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18 and 20 January, 2010. In January 2010, Dalkey Archive Press launches the first in an annual series of volumes to promote European literature. Edited by acclaimed Bosnian novelist Aleksandar Hemon and with a preface by Zadie Smith, Best European Fiction 2010 will give English-language readers throughout the world a window onto what is happening right now in contemporary European fiction. A UK launch event for Best European Fiction 2010 will be held the Southbank Centre on 18 and 20 January 2010.

'At the heart of the project,' writes Hemon in his introduction to the inaugural volume, 'is a profound, non-negotiable need for communication with the world, wherever it may be. The same need is at the heart of the project of literature.'The inaugural anthology will include stories from 35 countries and regions, and will bring together writers already familiar to English-language readers – such as Alasdair Gray, Viktor Pelevin, George Konrad and Julian Rios – with many who have never been published in English before. 'The sole criteria for selection was excellence,' said Dalkey Archive’s Associate Director Martin Riker.

Lithuania is represented by the brilliant writing of Giedra Radvilavičiūtė „The Allure of the Text“, which got to date the most serious attention of the critics.

Vincent Czyz reviews the new anthology for PRI‘s The World and writes: „Falling into the latter two categories is “The Allure of the Text” by Lithuanian Giedra Radvilavičiūtė—all by itself worth the modest price of this book. Like so many of the European offerings, Radvilavičiūtė gives us metafiction, that is, a story either self-consciously about writing, like hers, or, like Fosse’s, one that creates a reality so bizarre it gets its own meta-classification.

Radvilavičiūtė not only lays out five exceptionally sound criteria for a worthy text (Fosse violates her second by being too far removed from experience), she gracefully illustrates them in the story she tells. The fifth and arguably most important also showcases Radvilaviciute’s quiet lyricism:

"A good text is obliged to draw you back to it many times. Just like old parks—in which you can always lose your way—beckon you to go for a stroll in them. But notwithstanding the tangle of trails and the mystical sound of barking dogs echoing in the distance, and despite the pollen mist rising from the flowers, the overgrown ponds, [and] the sky … closing in like a lavender suitcase hiding dangerous things … you forge ahead., sensing that at some precise place, something like a denouement is awaiting you."

Conceptually as elegant as a physics equation, containing stories within stories, highlighting the interplay between text and reality as well as offering flesh-and-blood characters caught up in a layered narrative, “The Allure of the Text” is superbly realized.“

‚Best European Fiction 2010' online from Amazon.

A UK launch event for Best European Fiction 2010 will be held the Southbank Centre in January 2010.

Monday 18 January. AS Byatt, Aleksander Hemon and Tom McCarthy discuss their personal readings of European writers and the inspiration it has had on their own writing.
Southbank Centre, Level 5 Function Room, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Get the tickets to the event here.

Wednesday 20 January. Andrej Blatnik, Jon Fosse and Christine Montalbetti bring stories from Slovenia, Norway and France to Southbank Centre, marking the publication of a new anthology Best European Fiction 2010, published by Dalkey Archive.
Southbank Centre, Level 5 Function Room, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. Get tickets to the event here.