In recent years I have found myself increasingly confronted with an old yet stubbornly persistent way of thinking: the assumption that the oppressed are, by definition, right, and the powerful, by definition, guilty. One of my more recent exchanges on the Net brought this into…

Milan Kundera, student, born 1 April 1929 in Brno, resident of Prague VII, student housing, King Jiří VI Street, appeared today at the local police precinct and made a statement concerning Iva Militka, a student living in the same building... With these dry and faceless lines –…

„Shall I leave you alone?“ his mother asked from behind, and coughed – sharp, cutting. He didn’t answer, pulled one of the stools toward him and sank heavily onto it. The coffin swayed threateningly, and he propped it with his knee, glancing in alarm at the dead man, who had…

A Week in Paradise is a sharply observed and darkly humorous account of three Bulgarians arriving in newly reunified Berlin — a city still trembling with history and possibility. The protagonists, Vladko, his brother Boyan, and Vladko’s wife Teodora, form a classic triangle of…