2023 — Volume XVII — numbers 1 & 2 | Add to Cart
This double issue for 2023 launches the second series of the Mundus Artium journal, marking the first publication since the late 1980s of our press’s world literature periodical, founded in 1967 under the dynamic editorial vision of Rainer Schulte. Recalling the indispensible part that the original journal played in the international literary world, the issue outlines and embodies the journal’s current foundation on ideals of friendship, a thoughtful Republic of Letters, and the beautiful in form and idea.
Biographical and philosophical essays introduce the journal’s leadership, including president Frederick Turner and director Dr. Gjekë Marinaj. Writers featured in the issue include Tatyana Apraksina (Babel Prize winner, 2023), Anuradha Bhattacharyya, Chien Jui-Ling (Nuria Chien), Choi Dongho (Gjenima Prize winner, 2021), Đorđe Despić, K. V. Dominic, Vera Horvat, Lin Shing-Ben, Gerry Loose, James Manteith, Gjekë Marinaj, Alisher Navai, Steve Ostovich, Obren Ristic, Emira Tufo, Frederick Turner, Sue Zhu and Preç Zogaj. Contributing translators include Kooseul Kim, Yi-Ti Lin, Lazar Macura, Kosimboy Mamurov, Gjekë Marinaj, George Onsy, Ivana Pantelić, Darcy Paquet, Danijela Trajković and Wen Xin Jiao.
In keeping with our openness to literature from the whole world, the issue’s poetry and prose include both contemporary and classic authors, and range in origin from the farther reaches of Europe—the Balkans, Russia and Scotland–to India, Uzbekistan, South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand’s Chinese community, and the United States. The issue’s poetry—at the heart of Mundus Artium’s mission of providing a place of refuge for the truth—ranges from postmodern formats to reengagements with older verse forms. And in the light of our editorial priorities, multidisciplinary religious and scientific thought appears in the issue in tandem with new and revisited work in the humanities.
The relaunch issue introduces the 2023 winners of the literary prizes sponsored by Mundus Artium and Mundus Artium Press, including Gjenima Prize winner Angela De Leo (Italy), Babel Prize winner Tatyana Apraksina (Russia), Frederick Turner Prize winner Mai Văn Phấn (Vietnam) and Mundus Artium Prize winner Alex Pausides (Cuba).
We also present reviews of two Mundus Artium Press poetry titles, Lost Alleys by Kooseul Kim (2020) and The traces of soul by Rosalba Fantastico di Kastron (2019; Babel Prize, 2021), as well as an archival interview with the novelist Olga Slavnikova (Gjenima Prize, 2007).
The journal’s special section for gifted writers under nineteen years of age features poetry by Alexia Maria Dragomir (Romania) and Hristina Mrša (Republic of Srpska).
This issue’s “Nostalgia” section, which republishes articles of philosophical, scientific, ethical or critical interest to the Mundus Artium project, features reflections on modernism in a Morse Peckham essay that debuted in our first issue in the 1960s.