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opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review
21 April 2025
- Monday
French-American Foundation Translation Prize finalists | Ellmann's Joyce review
French-American Foundation Translation Prize finalists
They announced the finalists for this year's French-American Foundation Translation Prize earlier this month; I had hoped they'd post the information at their site, but they still haven't gotten around to it .....
The only title under review at the complete review is one of the Non-Fiction finalists, Stéphanie Boulard and Timothy Lavenz's translation of Pascal Quignard's The Answer to Lord Chandos.
The winners will be announced next month.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Ellmann's Joyce review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of The Biography of a Masterpiece and its Maker by Zachary Leader Ellmann's Joyce, one of the year's most eagerly-anticipated literary biographies, coming from Harvard University Press.
(And, yes, that would be Richard Ellmann and his James Joyce.)
Not much review-coverage of this one yet (publication date is 6 May), but it will be getting a lot.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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20 April 2025
- Sunday
Murata Sayaka profile | More from the (American) Naval Academy
Murata Sayaka profile
With Murata Sayaka's Vanishing World now out in English, Lisa Allardice has a profile with her at The Guardian, in ‘Marriage feels like a hostage situation, and motherhood a curse’: Japanese author Sayaka Murata.
Among Murata's admissions:
I’ve been told by my doctor not to talk about this too much, but ever since I was a child, I’ve had 30 or 40 imaginary friends who live on a different star or planet with whom I have shared love and sexual experiences.
Well, who hasn't ?
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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More from the (American) Naval Academy
I've mentioned the recent ridiculous pulling-of-books from the Naval Academy library several times -- most recently here -- but just banning books is apparently not enough for them; as Natasha Bertrand now reports at CNN, US Naval Academy canceled author’s lecture that would have criticized book bans, as:
The US Naval Academy canceled a lecture that author Ryan Holiday was scheduled to give to students there last week after he refused to remove slides from his planned presentation that criticized the academy’s decision to remove nearly 400 books from its main library.
Holiday addresses what happened in an op-ed in The New York Times, The Naval Academy Canceled My Lecture on Wisdom (presumably paywalled), explaining:
Roughly an hour before my talk was to begin, I received a call: Would I refrain from any mention in my remarks of the recent removal of 381 supposedly controversial books from the Nimitz library on campus ?
My slides had been sent up the chain of command at the school, which was now, as it was explained to me, extremely worried about reprisals if my talk appeared to flout Executive Order 14151 (“Ending Radical and Wasteful Government D.E.I. Programs and Preferencing.”)
He also points out:
The decision by the academy’s leaders to not protest the original order -- which I believe flies in the face of basic academic freedoms and common sense -- has put them in the now even stickier position of trying to suppress criticism of that decision.
Sticky, indeed.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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19 April 2025
- Saturday
Premio Formentor | CWA Daggers longlists
Premio Formentor
I missed this a couple of weeks ago, but they've announced the winner of this year's Premio Formentor de las Letras and it is Hélène Cixous.
This prize had a good run in the 1960s before going dormant; it was revived in 2011 -- and has a good list of winners since as well, with Krasznahorkai László taking the prize last year.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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CWA Daggers longlists
The Crime Writers' Association has announced the longlists for this year's Dagger-awards -- though, alas, not conveniently listing them all in one simple press release; instead, click through (if you have the patience ....) the different categories here.
The only title under review at the complete review (I think; to be honest, I couldn't be bothered clicking through all the different categories ...) is in the Dagger for Crime Fiction in Translation-category -- Otani Akira's The Night of Baba Yaga.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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18 April 2025
- Friday
New Asymptote | Anton Wildgans Preis | Baifang Schell shortlists
New Asymptote
The April issue of Asymptote is now out, with a 'Korean Literature Feature' and four interviews, among much else.
Lots of good stuff, enough to keep you covered for the weekend.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Anton Wildgans Preis
The Vereinigung der Österreichischen Industrie has announced the winner of this year's Anton Wildgans Prize, a leading Austrian author prize that they've been handing out since 1962, and it is The Weather Fifteen Years Ago-author Wolf Haas.
This has gone to pretty much every leading Austrian author over the years -- though 1984-winner Peter Handke turned it down (and they cancelled the ceremony (though not the award) rather than have 1967-winner Thomas Bernhard give his acceptance speech (you can find it in his My Prizes)).
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Baifang Schell shortlists
They've announced the shortlist for the Baifang Schell Book Prize Award for Outstanding Translated Literature from Chinese Language; they'd previously announced the shortlist for the Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Book on China or the Sinophone World.
Only one of the shortlisted titles is under review at the complete review: Taiwan Travelogue, by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ.
The winners will be announced next month.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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17 April 2025
- Thursday
PEN Presents shortlists | The King of a Rainy Country review
PEN Presents shortlists
The new -- and somewhat confusingly named -- PEN Presents x International Booker Prize has announced its shortlist, twelve titles translated from nine languages; six projects will be selected as winners.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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The King of a Rainy Country review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Brigid Brophy's The King of a Rainy Country, which is being re-issued by McNally Editions.
Virago revived this in 1990, and The Coelacanth Press had a go in 2012; it always gets (renewed) attention, and is certainly good to see in print (yet) again.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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16 April 2025
- Wednesday
Ottaway Award | 2025 Guggenheim Fellows
Walter Scott Prize shortlist | Bora Chung profile
Ottaway Award
Words without Borders has an Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature recognizing: "individuals who have taken extraordinary steps to advance international literature in English translation" and while there's no word at the official site yet, apparently: Christopher Merrill wins the 2025 Ottaway Award.
The director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa is certainly a deserving winner.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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2025 Guggenheim Fellows
They've announced this year's Guggenheim Fellows, 198 selected from: "a pool of nearly 3,500 applicants".
Among the winners who write fiction are: Sheila Heti, Miranda July, Nicole Krauss, Katie Kitamura, Jonathan Lethem, and Nell Zink.
Only one fellow is listed as a translator -- Paul Reitter.
Unfortunately, they don't say what projects the fellowships were awarded for.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Walter Scott Prize shortlist
They've announced the shortlist for this year's Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
The only title under review at the complete review is Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon.
The winner will be announced 12 June.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Bora Chung profile
In The Korea Times Park Han-sol profiles the author, in: Bora Chung shows us what sci-fi with its fists raised looks like.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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15 April 2025
- Tuesday
Glauser | The LA Times' 30-best-of-the-last-30-years
The Millions' 'Great Spring Book Preview'
Glauser
The German Syndiakat -- the 'Association for German-Language Crime Fiction' -- has announced the winners of this year's Glauser, a leading German-language mystery prize, with Till Raether's Danowski: Sturmkehre -- the seventh in his Danowsji-series -- winning the novel-category; see also the Rowohlt publicity page.
A nice touch: the prize-winner doesn't get a check but rather gets the €5,000 prize-money in cash -- in non-sequentially numbered bills .....
448 (!) titles competed in the novel category alone.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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The LA Times' 30-best-of-the-last-30-years
The Los Angeles Times is celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of its 'Festival of Books', including by putting together 30-best-of-the-last-30-years books lists, in both fiction and non-fiction (sort of paywalled ?).
None of the non-fiction titles are under review at the complete review -- where Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns was the top choice.
Several of the fiction titles are under review, including Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch -- ridiculously rated as the fourth-best -- and the top choice, Roberto Bolaño's 2666.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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The Millions' 'Great Spring Book Preview'
The Millions has its The Great Spring 2025 Book Preview. with: "just over 100 titles" -- far from everything of interest that is appearing, but at least an overview of many of the major releases.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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14 April 2025
- Monday
Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025) | The Remembered Soldier review
Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025)
Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa has passed away; see, for example, The New York Times' obituary (presumably paywalled) or the one in The Guardian.
Quite a few of his works are under review at the complete review:
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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The Remembered Soldier review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Anjet Daanje's The Remembered Soldier, due out shortly in English.
I recently mentioned a NRC/De Standaard list of the top 50 Dutch-language books of the twenty-first-century, and a novel by Daanje (coming out in English translation next year) was the top choice, with this one also making the list, at number 14.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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13 April 2025
- Sunday
Katie Kitamura profile | The Amateur - the movie
Katie Kitamura profile
At The Guardian Sophie McBain has a profile of Novelist Katie Kitamura: ‘As Trump tries to take away everything I love, it’s never been clearer that writing matters’.
Kitamura's novel Audition is just out; see the publicity pages from Riverhead Books and Fern Press, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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The Amateur - the movie
A new movie version adaptation (a rather free one, from the sounds of it) of Robert Littell's The Amateur is now out -- see the 20th Century Studios publicity page --; see now also some of the early reviews:
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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12 April 2025
- Saturday
Prix Hors Concours longlist | Peter Lovesey (1936-2025)
Prix Hors Concours longlist
They've announced the very long longlist for this year's prix Hors Concours, a French award for a book published by an independent press; not at the official site, last I checked, but see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
Forty titles !
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Peter Lovesey (1936-2025)
British mystery author Peter Lovesey has passed away; see, for example, the Soho Press report.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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11 April 2025
- Friday
Europese Literatuurprijs longlist | PEN America Literary Awards finalists
Paul Dry Q & A | Salome production | The Arsonist review
Europese Literatuurprijs longlist
They've announced the longlist for this year's Europese Literatuurprijs, a Dutch prize for the best European novel translated into Dutch -- twelve titles, including Samantha Harvey's Orbit.
The only title under review at the complete review is Daniel Kehlmann's The Director.
The shortlist will be announced 24 June.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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PEN America Literary Awards finalists
They've announced the finalists for this year's PEN America Literary Awards.
The only title under review is in the PEN Translation Prize-category -- Antonia Lloyd-Jones' translation of The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk.
The winners will be announced 8 May.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Paul Dry Q & A
Billy Penn at WHYY Penn has a Q & A with Paul Dry of Paul Dry Books, in ‘Every now and then, one thrives wonderfully’.
Several Paul Dry books are under review at the complete review, including: The Homeless by Stefan Żeromski and Stone Tablets by Wojciech Żukrowski
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Salome production
It's the Richard Strauss opera that is more frequently performed, but good to see there's also the occasional stage-production of Wilde's play -- with one premiering today, at the Imago Theatre in Portland, Oregon, running through the 27th; see their publicity page.
See also Drew Pisarra explaining How (and why) I updated Oscar Wilde’s ‘Salome’ for Imago Theatre, at Oregon Artswatch.
He explains:
My goal was to convert Wilde’s tragic pageant into something more like a Strindbergian chamber piece.
To distill. To intensify.
To collaborate with the dead, albeit with invisible ink.
It proved to be an invigorating experiment and not just a dramaturgical exercise.
And see, of course, also my novel, Salome in Graz .....
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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The Arsonist review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Egon Hostovský's prize-winning 1935 novel, The Arsonist, which Twisted Spoon Press is re-issuing.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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10 April 2025
- Thursday
Stella Prize shortlist | Deepa Bhasthi Q & A | New Pynchon novel coming
Stella Prize shortlist
They've announced the shortlist for this year's Stella Prize -- "celebrating Australian women's writing" --, though not ideally at the official site -- but see, for example, the report at Books + Publishing.
The winner will be announced 23 May.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Deepa Bhasthi Q & A
At Scroll.in Sayari Debnath has a Q & A with the translator of Banu Mushtaq's novel, in ‘With an accent’: How Deepa Bhasthi translated International Booker Prize-shortlisted ‘Heart Lamp’.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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New Pynchon novel coming
As widely noted, a new novel by Thomas Pynchon is due out 7 October; see the Penguin Press publicity page, or pre-order your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.
Only two Pynchon novels are under review at the complete review -- Against the Day and Inherent Vice -- but I've read them all and am looking forward to this one.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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9 April 2025
- Wednesday
International Booker Prize shortlist
Spring Académie Goncourt prize shortlists | Sheikh Zayed Book Awards
International Booker Prize shortlist
They've announced the six-title shortlist for this year's International Booker Prize:
(I have a copy of Heart Lamp (and an e- (i.e. basically unreadable) copy of A Leopard-Skin Hat), and should get to that Banu Mushtaq collection.)
The winner will be announced on 20 May.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Spring Académie Goncourt prize shortlists
The Académie Goncourt has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the shortlists for its three spring-prizes -- for first novel, stories, and biography.
The winner will be announced 6 May.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Sheikh Zayed Book Awards
They've announced the winners of this year's Sheikh Zayed Book Awards -- "One of the Arab World's most prestigious and well-funded prizes".
'Well-funded' is right -- category winners such as هند أو أجمل امرأة في العالم by Hoda Barakat (see the Dar Al Adab publicity page) in the literature category -- take home AED 750,000 (over US$200,000) -- and 'Cultural Personality of the Year'-winner Murakami Haruki gets an AED 1 million payday.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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8 April 2025
- Tuesday
Reading in ... the US | A new Salome !
Reading in ... the US
The good news is that Americans ... want to read ?
Yes, at npr Andrew Limbong reports that Most Americans want to read more books. We just don't.
Which is ... one way of looking at things ?
The ipsos page on the same poll puts it more bluntly: Most Americans read, but it's not our priority leisure activity.
Only 51 per cent of respondents reported having read a book in the past month .....
Among their other findings: "women's tastes tend to vary more than men, who 'coalesce around nonfiction or historical nonfiction'".
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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A new Salome !
My recent novel, Salome in Graz, covers and considers many, many Salome-stories and variations, with much of the attention inevitably on the Oscar Wilde play -- especially in its various translations -- and then the Richard Strauss opera (with, of course, some mention of Strauss' own second variation on it, as well as Antoine Mariotte's opera-version, both libretti hewing to the original French version of the play) -- but now there's a new version out which my protagonists would surely have been very intrigued by: Gerald Barry -- surely one of the most interesting (opera-)composers currently working -- has composed a new Salome-opera, with his libretto also closely based on the Wilde play -- in three languages, no less (parts are sung in English, German, and French).
Barry's Salome has now premiered, at the Theater Magdeburg -- see their publicity page --, with Alison Scherzer in the title role and Jérôme Kuhn conducting.
It sounds ... interesting.
At Opera Now Hugo Shirley has a review, reporting that:
Barry’s Salome approaches the subject matter from a radically new angle – so radical that any comparison with a certain other famous Salome opera is rendered all but superfluous.
Out of Wilde’s words, luxuriating in tantalizing language and imagery, Barry creates his own libretto in English, French and German, into which he throws other additional text from Wilde, Beethoven and elsewhere.
And he finds:
Voices are pushed to their extremes, the delivery bordering on the mechanic.
Instead of dancing, Salome takes dictation, tapping away on a typewriter before breaking out into repeated “dee-dee-dees”.
Her demand for the “the head” is almost an afterthought, after which matters generally descend into a precipitous, dizzying ride towards an abrupt close.
Typing instead of dancing !
And apparently no seven veils (the protagonist of my novel's least favorite part of the Strauss opera ...):
See also a (German) review, by Lena Schubert from Tag24, as well as the trailer on YouTube.
You can catch the remaining performances in Magdeburg -- on Monday, 21 April, as well as 4 and 10 May -- or then the American premiere in Los Angeles, 24 March 2026; see the LA Phil publicity page.
Schott has the score -- see their publicity page -- and, wonderfully, you can peruse it in its entirety here; my Salome in Graz's main disputant, Marguerite, is no doubt reading it closely already, curious as to what Barry has made of Wilde's Salome and what words he chose .....
[I feel rather self-serving/silly *recommending* my novel, but if you're interested: in the Salome-story (or rather: the many different variations on it) -- in particular the Wilde play and the Strauss opera --; in questions/issues of translation (in the broadest (and narrowest ...) senses); and in story-telling you might (dare I say: should) find it worth your while .....]
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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7 April 2025
- Monday
OCM Bocas Prize category winners | Vanishing World review
OCM Bocas Prize category winners
They've announced the three category winners -- in fiction, non, and poetry -- of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
These three now compete for the overall prize that will be announced 3 May.
The fiction category winner is Village Weavers by Miriam J.A. Chancy; see also the Tin House publicity page.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Vanishing World review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Murata Sayaka's 2015 novel Vanishing World, now out in English, from Grove Press in the US and Granta Books in the UK.
Murata's 世界99 -- serialized over the past few years -- just came out in Japan, in two volumes, a much bigger work; see, for example, the Shueisha publicity page; I hope that makes into translation at some point as well, I'm curious to see what she does with (so much) more space at her disposal.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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6 April 2025
- Sunday
Shashi Deshpande on Jane Austen | Narrative lesson of 1925
26 years of the Complete Review
Shashi Deshpande on Jane Austen
At Scroll.in they have Jane Austen at 250: Shashi Deshpande on the ‘perfect artist’ who reinvented the novel.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Narrative lesson of 1925
At El País Eduardo Lago considers The American cultural boom a century on: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos and Louis Armstrong -- finding that:
It is extremely interesting that three of the supposedly four “great American novels” of 1925 are of archeological interest today.
Lago finds e.g. re. Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy:
Contemporary critics affirmed that it was the worst written American novel of all time, but the strength with which Dreiser narrates the nuances of the tragedy compensates for the stylistic defects, otherwise undeniable. The novel is unreadable today.
Even more unreadable, if possible, is The Making of Americans
And, for good measure:
Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos, who Jean Paul Sartre once said was the best American novelist of his time, has not aged well either
Oh, Eduardo, Eduardo .....
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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26 years of the Complete Review
With all the *excitement* this week, of the announcement of the American president's ridiculous new policy of ill-conceived so-called reciprocal tariffs and the world economies' and markets' reactions to it (on top of the seemingly endless litany of other nonsense this guy is 'executive ordering'), it completely slipped my mind that yesterday was the twenty-sixth anniversary of this site: yes, the first reviews were posted at the complete review on 5 April 1999.
Not much to celebrate -- except, I guess, that the site does not and has never received or relied on any form of American federal support, and so should be able to limp on in some (well, basically: this) form regardless of whatever the American government does next.
With near-omnipresent artificial intelligence programs now readily offering readers *reviews* and summaries of pretty much any book out there, I'm not sure the site serves much of a purpose any longer, either -- as suggested also by the fact that interest in (and discoverability of) it continues a long and no longer so slow decline; maybe I should just automate everything as well.
Still, for now my intentions are to continue, pretty much the same as always; we'll see how it goes.
Thanks, in any case, for reading -- or, for you AI bots, scraping -- and I hope you continue to get something out of my efforts.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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5 April 2025
- Saturday
Závada Pál Q & A | HURI unsupported by the NEH
The books removed from the Naval Academy library
Závada Pál Q & A
At hlo Gabriella Nagy has a Q & A with Hungarian author Pál Závada: I have to turn to fiction.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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HURI unsupported by the NEH
As Kate Tsurkan reports in The Kyiv Independent Publishing house of Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute latest target of Trump's federal budget cuts, as the American National Endowment for the Humanities has terminated its support for the excellent HURI publication program.
Several HURI titles are under review at the complete review -- Cassandra and The Length of Days -- and I had hoped to be able to cover more .....
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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The books removed from the Naval Academy library
I recently mentioned that American Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Naval Academy to remove "books featuring 'gender ideology'" and the like from the Nimitz Library to protect impressionable young midship(wo)men from indoctrination .....
They've now released the list (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) of the 381 books they wound up removing.
Einstein stays on the shelves, but Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Mohsin Hamid's The Last White Man, and, for example, Everybody's America: Thomas Pynchon, Race, and the Cultures of Postmodernism (see the Routledge publicity page) made ... the cut.
And obviously titles such as Managing Diversity in the Military: The value of inclusion in a culture of uniformity -- see the Routledge publicity page -- had to go.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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4 April 2025
- Friday
Ondaatje Prize longlist | New Simenon editions in the US | Semishigure review
Ondaatje Prize longlist
The Royal Society of Literature has announced the longlist for its Ondaatje Prize, awarded: "for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place".
The shortlist will be announced 28 April.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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New Simenon editions in the US
Between 2013 and 2020 Penguin (UK) published new translations of the 75 Maigret-novels by Georges Simenon, as well as some of the romans durs; as The Bookseller reported in 2019 Nielsen BookScan reported that these Simenons sold 433,157 books.
Many were also made available in the US market -- with a number of them under review at the complete review, starting with the first Maigret, Pietr the Latvian.
Now Picador is bringing out the whole Maigret-set ou in US editions -- see the first batch -- as, as Sophia Stewart reports at Publishers Weekly, Picador to Reissue More than 100 Novels by Georges Simenon (sort of paywalled ?).
Apparently: "Picador will largely use the translations published by Penguin, though some titles will receive new translations" -- it'll be interesting to see which ones .....
Also of interest: "All titles in the series have announced print runs of 30,000".
Much as I enjoy the Maigrets, the more exiting news is that:
Reissues of 30 of his standalone psychological noirs -- which Simenon himself called romans durs, or “hard novels” -- will follow beginning in winter 2026.
Those are the ones I am really eager to see -- though several are already under review at the site.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Semishigure review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Fujisawa Shuhei's 1988 novel Semishigure, finally available in English, from Honford Star.
This has apparently sold more than a million copies in Japan.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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3 April 2025
- Thursday
Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist
Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist
They've announced the six-title shortlist for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction.
The winner will be announced 12 June.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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