opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 July 2008

1 July: Women in Yemeni fiction | Books in China | Banquet of Lies review
2 July: July Open Letters Monthly | Perec-related exhibit | Marcel Beyer gets Joseph-Breitbach-Prize
3 July: Korean translations | July Words without Borders | Canadian canon ? | Lost Book Club | The Lost Daughter review
4 July: Szentkuthy Miklós profile | Mansarda review ... | ... and an example of all the things to avoid when publishing a book in translation
5 July: FLIP | Aeneid translation comparisons | Regarding Roderer review
6 July: Wyndham Lewis exhibit | Shashi Deshpande interview | More biography problems | Ali Baba Café
7 July: Thomas M. Disch (1940-2008) | $8.3 million literary-critic movie | Atmospheric Disturbances review
8 July: Janwillem van de Wetering (1931-2008) | Kafka-papers saga | Swedish translation funding | 'Poison' takes Caine Prize | Mute Objects of Expression review
9 July: PEN report on free expression in China | Roger Boylan on Flann O'Brien | Lala Pipo review
10 July: More on Nina Khrushcheva's Nabokov in Russia | Australia's 30-day rule | How international are we, updated

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       More on Nina Khrushcheva's Nabokov in Russia

       We've mentioned early reactions to the Russian edition of Nina Khrushcheva's Imagining Nabokov, and now Sophia Kishkovsky reports on Rethinking Nabokov as a 'road map' for modern Russia in the IHT.
       She quotes Khrushcheva's opinion, that:

"He is our textbook, and our road map for today's transitional period from a closed and communal terrain to its Western alternative, one open and competitive," she continues. "How to survive and succeed in this Western world, which Russia always deemed linear, cold and calculating: this is what the art of Vladimir Nabokov teaches us."

       Meanwhile The St.Petersburg Times reprints Steve Coates' recent review of the book from The New York Times Book Review.

        And in The New York Sun Benjamin Lytal offers Speak, Émigré: Nabokov's First Forays Into English.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Australia's 30-day rule

       Mark Sarvas mentioned this regarding the Australian edition of his Harry, Revised, that they had to rush to get it out down under within 30 days of the original publication elsewhere, otherwise Australian booksellers would be free to import the foreign edition. Now Justine Ferrari reports in The Australian that Publishers and authors in book fight about that rule:

The Council of Australian Governments decided last week to ask the Productivity Commission to review copyright laws restricting the parallel importation of books.

These laws give the Australian copyright owner control over who is allowed to import books subject to the 30-day rule. Under this rule, local publishers must supply a book within 30 days of its publication overseas, otherwise booksellers can import directly from the foreign publisher.

       So:

The Australian Publishers Association and the Australian Society of Authors are organising a grassroots campaign to educate the public that cheap books will come at a cost to the local industry.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       How international are we, updated

       We've now reviewed over 2100 books, and so we've once again tallied up how foreign our focus was over the past hundred titles (about half a year's worth of reviews): see our updated overview, How international are we ? Literature in translation at the complete review, as well as the complete breakdown by language on this list.
       With 25 languages (other than English, which made up just a hair over one-fifth of all books) represented in the last 100 books this was the most 'international' stretch so far. As usual, French books were the second most popular, after English, with 14, while Arabic also continues to be well-represented. And we added two new languages (bringing the total to forty-eight): Nepali and Zulu.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       PEN report on free expression in China

       PEN have issued their report Failing to Deliver: An Olympic-Year Report Card on Free Expression in China (and a press release to go with it, China Fails to Deliver: An Olympic-Year Report Card on Free Expression from PEN ). No surprise: they don't think the Chinese have lived up to their promises.
       The American president recently announced (scroll down) that -- and explained why (sort of) -- he will be attending the Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing, and presumably this report won't change his mind -- but maybe the widely-touted-as-book-loving first lady will now find some excuse to stay clear.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Roger Boylan on Flann O'Brien

       In We Laughed, We Cried in the current Boston Review Roger Boylan writes about 'Flann O'Brien's triumph'.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Lala Pipo review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Okuda Hideo's Lala Pipo.
       Despite the title (and cover) this turned out to be a ... pleasant surprise. It's fresher than a lot of the recent Japanese fiction Vertical brings out (perhaps because it is more recent ? -- it came out in Japan in 2005) and, next to Kitakata Kenzo, probably the most interesting voice they've brought out so far.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Janwillem van de Wetering (1931-2008)

       De papieren man alerts us to the fact that Janwillem van de Wetering has passed away; no English-language reports yet whatsoever, despite the fact that he died in Maine (though they should follow soon); meanwhile, see, for example, the NRC Handelsblad mention.
       For more information about Van de Wetering and his books, see the pages at Dunn & Powell Books, or this recent Blowhard-appreciation.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Kafka-papers saga

       In Haaretz Ofer Aderet gives a fascinating account of a potentially fabulous haul of Franz Kafka's papers in Uncovering an old leaf, as:

On a quiet street in the heart of Tel Aviv, not far from Ben-Gurion Boulevard, stands an old apartment building with a well-tended garden in front. The exterior does not reveal the exciting story that has been hidden for decades inside the building, to which the eyes of scholars and lovers of literature are now turned: Many researchers believe that in a ground-floor apartment there can be found the remnants of the estate of the great 20th-century writer Franz Kafka, whose 125th birthday was celebrated on July 3.

       Who is to blame ? Max Brod, of course (and we use this opportunity to once again remind all authors: get your literary estates in order, and be very careful whom you entrust it to -- current flavour of the month Andrew Wylie wouldn't be our first choice, but considering what a hash Brod made of everything even a horrible solution like that one is preferable ...) !
       Yes:

When the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia, Brod fled with one suitcase containing Kafka's property. In 1939 he settled in Tel Aviv. Eventually he transferred some of the materials in his possession to archives -- among them the manuscripts of The Castle, The Metamorphosis and Amerika, but he retained in his possession a great deal of varied material that had belonged to Kafka. Brod and his wife had no children and after his wife died, shortly after they arrived in Palestine, he lived alone, but had close relationships with a number of women. One of them was his married secretary, Ilse Esther Hoffe. Before his death in 1968 at the age of 84, Brod bequeathed his estate to Hoffe.

       She seems to have done quite well with them -- selling off some of the goodies for tidy sums -- but she also kept a lot ("in her apartment in Tel Aviv in unsuitable conditions, exposed to the elements and to sanitation-related hazards").
       The authorities got involved, too:

While only partially and only temporarily, the Israel State Archives, which is attached to the Prime Minister's Office, did in fact succeed in gaining access to the estate that Hoffe held. In 1974, the archive people brought about her arrest at Ben-Gurion International Airport while she was en route abroad with some of Kafka's letters and his travel journal. The excuse for the arrest was suspicion of a violation of the Archives Law, which prohibits the removal from Israel of valuable archival material before the state facility has registered and copied it. In the wake of this incident Hoffe agreed to the registration of all of the documents and objects in her private collection. However, the archive staff later claimed that she continued to conceal the really valuable material and had even smuggled some of it abroad.

       As to the present situation:

Last year Hoffe died at the age of 101. The rare legacy she had been keeping has been transferred to her two daughters, Ruth and Hava. Hava, the younger one, who is now 74, is living in the apartment where her mother lived and kept the estate. However, all attempts to contact her have failed. Neighbors who live nearby describe her as a woman who is "charming, but naive."

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Swedish translation funding

       A new issue of the Swedish Book Review is up, though only a very limited amount is available online. But the most important bit of new is: as Helen Sigeland writes, Translation Support is Back !.
       Not just that, but:

We hope foreign publishers will also welcome the fact that Swedish authors will now qualify for travel grants in conjunction with the subsidy scheme. A foreign publisher whose application for a translation grant has been successful will be able to invite the Swedish author to take part in readings and presentations, with their travel costs paid for by the scheme. While publication of a translation could be seen as the final goal, author promotion broadens interest and prepares the ground for others to follow.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       'Poison' takes Caine Prize

       No word yet at the official site, last we checked, but they announced the winner of the 2008 Caine Prize for African Writing -- the prestigious African short-story prize -- yesterday, and, as the BBC report, 'Poison' by South African author Henrietta Rose-Innes took the prize.

       (Updated - 10 July): You can now read the story at The Guardian.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Mute Objects of Expression review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Francis Ponge's Mute Objects of Expression, which Archipelago has now admirably brought out in English.
       Peter Handke translated it into German -- what more do you need to know ?

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Thomas M. Disch (1940-2008)

       It's being widely reported that Thomas M. Disch has died, a suicide on 4 July.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       $8.3 million literary-critic movie

       Deutsche Welle report that The Pope of German Letters Returns to TV, as they're making a $8.3 million-budget TV-movie of German super-critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki's autobiography, The Author of Himself -- though:

the made-for-television movie will not concentrate on Reich-Ranicki's rise to fame as a literary critic. Instead the 90-minute biopic will adapt Reich-Ranicki's 1999 publication, The Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki, a memoir that retells the critics extraordinary life as a Jew who survived the Nazi era.

       The book is actually available in translation; see the Princeton University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. The film is scheduled to be aired next April.

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       Atmospheric Disturbances review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Rivka Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances.
       We had a couple of problems with the book. Certainly, having read Antonio Muñoz Molina's In her Absence -- with its almost identical opening scene/premise -- not too long ago didn't help. And then there was the "character" of Tzvi Gal-Chen -- which surprisingly few of the reviews made much of.
       Adam Kirsch did write, in his review in The New York Sun, that:

By giving the elusive Tzvi, who never actually appears in the novel, a version of her own name, Ms. Galchen means to complicate her novelistic game, but the actual effect is to simplify it. Every time we read the name -- and it appears more and more often as Leo starts to believe his own lie, convincing himself that Tzvi holds the key to Rema's disappearance -- we are reminded of the fictionality of Ms. Galchen's world. "Gal-Chen" is like the author's wink to the reader, delivered over the heads of the characters, reminding us that after all this is just a novel, a made-up story.

       But we had just the opposite reaction, since the use of the figure suggests an author's wink that this is not just a novel or made-up story (since many of the details about Tzvi -- and presumably the two photographs of him -- are factual).
       James Wood goes into this a bit in his review in The New Yorker; in any case, we couldn't help but see it as central to the novel, even as it also remained mystifying (and highly irritating).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Wyndham Lewis exhibit

       There's an exhibit of portraits by Wyndham Lewis at the National Gallery through 19 October.
       In the Sunday Times Waldemar Januszczak writes about Wyndham Lewis's big mistake, arguing that: 'Yes, he was a fascist sympathiser, but the firebrand vorticist Wyndham Lewis is still one of our finest portraitists':

The Hitler book is now lying innocently enough in a case at the centre of the National Portrait Gallery’s feisty little survey of Lewis’s portraiture. It has an assortment of punchy swastikas on the cover, redesigned at sharp, vorticist angles: the modernist swastika, no less. It’s full of nonsense about Hitler being "a man of peace" and the Zionist conspiracy to take over the world, but then, so much of Lewis’s literary output is the slavering of a crackpot. It’s his paintings that are the real achievement -- because this literary loony was surely the finest British portraitist of the 20th century.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Shashi Deshpande interview

       In The Hindu Usha K.R. interviews Shashi Deshpande, in Magical terrains.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       More biography problems

       The biography-genre continues to be under attack, as Maurice Chittenden reports in the Sunday Times that Bitchiness breaks out in world of biography:

The author Amanda Foreman is being accused of turning the genteel world of historical biography into a playground for glamorous young female writers trying to make a quick killing in the bestseller lists.

       Oh, dear !
       And:

Foreman, who posed naked in Tatler magazine behind a pile of books after finding success with her first book Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, published in 1998, is blamed for "devaluing the biographer’s skill", "doing a disservice to biography in general" and ushering in an era of books commissioned more for the author's looks than their contents.

       (The picture -- reprinted in the Sunday Times article -- is ... well, certainly attention-grabbing.)

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Ali Baba Café

       Almost two decades ago Brad Kessler reported in The New York Times that:

The Aly Baba Cafe in downtown Cairo is a cheerless place with yellowing walls and soiled soapbox-sized tables. By day, couples rendezvous in its dark corners, and at night it is mostly empty. But the cafe on Tahrir Square has two things to recommend it.

The second-floor window looks out over the monuments that have come to symbolize modern Egypt: the Nasser-era Mugamma building, the bureaucratic hub of the country; the Arab League headquarters, unused since Egypt signed the Camp David accords; the Nile Hilton, and the Egyptian Museum. And in the early morning, another monument of modern Egypt is on view at the Aly Baba: Naguib Mahfouz, the 78-year-old author who is the first Arab to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

       (See also a picture of Mahfouz there.)
       Alas, Navtej Sarna now reports in The Hindu on Cairo from a café, that:

Finally, we are at Tahrir Square, crowded and brightly lit, where everything seems to be happening at once. Café Ali Baba is right there, except that it is abandoned and boarded up. A traffic policeman gladly turns away from his impossible job and explains that the old café has been sold by its owner; a fast food establishment is soon to open in its place !

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       FLIP

       FLIP -- the Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty -- runs through 6 July, with an impressive list of participants that includes Cees Nooteboom, Pepetela, Pierre Bayard, and Tom Stoppard.
       There are also video-clips of some of the events at the official site.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Aeneid translation comparisons

       A.N.Wilson is still obsessing over Virgil's Aeneid (see our previous mention), and now offers a column in The Telegraph comparing three recent translations, Virgil through modern eyes. Not exactly an in-depth comparison, but at least a glimpse of the alternatives (though the best he can say about the OUP edition is that: "OUP is to be commended for dropping the really bad translation by Cecil Day Lewis").

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Regarding Roderer review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Guillermo Martínez's Regarding Roderer.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Szentkuthy Miklós profile

       At hlo József J. Fekete profiles 'the Proteus of Hungarian literature', Szentkuthy Miklós (1908–1988), in Outprousting Proust
       He sounds like a fascinating author -- and he also dabbled at translation (James Joyce's Ulysses, among other works).
       His own translation-record abroad is also interesting:

He has also been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and Slovakian. But not into German, even though this language has been a most welcoming host to Hungarian literature, nor into English.

       Fekete suggests:

There was only one Proust and one Joyce, and Hungarian commentators agree with foreign critics in ranking Szentkuthy on a par with these two authors. The translators of the neo-romance languages instantly recognised that here was a genius of European standard. The fact that he has not been translated into German might partly be explained by something that Szentkuthy himself covertly alluded to: German is most of all the ultra-precise language of philosophy and is thus unsuited to show the nuanced richness of artistic thinking. To the English he has probably remained unknown for the simple reason that no translator with the right kind of interest has come across his books to raise a publisher’s interest in the way in which it happened, say, in Paris.

       It's rare to see such a cultural split in translation, but it seems accurate; check out also the Szentkuthy-page at French publisher José Corti -- or this Spanish weblog "dedicado al escritor húngaro Miklós Szentkuthy".
       For some sense of what he was about, check out this excerpt from his Frivolous Confessions at The Hungarian Quarterly.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Mansarda review ...

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Danilo Kiš' first novel, Mansarda, now available in English translation.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       ... and an example of all the things to avoid when publishing a book in translation

       We were thrilled to come across a translation of Danilo Kiš' first novel, but Mansarda could be a case study in how not to publish a book in translation.
       Danilo Kiš is an author that many of our readers are familiar with. If not his work -- though Dalkey Archive Press have recently re-issued two of his books --, then at least the name. And a translation of any of his previously untranslated works ... well, that is pretty big news.
       Except, of course, that it wasn't. We're pretty sure you were unaware this book was being published. We certainly were -- and, let's face it, if anyone was likely to know about something like this, well, it would be us.
       So what's gone wrong with the publication of the book ? It's a nice enough little volume, though a bit expensive for a hundred-page paperback ($19.95 list price). But that's almost a different issue, and the least of our concerns (especially since we paid less than $2.00 for it).
       The basic problems are: how will interested readers ever learn about the existence of this book -- and how will they be able to get their hands on it ?
       The book seems to have been released ... well, as if printing and binding it were all there was to it. The publisher is Serbian Classics Press, and with their mission of: "publishing classic and contemporary Serbian fiction, biography, literary criticism and reference works in translation, as well as original English language works by authors from the Serbian diaspora" they sound like exactly the kind of outfit we should know about. Except, of course, that we didn't. That happens -- we're constantly learning about new publishers. But what can we learn about them and their offerings ? Yes, they have a website, but the catalogue-page doesn't seem to have been updated in years, and we couldn't find any information about the Kiš-title on it.
       Mansarda is exactly the kind of title that would benefit immensely from a strong internet-presence, with information (and ordering opportunities) at the publisher's website. Barnes & Noble isn't going to stock this thing, and likely few independents would. But Kiš-fans -- and enough kids read him in college for there to be some die-hard enthusiasts -- would certainly seek this kind of thing out ... if they heard about it, and if they could, vaguely conveniently, lay their hands on it.
       Which leads to the second problem: not only is there no information at the publisher's site, this book is not listed at any of the English-language Amazons. (Or Barnes & Noble.)
       Really.
       Imagine that, in this day and age, where every print-on-demand title is listed at every online bookseller. Here's a book, published in New York in 2008, which you can't buy through Amazon.com. You can buy two different editions of the original in Serbian, or the French or German translations -- but not the new English edition.
       Maybe they're still working on getting it listed, but we have a finished copy, so it's already circulating (though, we suspect, not very far).
       (Updated - 10 July): We're pleased to see that it is now listed (though for now still 'temporarily unavailable') at Amazon.com.
       It's admirable that they've brought this (and others -- they list six more Serbian classics at the back of the book) out, but what exactly is the distribution plan here ? We hope and assume they're working on it, but given the state of the catalogue-page on their website it appears they're taking a ... patient approach.

       Unrelated to these issues, we'd also question the choice of the English title. Yes, the Serbian title was Mansarda (well, Мансарда -- and maybe we should be relieved they didn't use the Cyrillic lettering ...), but while readers in many European countries would understand what that is (and the French title is La mansarde -- though even the Germans didn't opt for the perfectly understandable Die Mansarde) surely any publisher of translations has to realise that English-speaking readers probably need a little more help. Sure, many are more open-minded than, say Sam Tanenhaus, for whom the little squiggle on Kiš' last name was likely enough for him to drop the book in baffled disgust, but a more recognisable title, something reassuringly English, would certainly make them more likely to at least consider the book. As is, and given how little information is available about the book, some might well even worry that it's actually a Serbian text, rather than a translation .....

       We're glad to provide a review and some information about the book -- that's what we're here for, after all -- but it's not a great sign when we supply not just a bit of possibly useful supplemental information about a book, but rather are pretty much the only source in town (or rather: on the internet). We understand that large publishers sometimes drop the ball, but at least they go through the motions and do the basics (some information at the corporate site, listing the book at online booksellers, etc.), but for a tiny independent publisher doing everything that's possible (and so much is, for relatively little money and effort) is a necessity.
       Maybe Serbian Classic Press do well enough on the Serbian-circuit (local fairs, church bazaars, Yugoslavian fan clubs ?) that they don't need to sell their books in the usual way. But it's too bad, because some of these titles -- and this one in particular -- are of interest to a broader audience. And if we hadn't chanced upon a copy, and if we weren't obsessed with making our readers aware of stuff like this, probably very few of you would ever have heard of it. And that would have been a shame.

       For those interested in the book, you can presumably order it directly from Serbian Classics Press through their website -- or ask your local bookseller to get it for you (the ISBN number is 9780967889375).

       (Updated - 8 July): See now also Chad Post's comments at Three Percent.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Korean translations

       While the results were somewhat disappointing, we're impressed by this effort to look at the larger picture of quality issues with translations from the Korean, as reported, for example, by Chung Ah-young in Literature Translation Has Long Way to Go in The Korea Times:

As of 2007, more than 700 translation works have been published in English-speaking countries, bringing about a dramatic surge in quantity. But what about the quality ?

       So: "41 novels in 72 editions from 721 books that had been translated and published up to 2006 were evaluated."
       Again: it's impressive that they're trying to learn from everybody's mistakes.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       July Words without Borders

       The July issue of Words without Borders is now available, where: "In the spirit of Independence Day and Bastille Day, we salute freedom fighters of all stripes with writing about revolution.".

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Canadian canon ?

       Arts Journal points us to James Adams' article in The Globe and Mail on Taking a shot at a new canon, where: 'Five well-versed experts pick their Top 10 Canadian novels -- a concept that caused a literary storm when it was first tried 30 years ago at a conference in Calgary'

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Lost Book Club

       The popular TV show Lost now has its own Book Club, "home to any and all literary references made on the show", which is a pretty cool idea.
       It does sound good, though we remind you that they've done variations of this with other TV shows and, as we complained, completely blew it pretty quickly with the Gilmore Girls' 'Rory's Book Club'.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       The Lost Daughter review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Elena Ferrante's The Lost Daughter.
       Europa editions has now brought out three of Ferrante's titles (we have the other two under review as well), and it's interesting to see that, while they haven't received much US attention, a few outlets have been more ... receptive to them. For example, both the (notoriously foreign-fiction-phobic, under its current administration) The New York Times Book Review and the Seattle Times have reviewed two of the three titles. But what stands out is that she's hit the trifecta with The New Yorker. Sure, all three were reviews of the 'Briefly Noted'-variety, but still .....
       Anyone think this might have something to do with who the translator of all three books is ? (All three novels were translated by Ann Goldstein. Ann Goldstein happens to be an editor at The New Yorker.)
       Anyone have a problem with that ?
       We're just asking .....

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       July Open Letters Monthly

       The July issue of Open Letters Monthly is now up, and this time they have two servings of our favourite feature, their 'Peer Reviews', in which they consider the review-reactions to recent books. In this issue John G. Rodwan, Jr. looks at the reactions to Martin Amis' The Second Plane (see also our review), in Is Martin Amis Serious ?, and Sam Sacks looks at the reactions to Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence (see also our review-overview) in Rushdie on the Richter Scale.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Perec-related exhibit

       At the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes they have an exhibit on "l'art contemporain de Georges Perec", Regarde de tous tes yeux, regarde curated by Jean-Pierre Salgas. André Rouillé has a write up (in French) at ParisArt.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Marcel Beyer gets Joseph-Breitbach-Prize

       The Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz have announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format ! and German !) that Marcel Beyer has won the Joseph-Breitbach-Preis.
       At € 50,000 this is another very rich author-prize (which Beyer only gets to pick up a couple of months from now); you would have figured, though, that with that kind of cash on hand they could have polished up the official site by now .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Women in Yemeni fiction

       Okay, Ahmed Ateeq's Images of women in Yemeni fiction isn't the most exciting piece we've ever linked to, but we're impressed the Yemen Times reprints an article like this -- and it's not entirely far-fetched, as he takes several examples from the works of Mohammed Abdul Weli, whose They Die Strangers we happen to have under review .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Books in China

       It's not particularly informative, but in Turning the page in the China Daily You Nuo reports that:

But one commodity has remained a constant in the marketplace since the so-called era of "reform and opening up". It is the book.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Banquet of Lies review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Amin Zaoui's Banquet of Lies.
       Impressively -- and usefully -- Marion Boyars have brought this novel out in a bilingual edition.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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