The European Review of Books #05

The European Review of Books is a magazine of culture and ideas in English and in a writer’s own tongue.

Books? Review? Europe? A European Review of Books would sound thrice-doomed. And yet here we are. The ERB is made up of the things you'd expect: fiction, essays, poetry, art, and reviews. It contains stuff about Europe and stuff from Europe. Long-form and short-form. But there are also things inside you might not expect to find: pops of colours, 'pearls' of wisdom, multilingual articles, and pages joined together by perforated edges which need to be (gently) torn open with fingers, giving an altogether new reading experience and allowing you to keep track of your progress through the publication.

Issue Five has questions: How best to lose Eurovision? What is Russia-themed erotica about? And it has destinations, often anguished ones: refugees and guards on the Polish border, Russians in Istanbul, Europe’s noisiest island, early Zionist disillusionment in Palestine, a return to Phnom Penh. Javier Milei literarily considered, Vincent van Gogh’s forgotten friend, Walter Benjamin’s last resort, Hélène Cixous on fiery foundations, philosophy at sea.