Small Encyclopedia of Intimate Cities

Original Ukrainian title: Лексикон інтимних міст, published in 2011 by Meridian Czernowitz
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Small Encyclopedia of Intimate Cities / Kleines Lexikon intimer Städte
Original Ukrainian title: Лексикон інтимних міст, published in 2011 by Meridian Czernowitz

Yuri Andrukhovych has invested a lot of time in familiarising himself with foreign cities. In some of them, he got stuck for a while. Others have become true parts of his life: »Munich begins right behind Moscow, the alphabet is in harmony with time« – that’s because Munich was the first German city the young author from the failing Soviet Union visited in order to write his Moscoviad not far from it, at Lake Starnberg.

Diamond cutters...
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Yuri Andrukhovych has invested a lot of time in familiarising himself with foreign cities. In some of them, he got stuck for a while. Others have become true parts of his life: »Munich begins right behind Moscow, the alphabet is in harmony with time« – that’s because Munich was the first German city the young author from the failing Soviet Union visited in order to write his Moscoviad not far from it, at Lake Starnberg.

Diamond cutters instead of cinnamon stores – an alley in Antwerp, a sociology of street music in Berlin. Being with Andrzej Stasiuk in the one hundred-storeyed InterContinental in Bucharest. A visit to the tragic museum in Kharkiv, walking through deserted gardens in Detroit. Novi Sad. Odessa. Paris. Prague. Stuttgart. Toronto. Uzhgorod. Venice. An alphabet of 44 cities on three continents.


The present volume is a collection of 39 texts chosen by the author from the original 111 city-portraits published under the title Лексикон інтимних міст by Meridian Czernowitz in Kiev. Together with his translator, the author has revised these texts and, where applicable, updated them.

»Reading this book is akin to a voyage of discovery.« Judith Leister, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»Andrukhovych is one author you happily let lead you astray … In this encyclopaedia of cities you learn more about the author than the places themselves. And that’s a good thing – not least because of the wonderfully funny and factual stories that emerge from the writing life.« Carmen Eller, Die literarische Welt

»The ABC of these cities is as individual as it is informative and entertaining.« Gerhard Zeillinger, der Standard

»Here the author successfully lays bare the most objective, incisive observations about cities through completely subjective, that is, unexpectedly ›intimate‹ experiences.« Alexander Altmann, Landshuter Zeitung

»As of yet, almost no one has written such an incredibly wide-ranging and particular, sharp and laconic, casually chatty and intimately touching memoir of their travels to various cities.« Heike Krause-Leipoldt, Lesart

»Reading this book is akin to a voyage of discovery.« Judith Leister, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»Andrukhovych is one author you happily let lead you astray … In this encyclopaedia of cities you learn more about the author than the places themselves. And that’s a good thing – not least because of the wonderfully funny and factual stories that emerge from the writing life.« Carmen Eller, Die literarische...

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2011, 416 pages
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Yuri Andrukhovych was born in 1960 in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. He is considered the leading contemporary Ukrainian writer. He writes poems, prose, essays and translates from German and Polish.

Yuri Andrukhovych was born in 1960 in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. He is considered the leading contemporary Ukrainian writer. He writes poems,...


OTHER PUBLICATIONS

The Price of Our Freedom
Year of Publication: 2023
Juri AndruchowytschYear of Publication: 2023

»They belong to us, they are one of us and we want them in« – Yuri Andrukhovych had been waiting for this sentence, which presented the prospect of EU membership to his country, for many years. It was uttered in Brussels, three days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. »A deep exhale – amidst the blaring sirens.«

Twenty years ago, his brilliant volume of essays My Final...

Radio Night
Year of Publication: 2021
Juri AndruchowytschYear of Publication: 2021

»I have always dreamt of writing a novel that has a sound,« says Yuri Andrukhovych, who has spent his life singing, rehearsing with his band and playing countless concerts. His...

Rights sold to:

English world rights (NYRB), Spanish world rights (Acantilado), Brazilian Portuguese rights (Editora Zain), France (Noir sur Blanc), Poland (Czytelnik), Slovak Republic (N Press), Hungary (Helikon), Bulgaria (Paradox), Romania (Trei), Croatia (Fraktura), Slovenia (Mladinska Knjiga)

 

Justice’s Darlings
Year of Publication: 2017
Juri AndruchowytschYear of Publication: 2017

Justice’s Darlings, these are crimes and criminals, real and alleged: Bohdan Stashynsky, for example, a KGB officer and assassin who kills the Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera in his...

Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Acantilado), Poland (Warstwy), Bulgaria (Paradox)

The Secret
Year of Publication: 2007
Juri AndruchowytschYear of Publication: 2007
Rarely do the private and the political intertwine so closely as in this ironic portrait of an author who doesn't trust himself an inch.

Where did you feel happy? Why did the football match make you cry? Whose books would you like to learn by heart? Questions a German journalist poses to a Ukrainian author spending a year in Berlin. Over seven whole days, Egon Alt and...
Angels and Demons of the Periphery
Year of Publication: 2006
Juri AndruchowytschYear of Publication: 2006
»A little bit Sisyphus, a little bit Sacher-Masoch« is how Ukraine’s best-known writer described himself in 2007. The »orange revolution« is a thing of the past, any hopes and dreams are pretty much dead and buried, »let’s start again from the beginning«: with reading Hesse, Benn and Lina Kostenko, early and formative experiences, with the...
Twelve Circles
Year of Publication: 2003
Juri AndruchowytschYear of Publication: 2003
In the 1990s, Karl-Joseph Zumbrunnen, an Austrian photographer with Galician roots, travels repeatedly through the Ukraine. The birth pangs of this new state, the incongruous mixture of brutally...
Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Acantilado), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Del Vecchio), Norway (Cappelen Damm), Slovenia (Cankarjeva)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (Spuyten Duyvil), Hungary (Gondolat), Bulgaria (Paradox), Romania (RAO), Lithuania (Lithuanian Writers), Croatia (Fraktura), Serbia (Filip Visnjic)

My Europe
Year of Publication: 2000
Juri Andruchowytsch, Andrzej StasiukYear of Publication: 2000
In these »two essays on the strangest part of the world«, Yuri Andrukhovych and Andrzej Stasiuk offer a stereoscopic portrait of central Europe. On foot and by car, they travelled...
Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Acantilado), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (print edition Mimesis / digital edition GoWare), Hungary (Kijarat), Bulgaria (Lektura), Romania (Polirom)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Czech Republic (Periplum), Croatia (Fraktura)

The Moscoviad
Year of Publication: 2000
Juri AndruchowytschYear of Publication: 2000
The Moscoviad, Andrukhovych’s most successful book, translated into many languages, was written in Spring 1992 on the banks of Lake Starnberg outside Munich – and is surprisingly...
Rights sold to:

Spanish world rights (Acantilado), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Besa), Sweden (Ersatz), Norway (Cappelen Damm), Poland (Czarne), Lithuania (Hieronymus), Croatia (Fraktura), Slovenia (Cankarjeva), Greece (World Books), Israel (Nine Lives Press), Ethiopia/Amharic (Hohe Publisher)

Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: USA (Spuyten Duyvil), Russia (New Literary Review), Czech Republic (FRA), Slovakia (Kalligram), Hungary (Gondolat), Bulgaria (Paradox), Romania (Allfa), Macedonia (Makedonska Rech), Belarus (ARCHE), Georgia (Sulakauri)

My Final Territory
Year of Publication: 1999
Juri AndruchowytschYear of Publication: 1999
»Yuri Andrukhovych is one of Ukraine’s preeminent authors and cultural commentators. In recognition of his literary writings and his role as public intellectual he has received numerous...
Rights sold to:

English world rights (University of Toronto Press), Spanish world rights (Acantilado), Hungary (Racio), Serbia (Kulturni Centar Novi Sad)

Perverzion
Year of Publication: 1996
Juri AndruchowytschYear of Publication: 1996

The godchild of Rabelais and Bakhtin, Bulgakov and Esterházy, it is a whirligig of forms, styles, and apocryphal traditions – an adventure for readers who view life not as...

Rights sold to:

USA (Northwestern UP), Spain (Acantilado), Russia (NLO), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Del Vecchio), Finland (Loki Kirjat), Poland (Czarne), Bulgaria (Paradox), Serbia (Clio)


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