Organized by Alena Aissing (Librarian/Curator for the Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies at UCLA Library) and Igor Plishchiko, Ph.D. (Professor and Chair of the UCLA Department of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Languages and Cultures)
The Jewish-Czech author Martin Vopěnka is one of the leading voices in world literature, "reminiscent of both Kafka and Kundera" (Choice). Martin’s 1989 debut Kameny z hor (Rocks from the Mountains) recorded memories and emotions from a journey across the Romanian Carpathians. His novels and travel writing have continued to deliver a deep and intense exploration of our modern world. In 2016 his Nová Planeta (New Planet) won the country’s premier Golden Ribbon Award. Martin heads the Association of Czech Booksellers and Publishers and owns Práh publishing house.
Martin Goodman’s debut novel On Bended Knees, shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, heralded a major theme of his writing: the aftermath of wars. His nonfiction picked up the theme when his biography of the scientist who worked to counter WW1 gas attacks, Suffer & Survive, won First Prize, Basis of Medicine in the BMA Book Awards. In Client Earth, which won the Jury’s Choice Business Book of the Year Award 2018, and the Green Book Award from Santa Monica Libraries, he told the story of ecolawyers who battle to rescue the planet from human destruction. He is an Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Hull.