About
SlovakLiterature.com is a site dedicated to bringing Slovak literature to English-language readers and to promoting Slovak literature abroad. Our long-term goal is to curate a portal for Slovak literary works that have been translated into English as well as reviews, interviews, and other useful resources.
The site is the brainchild of two translators, Julia Sherwood and Magdalena Mullek, who continue to administer, expand, and update it. It builds on their successful collaboration in editing and translating the anthology Into the Spotlight (2017), and continues and extends their promotion of Slovak literature through their jointly-administered Facebook group.
The website was originally launched to introduce Raising the Velvet Curtain, a series of events promoting Slovak literature in the UK in October and November 2019 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, which was made possible by grants from the Slovak Arts Council and from the Arts Council England National Lottery, and by the generous support of the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in the UK.
Magdalena Mullek is a literary translator and scholar. She holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Indiana University. Her translations, reviews, and articles have appeared in numerous journals. Her book-length publications include The Dedalus Book of Slovak Literature (Dedalus Books, 2015); Into the Spotlight: New Writing from Slovakia (Slavica Publishers, 2017); the children’s book The Escape by Marek Vadas (BRaK, 2018); Pavol Rankov's award-winning novel It Happened on the First of September (or Some Other Time) (Slavica Publishers, 2020), Zuzana Cigánová's Vanity Unfair (Seagull Books, 2022), Zuska Kepplová's The Moon in Foil (Seagull Books, 2023), and Pavol Rankov's collection of short stories On the Other Hand (Terra Librorum, 2023). Magdalena lives with her husband and their daughter in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Julia Sherwood is an award-winning translator and literary organizer. She translates fiction and non-fiction from Slovak, Czech, Polish and Russian. Her most recent book-length translations from the Slovak (jointly with her husband Peter Sherwood) include Fleeting Snow by Pavel Vilikovský (2018, Istros Books), The Night Circus and other stories by Uršuľa Kovalyk (2019, Parthian Books), Big Love by Balla (2019, Jantar Publishing), But Crime Does Punish (2022, Karolinum Press) and Mothers and Truckers by Ivana Dobrakovová (2022, Jantar Publishing). She is based in London and curates the Slovak list for Seagull Books. From 2013 to 2023 she served as the editor-at-large for Slovakia for Asymptote, the online journal for literary translation. In 2019 she was awarded the Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav prize for translating and promoting Slovak literature in the English-speaking world, and in 2023 she received the Minister of Culture Award of the Slovak Republic for her long-term and outstanding contribution in the field of arts.
Website: juliaandpetersherwood.com.