Twisted Spoon Press

24/08/2025

"Tereza Veverka Novická, who also translated Brabcová’s English debut, Aviaries, has bravely and fluently rendered Brabcová’s work, and her talents are most evident when she captures the author’s dark humor."

Zuzana Brabcová’s Ceilings dwells in a place where play and terror occur simultaneously.

Toggling between the perspectives of two siblings, in malleable hospital spaces, the novel refuses to let illness be finalized into something easily digestible:
https://tinyurl.com/29m7h3mh

14/08/2025

Marek Šindelka, Nathan Fields (transl.), Petr Nikl (artwotk), ‘Aberrant’, Twisted Spoon Press, 2017

12/08/2025

James Dyer writes on V. Nezval's A Prague Flaneur for Full Stop:

"Despite its lack of fixed direction or definite purpose, A Prague Flâneur (originally Pražský chodec) is rooted in the parks, streets, bars, and cafes of Prague in a surprisingly concrete way. From the street level, as the author Vítězslav Nezval sees it, Prague surpasses its “practical necessity” and expands into a dynamic host for memories, a rouser of imagination, and a stage peopled with extraordinary characters. This “peripatetic book” sketches a Prague that is uniquely personal to Nezval."

Prague surpasses its “practical necessity” and expands into a dynamic host for memories

25/07/2025

M.A. Orthofer has posted a review of Gerhard Rühm's Cake & Prostheses (tr. Alex Booth):
"It's a fun collection, especially in the creative stage-experiments. Rühm is not unserious, but there is a humorous edge to many of the pieces -- and quite a few are quite erotically charged as well. There's nice variety here, too, making for a good sampler of Rühm's work and language-play (with music often playing a prominent role in both)."

This is well-times since we will have The Folded Clock, a collection of Rühm's number poems – images and text – also translated by Alex Booth back from the printer in September.

Full text on The Complete Review here:
https://www.complete-review.com/reviews/austria/ruhmg.htm

More info on the books here:
https://www.twistedspoon.com/cake-and-prostheses.html
https://www.twistedspoon.com/folded-clock.html

23/07/2025

In this past weekend's The Irish Times, Declan O'Driscoll reviewed The Arsonist as part of his roundup of translated fiction (much appreciated).
Here's the link:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/review/2025/07/20/translated-fiction-convincing-first-person-narration-personal-stories-through-political-turmoil-and-sharp-but-subtle-humour/

But since it's behind a paywall, the full bit about The Arsonist is below.

Thanks again to Declan.

There is uncertainty too in The Arsonist (Twisted Spoon, 180pp, £ 11.50) by Egon Hostovský, translated from the Czech by Christopher Morris, regarding the identity of the person setting fire to buildings in a small Bohemian village called Zbečnov. Central to the novel is the family who live above the Silver Pigeon pub, run by the mercurial Josef Simon. "Here is home, beyond them, the world." His teenage children, Kamil and Eliška, are suffused with burgeoning desire in search of an object. Eliška spent three years in a convent because of their mother: "She's always been bad." But she too is adrift and unhappy. Outside the confines of their home, the suspicion and distrust of outsiders - already a feature of the village - is heightened when buildings begin to go up in flames. But, as always, the truth is more complex and less convenient than the locals would wish. This sense of an outsider threatening a small community, initiated by their collective paranoia, is like a precursor to the novels of László Krasznahorkai. First published in 1935, the novel is beautifully written, with a narrative style that whispers confidences to the reader. The lyricism of Hostovský's superbly translated descriptions is a pleasure to read, capturing both the delight and ennui in village life: "The rooftops gleam in the sun, two small clouds sail over the church, the sparrows make a commotion on the fence, somnolent warmth, Sunday outfits and tedium."

And here's the link to the book on our site:
https://www.twistedspoon.com/arsonist.html

08/06/2025

From Daniel Barbiero's review of A Prague Flaneur : "The streets, bridges, buildings, and cafés “where Prague lives” provide a wealth of stimuli to which Nezval responds with a catalogue of memories. His Prague is like the site of an archaeological dig whose layers expose various periods of personal history. It also is the site of shops whose windows display goods that take on hallucinatory appearances, and the setting for chance meetings with strange characters and events that touch on the uncanny."

Book Reviews, Memoir A review of A Prague Flâneur
by Vítězslav Nezval June 7, 2025 Reviewed by Daniel Barbiero A Prague Flâneur by Vítězslav Nezval translated by Jed Slast Twisted Spoon Press November 2024, $19.00, 213 pages, ISBN: 9788088628002 For the Central European avant-garde, the inte...

06/05/2025

The Arsonist by Egon Hostovsky is out this week in the UK. And thanks to Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings for a timely review, noting that she "was utterly gripped and absorbed by “The Arsonist” from start to finish. On the level of what is almost a mystery story, it’s thoroughly engrossing."

More info here: https://www.twistedspoon.com/arsonist.html

https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2025/05/05/emptiness-silence-darkness-nothingness-thearsonist-twistspoonpress/

I mentioned my love of Prague-based indie publisher, Twisted Spoon Press, in my review of “Ceilings”, a remarkable book; and I want to share some thoughts about a new release of theirs …

14/04/2025

M.A. Orthofer at The Complete Review on The Arsonist (due out soon):
"The Arsonist is unsettling on multiple levels, and Hostovský is particularly good at the layering -- including that of the various passions and disappointments of the two Simon teens. He weaves a lot into the relatively short novel, and it holds up very well."

https://www.complete-review.com/reviews/ceska/hostovskye.htm

order here:
https://www.twistedspoon.com/arsonist.html

07/04/2025

Out in the UK today, Ceilings reviewed by Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings:

"The prose is hypnotic and often very beautiful, but the narrative is fragmented; that, of course, is deliberate, to replicate the state of Ema’s mind as she undergoes her detox, with her mental state often spiralling out of control. The surreal imagery, the shifts of location, the fluidity of her identity are all brilliantly rendered by Brabcova, and the result is an exhilarating and sometimes dizzying work which leaves you a bit stunned."

Some books are a quick and pleasurable read, giving a lovely dose of escapism just when you want it – and I’m fond of those. However, others demand more commitment from a reader, and I …

15/03/2025

Ceilings by Zuzana Brabcová (tr. by Tereza Veverka Novicka) is now in the UK, shortly in bookstores, but you can always order directly from us here:
https://www.twistedspoon.com/ceilings.html

About the book:
Kin to the work of Leonora Carrington and Unica Zürn, Ceilings is a polyphonic novel that takes place in a mental hospital in Prague where the "narrator" is undergoing detox treatment for substance abuse. As the borders blur between inner experience and the outer world, between reality and dream, as the walls and ceilings hemming in the desire for freedom fantastically break open as if into the unknown and gender fluidly shifts between brother and sister, who are one and the same, Brabcová’s flights of imagination portray how difficult it is to “come out of oneself” and to engage with the other in a multifarious world that demands it of us, no matter how ambivalently.

12/03/2025

Coming this fall.