The Prague Post Online: Tempo: Reviving the <i>Revue</i>

October 7th, 2008

Endowment Fund Business Listings ONLINE Reservations Classifieds Subscriptions

Reviving the Revue

There's new life in a local literary journal

By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 26th, 2007 issue

Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST

Building on the legacy of seven solid volumes, Max Munson, Stephan Delbos and Will Pritts are breathing new life into The Prague Revue.

The Prague Revue

Deadline for submissions is Oct. 31. E-mail manuscripts to
info@thepraguerevue.com or check
www.thepraguerevue.com for more information.

Prague has never lived up to the literary promise that lured so many English-speaking expats here during the ’90s. It’s been more of a left turn than the Left Bank, with no great novels, publications coming and going like autumn leaves, and most of the ideas and dreams that seemed so grand in late-night drinking sessions fading in the light of day.

But it’s a new century, with promising young talent like Clare Wigfall (see the accompanying story) emerging and, soon, the rebirth of one of the city’s more ambitious literary journals: The Prague Revue, which had an inspired five-year run in the late ’90s.

“We never officially closed it down,” says Max Munson, one of the founders of the Revue. “We just put it on hiatus.”

Munson is best-known as the proprietor of Jáma, a popular New Town pub and restaurant. Like a lot of people who came to Prague in the early ’90s, he got caught up in the romantic spirit of the readings that were so popular among the expat crowd (and were skewered so effectively in Gary Shteyngart’s The Russian Debutante’s Handbook). From there it seemed a short and easy step to publishing the work and lighting a literary bonfire. But reality quickly set in.

“We all thought we were in the thick of a literary movement, so we stuck our necks out and said we would publish something,” Munson recalls. “But I don’t think anything in that first issue came from Prague — there was nothing strong enough. We had to contact every writer we knew, not only here but internationally.”

A core group of five editors — Munson, Jason Penazzi-Russell, Todd Morimoto, Will Pritts and David Laszlo Conhaim — managed to get out a Jáma Revue (some of the early readings were held at Jáma) in the summer of ’95, followed by six issues of The Prague Revue. The journals offered an eclectic mix of essays, stories and poetry by writers known and unknown, with some art and photography sprinkled in. Publication was sporadic — basically, whenever the editors got enough money and material together. Funding was the same way, cobbled together with donations from sponsors, supporters, culture institutes, occasional ads and money that the editors themselves put up.

But the Revue looked professional and boasted names like Ivan Klíma and Arnošt Lustig. It also extended its reach, living up to its billing as “Bohemia’s journal of international literature” by featuring writers from countries such as Australia and Slovenia. Then it ran out of gas.

“Some of the editors moved on to other countries,” Munson says. “That made it difficult to sit and discuss submissions over a couple bottles of wine.”

With the advent of a wired world, however, geography is no longer an issue. So when Douglas Dix, an associate professor at Anglo-American College, e-mailed Munson earlier this year and said, “I have an ideal managing editor for you,” his latent literary instincts snapped back into gear. He contacted the old editors and proposed reviving the journal. “It took about 12 minutes for everybody to agree we should,” Munson says.

The Revue’s new managing editor is Stephan Delbos, a Providence College graduate who first came to Prague to study in 2003 and is back now teaching English and working on an MFA in poetry. Despite being a relative newcomer to the expat literary scene, he has no illusions about Prague’s crash-and-burn history.

“A lot of people thought all they had to do was come to Prague with empty notebooks and a couple volumes of Hemingway, and the rest would be history,” Delbos says. “But it never happened.”

Still, that doesn’t dampen his enthusiasm for the Revue’s future. Already, he estimates he has about half the material needed for a new volume. “It’s taken off quickly,” he says. “It seems like people were waiting for it.”

The contents so far include poetry by Stephen Cushman and Alicia Ostriker, essays on poet Ivan Blatný and writer Paul Leppin, a variety of pieces by expat writers in Prague and photographs by European émigrés who did not find the American dream in New York City.

“We didn’t plan on a theme, but that’s already a thread running through this issue — the broken American dream,” says Munson.

“It’s emerged organically,” adds Delbos. “Basically what we’re interested in is strong, well-crafted literature.”

“The only qualifier is quality,” Munson says.

The new volume (No. 8, preserving the numeric continuity) is scheduled for publication later this year. Munson is reluctant to be more specific, knowing how deadlines handcuffed him in the past. The plan is to do an initial print run of 1,000 copies and sell them primarily in Prague’s English-language bookstores. The size and price should be roughly the same as it was before, about 150 pages for 150 Kč ($8). The six editors will fund the operation until the Revue can get on its feet financially — not an impossible task, as the last two issues managed to break even.

Submissions have come from as far away as Thailand, and are still being accepted. The final cut is determined by a vote of all the editors, based on a painstaking point system that has led to some lively virtual discussions. But both Delbos and Munson say they’re excited by the volume and quality of what they’ve received so far.

“What Prague has going for it is the sheer diversity of work,” Delbos says. “I think there were some good writers here in the past, but there was a lot of hype. Maybe now, without the spotlight shining so brightly, something good can happen.”

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com

Be the first to add a comment!

Most e-mailed articles
A commitment to quality Panel promotes foreign adoption Ring road project divides Prague officials

Related articles
'60s survivor Welcome noise in short-story debut by a local author The literary world pays a visit to Prague Reviving a lost literary scene Assuming the worst

Most visited in Business Listings

The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.