/17. June 2010/
“Jurassic Park“ of horror
Die Presse published a review of this year’s German translation of the novel Chladnou zemí (Across a Cold Land, Torst, 2009) by Jáchym Topol (German version: Teufelswerkstatt). According to the reviewer Cornelius Hell “the novel combines facts with grotesque hyperbole and satirically comments on the discrepancies and abuses of the politics of power.“
The novel is also amongst the ten recommendations by thirty German literary critics (Bestenliste) for the month of June. Topol has thus found himself in the company of writers such as Julian Barnes or Ingeborg Bachmann. The list is put together by critics for the German media company Südwestrundfunk (SWR).
"A tank-ride through the Czech past,” is how Maya Jaggi describes the 2010 translation of another work by Topol - Gargling with Tar (originally published as Kloktat dehet by Torst, 2005) - in a review for the Independent (published on 25 May 2010).
