 | |
 | |
| Location | 85 E. 4th Street, East Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 40°43′36″N73°59′24″W / 40.726580°N 73.989923°W |
| Type | Bar |
| Opened | 1993 |
| Website | |
| Official website | |
KGB is a Soviet era-themed ("Communist chic" [1] ) bar located in the East Village of New York City at 85 E. 4th Street, New York, New York 10003.
Before its present incarnation, the building had been the Palm Casino, a speakeasy controlled by Lucky Luciano. From 1948 to 1988 it was a private social club for communists and socialists. [2] On the bar's walls are "Stalinist woodcuts, World War II posters, a picture of Valentina V. Tereshkova, hammer-and-sickle flags and the odd Lenin bust and balalaika." [3] [4]
Inspired by the Soviet-era memorabilia stored in the building, [5] KGB Bar opened in 1993, [6] and became one of the most popular book-reading venues in New York City. [2] Popular authors read here pro bono on Sunday evenings (fiction), Monday evenings (poetry), and most Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. [7] KGB has been named best literary venue in New York City by New York magazine[ citation needed ], The Village Voice [ citation needed ], and others. [3]
The bar hosts several regular reading series which include:
The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The National Book Awards were established in 1936 by the American Booksellers Association, abandoned during World War II, and re-established by three book industry organizations in 1950. Non-U.S. authors and publishers were eligible for the pre-war awards. Since then they are presented to U.S. authors for books published in the United States roughly during the award year.
The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation is a three-volume non-fiction series written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident. It was first published in 1973 by the Parisian publisher YMCA-Press, and it was translated into English and French the following year. It explores a vision of life in what is often known as the Gulag, the Soviet labour camp system. Solzhenitsyn constructed his highly detailed narrative from various sources including reports, interviews, statements, diaries, legal documents, and his own experience as a Gulag prisoner.
Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia, its émigrés, and to Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Early Middle Ages when Old Church Slavonic was introduced as a liturgical language and became used as a literary language. By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in importance, and from the early 1830s, Russian literature underwent an astounding "Golden Age" in poetry, prose and drama. The Romantic movement contributed to a flowering of literary talent: poet Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore. Mikhail Lermontov was one of the most important poets and novelists. Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev wrote masterful short stories and novels. Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy became internationally renowned. Other important figures were Ivan Goncharov, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin and Nikolai Leskov. In the second half of the century Anton Chekhov excelled in short stories and became a leading dramatist. The beginning of the 20th century is sometimes called the Silver Age of Russian poetry. The poets most often associated with the "Silver Age" are Konstantin Balmont, Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok, Anna Akhmatova, Nikolay Gumilyov, Sergei Yesenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Marina Tsvetaeva. This era produced some first-rate novelists and short-story writers, such as Aleksandr Kuprin and Nobel Prize winners Ivan Bunin, Leonid Andreyev, Fyodor Sologub, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Alexander Belyaev, Andrei Bely and Maxim Gorky.
Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Jr. was an American author and journalist widely known for his association with New Journalism, a style of news writing and journalism developed in the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated literary techniques. Much of Wolfe's work was satirical and centred on the counterculture of the 1960s and issues related to class, social status, and the lifestyles of the economic and intellectual elites of New York City.
Cedric Henning Belfrage was an English film critic, journalist, writer and political activist. He is best remembered as a co-founder of the radical US weekly National Guardian. Later Belfrage was referenced as a Soviet agent in the US intelligence Venona project, although it appears he had been working for British Security Co-ordination as a double agent.
David Lehman is an American poet, non-fiction writer, and literary critic, and the founder and series editor for The Best American Poetry. He was a writer and freelance journalist for fifteen years, writing for such publications as Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. In 2006, Lehman served as Editor for the new Oxford Book of American Poetry. He taught and was the Poetry Coordinator at The New School in New York City until May 2018.
Eileen Myles is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Novelist Dennis Cooper has described Myles as "one of the savviest and most restless intellects in contemporary literature." The Boston Globe described them as "that rare creature, a rock star of poetry." In 2012, Myles received a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete Afterglow, which gives both a real and fantastic account of a dog's life. Myles uses they/them pronouns.
Spaceland was an alternative rock/indie rock nightclub in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, that existed between 1995 and 2011. The club was formerly a popular disco to young locals called Dreams of LA. Spaceland's owner announced the end of the venue in late 2010, with the space continuing to operate under the new name The Satellite.
Huw Meredydd Stephens is a Welsh radio and television presenter, currently broadcasting on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 6 Music.
Moscow 2042 is a 1986 satirical novel by Vladimir Voinovich. In this book, the alter ego of the author travels to the future, where he sees how communism has been successfully built in the single city of Moscow. It soon becomes clear that the political system in the country is not a utopia and that Russia is ruled by the "Communist Party of State Security" which combines the KGB, the Communist Party, and the Russian Orthodox Church.
Valery Yakovlevich Tarsis was a Ukrainian writer, literary critic, and translator. He was highly critical of the communist regime.
Amanda Stern is an American writer and literary event organiser. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in, among other places, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Filmmaker, The Believer, Post Road, St. Ann's Review, Salt Hill, Hayden's Ferry Review, Five Chapters and Spinning Jenny - and her debut novel, The Long Haul ISBN 1932360069, was well-received
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fantasy world and usually inspired by mythology or folklore. The term "fantasy" can also be used to describe a "work of this genre", usually literary.
PEN Center USA was a branch of PEN, an international literary and human rights organization. It was one of two PEN International Centers in the United States, the other being the PEN America in New York City. On March 1, 2018, PEN Center USA unified under the PEN America umbrella as the PEN America Los Angeles office. PEN Center USA was founded in 1943 and incorporated as a nonprofit association in 1981. Much of PEN Center USA's programming continues out of the PEN America Los Angeles office, including the Emerging Voices Fellowship, PEN In the Community writing residencies and guest speaker program, and the PEN Presents conversation series.
Larry Dark has been the director of The Story Prize—a U.S. book award for short story collections—since its inception in 2004. He served as series editor of the O. Henry Awards for the 1997–2002 volumes. He has also compiled, edited, and introduced four other literary anthologies.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Mayakovsky Square in Moscow played an important role as a gathering place for unofficial poetry readings, and subsequently for expressing cultural and political dissent in the post-Stalin era.
Matthew Kressel is a multiple Nebula, World Fantasy Award, and Eugie Award nominated author and coder. His short stories have been published in Reactor, io9, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Apex Magazine, and many other magazines and anthologies. His first novel King of Shards was released in 2015.
Pennycross Stadium was a greyhound racing and speedway stadium in north Plymouth, Devon.
American Book Review is a literary journal operating out of the University of Houston-Victoria. Their mission statement is to "specialize in reviews of frequently neglected published works of fiction, poetry, and literary and cultural criticism from small, regional, university, ethnic, avant-garde, and women's presses."
Jüri Lina is an Estonian journalist, writer, paranormal investigator, music producer, radio host, film director and ufologist.