Ambitious Slavic Literary Project

We posted about CONTEXT 20 finally being online yesterday, and today, Complete Review points out a really interesting idea mentioned in the Letter from Macedonia:

Pen Centers from eleven Slavic countries selected 110 novels from these countries written from 1989 to the present (ten novels from each country), in October 2006. Each country will publish one novel from each of the other ten countries and, in that way, each of the selected 110 novels will come out in one Slavic language. If all goes according to plan, the whole action should be carried out through 2007 and all of these novels will later be translated into English and offered to publishers in the United States and Great Britain.

Granted, “Pen” is usually P.E.N. (or PEN), and I believe Smilevski means that all 110 novels will be available in one additional Slavic language, but whatever. You get the idea. It’s a big undertaking, and is an admirable cultural exchange. Hopefully these books are all translated into English and published here and in Great Britain. Although like Orthofer writes, this timeline may be a bit ambitious . . .