About Us

The Continental Literary Magazine is a quarterly English-language literary magazine launched by the Petőfi Cultural Agency. The magazine focuses on the literature of Central Europe with the aim of creating a platform for contemporary Hungarian and Central European fiction writers to stake out their place in the English-reading world and, in particular, the North American literary market.

Alongside English translations of works by some of the most promising budding writers from Central Europe, the magazine also includes works by authors of fiction from the region who have already achieved world renown and established themselves as major writers in English translation. The English translations of works written in the languages of the region are done by a team of experienced translators who work in close collaboration with the authors. The magazine thus helps to foster an engaging transatlantic discourse which helps Central Europe occupy a prominent place on the stage of contemporary world literature. It is a shared platform providing a space for Central and Eastern European literature to gather ground abroad, and to form a partnership with English literature.

The Continental Literary Magazine, which offers readers a rich array of articles and writings on various themes from issue to issue, is available all across the United States at Barnes&Noble and Books-a-Million (BAM!) bookstores. Furthermore copies can be bought from WHSmith bookstores across the United Kingdom. Some of these issues are targeted at literary opinion makers and people who play active roles in defining and redefining the canon, while the rest are available in major bookstores in Central Europe as well.

The magazine aspires to emerge as a familiar and influential player alongside traditional and established American literary magazines with familiar names and a large subscriber base, such as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, The Nonconformist, and The Atlantic.