she did it.
It’s in Japanese, of course, but the pictures tell most of the story!
We are delighted to announce the publication of the first two books in the Zoran Živković Collection:
Both feature stunning covers by Japanese artist Youchan Ito, and are available at Amazon and major booksellers worldwide. Refer to the individual book pages for more information!
Serbian author Zoran Živković has earned a devoted legion of readers around the world with his thought-provoking, surrealistic works, in a multitude of languages and editions. Cadmus Press is proud to present the first complete collection of his books in matching hardcover editions featuring the stunning artwork of Japanese illustrator Youchan Ito. Each volume is available individually, and the entire hardcover collection of eleven volumes may also be purchased as a set.
…arguably the most remarkable fabulist since Borges and Calvino.— Michael Dirda, Washington Post
Though it is too soon to crown Zoran Živković the new Borges, Seven Touches of Music makes him a leading candidate.—The New York Times Book Review
…unexpected beauty and surprise. […] Zivkovic is seeking to communicate something about the nature of life and death, of existence and non-existence, which bends perception into new and challenging shapes.—Strange Horizons
…A curious liminality which seems inherent in his prose: there is always a sense of something else, and something other, at work in Živković’s worlds, albeit invisibly. He is a writer of subtlety, and of humanity.—Strange Horizons
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Translated from Serbian by Vuk Tošić
Part of The Zoran Živković Collection
THE FINAL PART OF THE PAPYRUS TRILOGY
When certain mysterious events involving books occur, it seems that Inspector Dejan Lukić is always the man for the job. This time, however, things are a little different. Inspector Lukić himself is at the heart of the mystery, lured by the appearance of a number of packages addressed to him in person and left at several highly unlikely locations. The contents of these packages – a set of books known as The Compendium of the Dead – a series of bizarre disappearances and a succession of strange encounters keep the baffled Inspector on his toes right up until the extraordinary dénouement, in which the finality of death itself is challenged. In this, the final part of the trilogy that began with The Last Book and The Grand Manuscript, Zoran Živković demonstrates beyond contradiction the magical and ultimately benevolent power of literature.
Included in The Papyrus Trilogy.
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Translated from Serbian by Alice Copple-Tošić
Part of The Zoran Živković Collection
THE SECOND PART OF THE PAPYRUS TRILOGY
An empty apartment, locked from the inside: this is the mystery that literature-loving police inspector Dejan Lukić, hero of Zoran Živković’s The Last Book, is called in to solve. What has become of the woman who lives there, bestselling detective fiction writer Jelena Jakovljević? And, perhaps more importantly still, what has happened to the manuscript of her newly-completed novel, Find Me? As Inspector Lukić becomes ever more entangled in the growing mystery, a highly-strung literary agent, a blind painter, a virtuoso lock-picker and various cutthroat publishers all have their part to play in an elaborate game of misdirection and pursuit. Not to mention the dark powers of the National Security Agency and a secret cult seeking the key to immortality. Once again, Inspector Lukić stands at the heart of a literary conundrum only he can solve and through which he stands to gain—or lose—everything.
Included in The Papyrus Trilogy.
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