opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 31 March 2011

21 March: Arcadia on Broadway | Serbia at Leipzig | Confessions of a Young Novelist review
22 March: Premio Alfaguara de Novela | What they're reading in France ? | Agota Kristof Q & A | Why Must a Black Writer Write About Sex ? review
23 March: Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature in fiction | Kertész's Fiasco | Q & As: Michael Reynolds (Europa Editions) - Anna Moschovakis (The Jokers)
24 March: Best Translated Book Awards - the finalists | 'On Reviewing Translations' | Warwick Prize for Writing
25 March: Mildred Pierce on TV | Continuing Room-success | PEN World Voices Festival schedule
26 March: 1Q84 cover | Gallimard at 100 | 'Bad Politics in Fiction award' ? | Japanese apocalypse-lit | The Accident review
27 March: The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen | Catherine Cookson's (estate's and agent's) e-plans | On Juan José Saer
28 March: Orhan Pamuk's continuing legal saga | The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim review
29 March: Reading in ... Saudi Arabia - Spain | Michal Hvorecký profile | Book reviewing in ... South Africa | H.R.F. Keating (1926-2011)
30 March: Man Booker International Prize finalists | Simon Winchester profile | Seven Years review
31 March: Literary talent v. baseball talent | E.M.Cioran at 100 | Jelinek's Rechnitz | Comedy in a Minor Key review

go to weblog

return to main archive

       Literary talent v. baseball talent

       Slate has an amusing excerpt from Bill James' recent Solid Fool's Gold: Detours on the Way to Conventional Wisdom (get your copy at Amazon.com) in which he wonders 'Why are we so good at developing athletes and so lousy at developing writers ?', Shakespeare and Verlander.
       James argues:

I believe that there is a Shakespeare in Topeka today, that there is a Ben Jonson, that there is a Marlowe and a Bacon, most likely, but that we are unlikely ever to know who these people are because our society does not encourage excellence in literature. That's my opinion.

       And:

We are not so good at developing great writers, it is true, but why is this ? It is simply because we don't need them.

       I'm not so sure about his arguments. True, athletes -- and sports-success -- are glorified, and many youths are lured into wasting their time trying to achieve sports-success -- but surely there are far more 'writers' in the US than there are, for example, baseball players (and I include every local amateur league player in that mix). Despite the (relative) lack of rewards, millions and millions try their hand at writing -- perhaps not with the same single-minded dedication youths show regarding sports, but still. If the sheer number of participants is counted, surely ours should be a golden age of poetry, no ? Surely the difficulty of recognizing and shaping writing talent (so often gotten wrong, even by the supposed 'experts'), regardless of the size of the pool -- as opposed to on-field talents, which are more readily apparent and more easily trained -- complicate matters greatly.
       I think the issues involved (and the incentives) make for a much more complicated picture than James allows for. I'd also argue that he overstates the case for baseball 'greatness', which tends to be considered relatively (rather than absolutely) -- for god's sake, no one's even managed to hit a feeble .400 (not a high success rate in most fields of endeavor ...) in seventy years; surely Shakespeare's equivalent batting average was in a whole different league -- an unheard of .700 or .800, at least (indeed, .400-writers -- well, let's say .350 -- seem to me a dime a dozen nowadays).

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       E.M.Cioran at 100

       The hundredth anniversary of E.M.Cioran's birth is 8 April, and in J'Accepte in Forward Benjamin Ivry argues he wasn't such a bad guy.
       Annoyed by the recent focus on Cioran's youthful indiscretions Ivry argues:

Yet such labels are profoundly unfair, since they are based entirely on early, and decidedly minor writings by Cioran in his 20s, when he suffered from chronic insomnia so acute that his resulting ravings in print included advocating cannibalism, admiring epilepsy and suggesting euthanasia for everyone older than 35.

       Sounds like he's making excuses --blaming "chronic insomnia" ? come on ... -- and seems entirely unnecessary; some foolish opinions and writings can't entirely detract from the later work.
       The only Cioran-related work under review at the complete review is one of those Ivry denounces, An Infamous Past by Marta Petreu.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Jelinek's Rechnitz

       At the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York Gitta Honegger will give a lecture on Rechnitz: Austria's Dirty Little Secret - A Rare Conversation with Nobel Laureate Elfriede Jelinek on 4 April, at 19:00; I plan to be there. The talk will include excerpts from a video conversation with Elfriede Jelinek (who doesn't travel -- she even skipped the Nobel ceremony); Honegger has translated some of her work, and is working on a biography.
       Rechnitz is one of Jelinek's more approachable plays -- though the subject-matter is rather shocking. See, for example, the Rowohlt publicity page, or this review in The Vienna Review, or get your (German) copy at Amazon.de.

       (While there are still no Jelinek-titles under review at the complete review, there is a review of Gitta Honegger's Thomas Bernhard-book.)

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Comedy in a Minor Key review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Hans Keilson's 1947 novel, Comedy in a Minor Key, finally published to much (I'd say a bit excessive ...) acclaim in English last year.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Man Booker International Prize finalists

       They've announced the thirteen finalists for the Man Booker International Prize, and the authors are:

• Juan Goytisolo
• James Kelman
• John le Carré
• Amin Maalouf
• David Malouf
• Dacia Maraini
• Rohinton Mistry
• Philip Pullman
• Marilynne Robinson
• Philip Roth
• Su Tong
• Anne Tyler
• Wang Anyi

       Almost immediately, John le Carré's agents issued a statement on his behalf, saying he didn't want to be considered; good for the Man Booker folk for their reaction:

Rick Gekoski, Chair of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 judges comments in response: "John le Carré's name will, of course, remain on the list."

       (Le Carré is welcome to turn down the prize if it is awarded to him; he has no business telling the judges they should or shouldn't consider him.)

       As usual, the longlist is fairly heavy on the English-writing authors (books must be "generally available in translation in the English language" -- a hurdle that, for example, Peter Handke did not clear a few years ago) -- though two Chinese-writing authors do make it. It is, quite honestly, a bizarre list -- Tyler ? Pullman ? Le Carré ? (Who next ? Ian Rankin ?) But of course any list with Goytisolo on it immediately gets a near-pass from me .....
       Not all too many of these authors -- other than Goytisolo -- have books under review at the complete review. Two of the women are, predictably, represented only by works of non-fiction: Dacia Maraini's Searching for Emma and Marilynne Robinson's Absence of Mind.
       And the only two other authors under review are both represented by multiple titles:

• Philip Pullman:
  • His Dark Materials-trilogy -- and the individual volumes:
    1. Northern Lights (The Golden Compass)
    2. The Subtle Knife
    3. The Amber Spyglass
  
  
• Philip Roth
  • The Humbling
  • Indignation
  • Nemesis
  • The Plot against America

       The winner will be announced 18 May.

       (Updated - 31 March): See now also Rick Gekoski's obligatory piece on The damnable task of being a Man Booker International prize judge in The Guardian.

       (Updated - 1 April): The Guardian now offers a useful collection of "reviews, interviews and profiles written by the judges themselves", Man Booker International prize: the shortlist.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Simon Winchester profile

       In Slate Nathan Heller considers 'The historian as tour guide' in profiling Simon Winchester, and wonders:

Winchester is not the most artful stylist, the most dazzling scholar, or the deftest storyteller publishing history narratives today. Why have these fast-baked, eccentric books made him one of the most widely read historical writers of his generation ?

       I don't quite agree with Heller; see also the reviews of several Winchester titles at the complete review:

• The Alice behind Wonderland
• Krakatoa
• The Man Who Loved China (UK title: Bomb, Book and Compass)
• The Meaning of Everything
• The Professor and the Madman (UK title: The Surgeon of Crowthorne)

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Seven Years review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Peter Stamm's Seven Years, just out in English.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Reading in ... Saudi Arabia

       Arabic Literature (in English) points me to The Saudi Gazette's piece in which they look at the impressive sales figures at the recent Riyadh Book Fair and wonder whether it offers A glimpse of Saudi culture.
       Opinion about whether many sales actually means a large, meaningful readership (or whether it just shows Saudis have lots of money to spend, even on books-as-accessories) is pretty divided.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Reading in ... Spain

       The Guardian continues its series of having leading European literary editors "reflect on the literary scene in their countries", and this week Borja Hermoso of El País reports on What they're reading in Spain.
       Some interesting observations, if also a lot of familiar names -- and one highlighted book is one they aren't reading yet, because it's not available yet ("the most awaited book of the year is undoubtedly Javier Marías's new novel, Los enamoramientos" -- though admittedly: who wouldn't want to get their hands on that ?).
       Unfortunately, as also in the previous installments, there is some disconnect between what the editor talk about (interesting though that is) and the books on local bestseller lists listed at the bottom of the piece (i.e. the books the locals are actually reading) -- rather a big omission that leaves the claim that: "All this makes up the spectrum of what is happening in literary Spain" ringing a bit hollow.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Michal Hvorecký profile

       At literalab at Czech Position Michael Stein profiles Slovak author Michal Hvorecký, who gripes rather a lot about conditions abroad:

Hvorecký sees the world of UK and US publishers as closed and arrogant, with only university publishers offering much of an opportunity. "I sometimes get passionate e-mails from comparative literature students that want to translate my work and then look for a publisher. It's much easier to find a translator than a publisher."

       Still, some interesting points about the difficulties tiny Slovak (no longer to be confused with Czech) literature faces, domestically and abroad.
       I have Hvorecký's Plyš, and hope to get around to reviewing it.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Book reviewing in ... South Africa

       In the Mail & Guardian Corina van der Spoel reports on what she sees as South African literature's perfect storm, as:

Discussion has been raging over the past few weeks in the Afrikaans press and on Litnet about Media24 newspapers' decision to discard the books editors of their national dailies, Beeld (northern provinces including Gauteng distribution), Die Burger (Cape-based) and Volksblad (Free State) and to contract a super editor for books who would create an identical book page for the three newspapers.

       Sounds like a bad (if familiar ...) idea.
       As she notes:

A narrowing in the scope of the book pages means an impoverishment and loss to a wide literary readership of all literatures in South Africa.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       H.R.F. Keating (1926-2011)

       H.R.F. Keating, best-known for his Inspector Ghote-series, has passed away; see, for example, obituaries in The Guardian and The Telegraph.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Orhan Pamuk's continuing legal saga

       Orhan Pamuk's 2005 remarks in a Swiss newspaper that Turks killed 30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians (at the beginning of the twentieth century) continues to keep the lawyers and the courts busy. Legal action against Pamuk began way back in 2005 -- see, for example, my first mention more than six years ago (and many mentions have followed) -- but the criminal proceedings fortunately fizzled out pretty fast.
       Not so the civil case, which has been bouncing around the courts for years now -- and in the latest round a court has decided Pamuk is liable, and has to fork over 6000 Turkish lira (and since the lira is no longer that thousands-to-the-dollar currency that is actually a not entirely insignificant amount, just over US$3,850). See reports in Hürriyet (Orhan Pamuk to pay compensation for his words, court decides, by Musa Kesler) and Today's Zaman (Pamuk to pay compensation for Armenian, Kurdish remarks).
       It's important to note that this is far from final: Pamuk has fifteen days to appeal, and he will (his lawyers will make sure of that, not because of the money involved but because of the awful precedent such an award would set).
       Aside from that, much remains rather murky -- including the reasoning behind why the plaintiffs should be entitled to monetary damages. I can't see how either compensatory or punitive damages can be assessed here (at least not without opening the can of worms of opening the door to a huge class of plaintiffs (every Turk ?) to jump on the class-action bandwagon and sue for the same wad of cash).
       This legal back and forth looks like it will go on a while longer .....

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Jonathan Coe's The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, which is now also available in the US.
       This novel came out in the UK last year, and, sure, a delay of a few months or a year is not unusual for a book crossing the Atlantic (in either direction, though certainly the delay is far more frequently found with books coming (by slow boat ?) stateside). What I find bizarre in this case is that translations of this book have been out for months all over the place: France, Germany, Italy, etc. Which makes the American delay rather less excusable.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen

       I mentioned The Tale of Khun Chang Khun Phaen -- a Thai classic, finally available in an impressive-sounding edition (see the Silkworm publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) -- a few months ago, and I still hope very much to be able to get my hands on a copy (no luck so far).
       Meanwhile, Jeff Kingston reviews it in The Japan Times this week -- and finds:

It is spellbinding stuff replete with slices of ordinary life, swordsmanship of all kinds and the bitter taste of loss and loneliness. It is one of those epics that Thais can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably, content to know who lives, who dies, who finds love and who doesn't, eager to hear the tear-jerking finale again and again.

       I hope to be able to review it, too, eventually .....

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Catherine Cookson's (estate's and agent's) e-plans

       In the Daily Mail Chris Hastings reports that Catherine Cookson's estate set to infuriate publishing houses by releasing 100 cut-price e-books.
       Cookson is, of course, a mega-bestselling (and dead) author -- of just the kinds of books that seem to do particularly well in e-format, and:

Her estate, the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trust, is set to infuriate the print publishing industry by releasing 100 of her novels as cut-price electronic books.

The trust's literary agent, Sonia Land, has not informed Mrs Cookson's print publishers, Transworld Publishers and Simon & Schuster, about the release for fear of opposition.

       Here's also another case of an agent going into publishing (remember the fuss about Andrew Wylie's foray into e-publishing, Odyssey Editions ?), as:

Ms Land, who is publishing the e-books through her own company, Peach Publishing, last night insisted she was under no obligation to inform anyone of the deal.

       The opinions of 'literary experts' (whatever the hell that might be) are generally fairly dubious, but in this case they're probably right:

Literary experts say it is significant that the estate is releasing 100 books simultaneously.

       That is quite a bomb(shell).

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       On Juan José Saer

       In The Nation Lorna Scott Fox writes Possible Humans: On Juan José Saer.
       The two Saer titles under review at the complete review are The Investigation and The Sixty-Five Years of Washington.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       1Q84 cover

       The cover of the forthcoming US edition of Murakami Haruki's 1Q84 has been unveiled, and it looks like this:



       At the Knopf site they have a post in which Chip Kidd Discusses the Book Jacket for Haruki Murakami's Forthcoming Novel 1Q84; worth a look, and scroll down for the cover pictures (since there's an over/under aspect to it).
       Seems a fairly good idea for the cover (though I still vote for printing the title as 1q84, to make the '1984'-connection more obvious (see also my review)).

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Gallimard at 100

       In Gallimard: 100 years in publishing in The Guardian Stephen Romer reports on French publisher Gallimard -- celebrating their centenary -- and the BNP exhibit, Gallimard, 1911-2011 : un siècle d'édition.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       'Bad Politics in Fiction award' ?

       In Tattooed by Politics in the Wall Street Journal Michael C. Moynihan suggests it's might be time for a 'Bad Politics in Fiction award' -- and seems convinced the only debate each year would be which Swedish writer to give it to (with maybe another Scandinavian author in the running every few years ...), as he finds (based on very selective reading) that quite a while ago already: "batty politics became something of a requirement for Sweden's most famous writers."
       The piece is a review of The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell (get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), but he suggests Mankell's ideological nuttiness is common to many Swedish writers (crime and otherwise) -- to the extent that:

Nowadays the country's literary reputation is being murdered, but there's no mystery about the identity of the perpetrators.

       Of course only a very limited amount of Swedish fiction makes into English, and most of that is crime fiction; I don't see the situation as being anywhere near as dire as he suggests. Moreover, ideological looniness -- and big, bad capitalist enterprises that do bad things and governments that can't be trusted, as well as conspiracies involving business, government, religion, and academia -- i.e. all sorts of 'bad politics' (because overly-simplistic, naive, unrealistic etc.) surely are a staple of almost all contemporary thriller-fiction.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Japanese apocalypse-lit

       In the Globe and Mail today Ted Goosen offers a (far too short) look at Japan's literature of the apocalypse in light of recent events.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       The Accident review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Mihail Sebastian's The Accident, a 1940 Romanian novel now published in English translation by Biblioasis.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Mildred Pierce on TV

       A TV mini-series of James M. Cain's Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet and Evan Rachel Wood, is airing on US (cable) TV starting Sunday (and in the UK soon thereafter); see the HBO publicity page.

       Quite a few reviews already out of the TV version, including ones in:

• am New York
• Boston Herald
• Chicago Sun-Times
• Las Vegas Weekly
• The Los Angeles Times
• The New York Times
• NY1
• Slate
• Time Out (Chicago)
• USA Today

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Continuing Room-success

       The juggernaut that is Emma Donoghue's Room continues to perform impressively, both in terms of sales as well as racking up prize-nominations left and right. In The Bookseller Philip Stone now reports that Donoghue accounts for 90% of Orange Prize longlist's sales, as in the week after the Orange Prize for Fiction-longlist announcement it sold 13,121 copies ("accounting for 81% of the entire longlist's sales in the seven days to 19th March") -- and:

In total sales to date terms, Room's 318,055 sales account for 90% of the entire longlist's 354,000 sales.

No other book on the longlist managed to sell more than 1,000 copies last week

       And:

According to BookScan data, 13 of the 20 longlistees sold fewer than 100 copies at UK booksellers last week, with nine of those selling fewer than 50 copies, and two (Julie Orringer's The Invisible Bridge and Anne Peile's Repeat it Today with Tears) selling fewer than 10 copies.

       Ouch.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       PEN World Voices Festival schedule

       The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature runs 25 April to 1 May in New York.
       The 'ticketed events' have already been posted, and apparently the full schedule is to be published today (here ? [Updated - 26 March: here]). No doubt there will be much of interest.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Best Translated Book Awards - the finalists

       The finalists for the Best Translated Book Award have been announced, and the ten fiction finalists are:

• Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk, translated from the Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns
  
  
• Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss, translated from the German by Joel Rotenberg
  
  
• The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz, translated from the Czech by Andrew Oakland
  
  
• Hocus Bogus by Romain Gary (writing as Émile Ajar), translated from the French by David Bellos
  
  
• The Jokers by Albert Cossery, translated from the French by Anna Moschovakis
  
  
• A Life on Paper by Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud, translated from the French by Edward Gauvin
  
  
• The Literary Conference by César Aira, translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver
  
  
• On Elegance While Sleeping by 'Viscount' Lascano Tegui, translated from the Spanish by Idra Novey
  
  
• The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal
  
  
• Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky

       (I am one of the nine judges for the prize; eight of the ten titles I voted to be a finalist made it (needless to say (and I'm still shocked !), one of the two that didn't was the other Cossery, A Splendid Conspiracy.))

       A few notes and observations:

       - with six languages represented there is a fairly decent spread here; French is, unsurprisingly, the language with the most texts in the final ten (three)

       - notable books (i.e. that got lots of review coverage and praise) from the longlist that didn't make it include To the End of the Land by David Grossman and I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson, as well as Microscripts by Robert Walser.

       - three of the twenty-five longlisted titles also made the fifteen-title-strong Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist, but only one -- Visitation -- made it through to the BTBA finals

       - two of the finalists were named on all the judges ballots; seven of the twenty-five longlisted titles were not named on any of them

       The winner will be announced 29 April.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       'On Reviewing Translations'

       At the Words without Borders' weblog, Dispatches, Susan Bernofsky, Jonathan Cohen, and Edith Grossman offer 'some thoughts for reviewers of literary translations', in On Reviewing Translations.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Warwick Prize for Writing

       They've announced the winner of the Warwick Prize for Writing (theme: 'colour'), and it is Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage, by Peter Forbes.
       See also the Yale University Press, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature in fiction

       They've announced that The Jump Artist, by Austin Ratner, has taken the $ 100,000 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature in fiction, with A Curable Romantic by Joseph Skibell the $ 25,000 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Choice Award runner-up.
       This is yet more validation for the editorial hand at The Jump Artist-publisher Bellevue Literary Press, as they take yet another important literary prize -- very impressive indeed.
       The Jump Artist is not under review at the complete review at this time, but see the Bellevue publicity page, or get you copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Kertész's Fiasco

       I won't point out that Nobel laureate Kertész Imre's Fiasco was reviewed at the complete review way back in 2002 (oh, whoops ...) but now the book has finally also come out in English (yay, Melville House !); I haven't seen Tim Wilkinson's translation, but I have faith that it does the great Kertész justice.
       Adam Kirsch's review at Tablet seems to be the first review of the English translation, but I certainly hope it gets its due -- and can only commend it to you.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Q & A: Michael Reynolds (Europa Editions)

       Boston Bibliophile offers a Publisher Spotlight: Europa Editions Interview with Editor-in-Chief Michael Reynolds.
       Europa Editions have a very impressive list, with many books in translation; many of their titles are under review at the complete review.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Q & A: Anna Moschovakis (The Jokers)

       Conversational Reading has Six Questions for Anna Moschovakis on The Jokers by Albert Cossery (since she translated that book).
       The Jokers -- and the other Cossery published last year, A Splendid Conspiracy -- is on the longlist for the Best Translated Book Award -- and remember that the shortlist will be announced ... tomorrow.
       (I'm one of the judges, and, as you can guess, if I had my way both Cosserys would be on that shortlist ..... Did they make it ? You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out .....)

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Premio Alfaguara de Novela

       At a mere US $ 175,000 the Premio Alfaguara de Novela is an also-ran by Spanish-language literary (cash) prize standards (though of course still dwarfing the major UK and especially US prizes), but it is relatively prestigious; previous winners under review at the complete review include Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo (2006) and Margarita, How Beautiful the Sea by Sergio Ramírez (1998).
       They've announced that this year's prize goes to El ruido de las cosas al caer, by Juan Gabriel Vásquez -- selected from 608 titles (I remind you again of how many few submissions the major US/UK prizes are willing to consider ...). (The run-down of where the submissions come from also gives an interesting picture of the Spanish-language writing scene: Spain leads the way (231), Argentina (105) and Mexico (99) are in a close race for second, while for example Chile is far down the list with a mere 19 submissions.)
       See also the brief AP report.
       The only Juan Gabriel Vásquez-title under review at the complete review is The Informers.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       What they're reading in France ?

       The Guardian continues its series of having "literary editors reflect on the literary scene in their countries" with Le Monde's Raphaële Rérolle discussing What they're reading in France -- though in fact she offers a broader overview of the publishing and literary scene, rather than really saying much about what's being read in France.
       Still, it's fairly interesting, as she notes that midlist titles' sales "have been completely squashed" -- and also that:

In newspapers the space devoted to literature is now relatively stable after a dramatic decline over the past 10 years. As a result, critics struggle to cover the full range of books produced, caught between the need to talk about what everyone else is talking about, the need to explore types of literature that almost no one is talking about and the wish to get themselves talked about by taking up increasingly clear-cut positions.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Agota Kristof Q & A

       At hlo Dóra Szekeres has a Q & A with French-writing Hungarian author Agota Kristof, We can never express precisely what we mean.
       Sad to hear that:

I don't write any more, I am very ill. This was not a conscious decision, it just happened. I simply don't feel like it any more and have no energy for it. And it makes no sense.

       (No Kristof under review at the complete review, but the three-novel (The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie) collection is a good place to start; get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.)

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Why Must a Black Writer Write About Sex ? review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Dany Laferrière's Why Must a Black Writer Write About Sex ?
       His more recent I am a Japanese Writer is due out in the US soon (already available in Canada), and I'm surprised more of his older titles aren't in print -- definitely worthwhile.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Arcadia on Broadway

       It's good to see that Tom Stoppard's Arcadia is back on Broadway (it opened last Thursday; see the official site).
       Reviews have been a bit mixed (see links/quotes now add to the complete review review-page), but it's a pretty hard play to ruin (though I have to admit I haven't seen an anywhere near flawless version yet (usually it's the casting that's the problem) -- but I do hope to catch this one, too.)

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Serbia at Leipzig

       Serbia was the 'country focus' of this year's just completed Leipzig Book Fair, and Radio Srbija has a pre/overview article about that, Serbia at the Leipzig Book Fair -- noting that:

Since the preparations for the Leipzig fair began, 30 new books by Serbian authors, selected by German publishers, have been translated into German

       Similarly, a ton of Icelandic books are being translated into German, in preparation for the Frankfurt Book Fair this fall -- why doesn't this happen with any English-language book events ? (In part, of course, because there's a constantly ongoing effort to publish English anyway, of course; still, these book fairs seem to add a lot of incentive (and get lots of publicity -- dozens of these Serbian books have been getting reviewed in the German book sections and supplements ...).)
       See also the official Serbian page for Leipzig (just German, however).

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

---

       Confessions of a Young Novelist review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Umberto Eco's Confessions of a Young Novelist -- his 2008 Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature, now out from Harvard University Press.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

previous entries (11 - 20 March 2010)

archive index

- return to top of the page -

© 2011 the complete review


Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links