opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

23 - 31 May 2008

23 May: Leonardo Padura profile | The Nation's Spring Books issue | Prix Renaudot pre-preview | The Man Who Loved China review
24 May: New Bookforum | Ismail Kadare profile | More on the book-burning minister of culture ... | Alcohol and the American author | Translation in Iran
25 May: McCrum's look back | Hay Festival | Feuchtgebiete frenzy | The Prophet Murders review
26 May: International Forum on the Novel | Re-reading Milton | Derek Walcott at Calabash | NRC Boeken | Dawn, Dusk or Night review
27 May: Murakami interview | 'Bachmannpreis goes Europe' | Netherland reactions | Justifying literary festivals | The Threepenny Review - summer issue
28 May: Israeli backlists | Sarkozy books | Michael Hofmann profile | Another (Romanian) prize for Cărtărescu | Iranian translators | The Last Novel review
29 May: Derek Walcott on Naipaul: 'The Mongoose' | French translation awards | The floodgates open ... | Following in the footsteps | BookExpo America
30 May: June Words without Borders | Kaleem Books | Desperate Naipaul ? | Jonathan Littell profile/interview | Stieg-mania | Ultimate Fighting -star v. Anna Karenina
31 May: More on 'Faber Finds' | Youssef Idris | Prague Writers' Festival | Under the Tongue report | Sagan revival ? | Ultra-short novels ? | Keith Gessen interview

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       More on 'Faber Finds'

       We've mentioned the promising-sounding Faber Finds-undertaking, where they think they've found a way to bring worthy titles back into print, and in The Telegraph they devote several pieces to it.
       Faber & Faber chief executive Stephen Page 'explains how new technology could revive hundreds of beloved books' in Faber Finds: your own private printing press, noting that:

Traditionally, to reprint a book economically meant printing at least 2,000 or 3,000 copies -- occasionally fewer, but not easily. Many good books have gone out of print as their audience has dwindled.

Excellent books, however small their audience, deserve an ongoing life. Much that is published is not excellent, nor does it need to be to turn the wheel of the books industry. However, at the heart of Faber's new imprint, Faber Finds, is the thrilling thought that the digital revolution holds the key to the resuscitation of many high-quality titles by good writers as printed books, not digital files.

       Meanwhile, in John Seaton: following every clue Faber editor John Seaton 'describes the trials and triumphs of hunting down lost classics'.
       And they also offer the complete Faber Finds launch list of a hundred titles.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Youssef Idris

       In Remembering Youssef Idris in Al-Ahram Weekly Rania Khallaf reports on a conference on Egyptian writer Youssef Idris .

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Prague Writers' Festival

       The Prague Writers' Festival starts tomorrow, and the theme this year is: '1968: Laughter and Forgetting'.
       A lot of information available at the official site: check out the participants and then click through to relevant texts from them.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Under the Tongue report

       There's a (brief) report on the Under the Tongue: A Festival of African Literature in the Brown Alumni Magazine, where Lawrence Goodman looks at Defining a Continent -- and, for example:

Jack Mapanje, a Malawian poet and linguist, argued that the best way to categorize African writers is by generation.

       But, not surprisingly, Nuruddin Farah has the best answer:

"There is nothing that can be referred to as 'African literature,'" Farah said, "unless what we mean to do by using the term is to justify commercialism, book sales, employment opportunities for professors, or writers selling their books."

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       Sagan revival ?

       In The Guardian Angelique Chrisafis reports that Bonjour Françoise: France in thrall to Sagan, as the French are apparently all excited about Françoise Sagan again. Marie-Dominique Lelièvre's Sagan à toute allure (get your copy at Amazon.fr) has apparently helped things along .....
       Meanwhile, note that Harper Perennial is bringing out a 'Modern Classics' edition of Bonjour Tristesse in a few weeks (see their publicity page, or pre-order your copy at Amazon.com) .

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       Ultra-short novels ?

       In The Times Giles Coren considers the implications of J.K.Rowling's 800-word Harry Potter novel, in J.K. Rowling: how small can you go ?

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       Keith Gessen interview

       In the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Brad Lockwood has a Q&A: Keith Gessen, author of the much-reviewed All the Sad Young Literary Men.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       June Words without Borders

       The June issue of Words without Borders -- 'The Global Gourmet' -- is now up.
       They're also getting ready to start their monthly book-club discussions, beginning with a discussion of Robert Walser's The Assistant (see also the New Directions publicity page, or get your copy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk (in the UK it is published as part of the 'Penguin Modern Classics' series)). Sam Jones, of Golden Rule Jones -- and, more pertinently, Wandering with Robert Walser -- leads the discussion.
       And coincidentally in The Independent today John Burnside's contribution to the 'Book of a Lifetime'-column is Walser's Selected Stories.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Kaleem Books

       Amran Abocar reports for Reuters that Dubai publisher aims for uplifting Arab literature, describing Kaleem Books, which aims to be a different kind of Arabic publisher.
       They're just getting started -- and it looks like they still have to figure out that 'uplifting'-notion:

Kaleem's first book, published last month, is by Tunisian author Hassouna al-Mosbahi and is based on the true story of a young man who murdered his mother.

"People were surprised Emiratis would publish a Tunisian writer," Ghobash said. "The purpose is to hold up a mirror to the Arab world.""

While not exactly a joyful topic, Ghobash said the story of matricide was more entertaining than the two books Kaleem rejected for its debut: polemic tales about Sunni and Shi'ite strife in Iraq.

"We were looking for something a little more uplifting," he said. "The Tunisian novel actually had a story."

       Yeah, a story about killing mom .....
       Still, it can't hurt to have more publishers in the region.
       See also the British Council interview with Omar Saif Ghobash.

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       Desperate Naipaul ?

       In The Telegraph Tim Walker reports that It's now time to cut Hay, says VS Naipaul, as:

As the Hay literary festival winds up for another year, the celebrated author VS Naipaul tells Mandrake that it is time to call a halt to such self-indulgent jamborees.

"These things are unimportant and meaningless," says Sir Vidia of the festival

       But, of course, he has to make sure he's in the mix -- and heard from -- too. But it begins to reek a lot of desperation when he's reduced to observations such as:

Undeterred, the great man said he noticed the people who go to Hay are “incredibly ugly”.

       Yes, Walcott's 'Mongoose'-take sounds (see below) a lot more fun (and creative) .....

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       Jonathan Littell profile/interview

       In The executioner's song in Haaretz Assaf Uni profiles and interviews, at some length, Les Bienveillantes ('The Kindly Ones') - author Jonathan Littell.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Stieg-mania

       In Publishers Weekly Rachel Deahl recently reported that Knopf Touting Swedish Hit, as Stieg Larsson's trilogy -- a worldwide hit already -- is finally coming to the US this fall, and:

It’s not every day that you hear an American house talking up its hot new Swedish thriller. But Knopf is starting to do just that for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which it will release in September with a 100,000-copy printing. Author Stieg Larsson’s bizarre backstory -- in a John Kennedy O’Toole–ish twist, he died just before he was published -- coupled with Knopf’s decision to swap out the book’s dicey European title, Men Who Hate Women, should pique the media’s curiosity.

       As far as the title goes, consider how different things look elsewhere: the more straightforward second volume, Flickan som lekte med elden, will be published in English as The Girl Who Played with Fire -- but in France they had no problem complicating things further and publishing it as: La Fille qui rêvait d'un bidon d'essence et d'une allumette (and that didn't seem to hurt sales there ...).
       As far as the bizarre backstory goes, that also keeps getting more and more fun, as now they've found that he did not die (as previously believed) intestate, but rather had made out a will back in 1977.
       As The Local reports:

Larsson, who died in 2004, drew up a will in 1977 before a trip to Ethiopia, which was in civil war at the time, according to Sveriges Television’s investigative news program Uppdrag Granskning.

He was 22-year-old struggling author at the time, but still took the time to spell out how his meager inheritance should be distributed.

"I am hardly a rich man, but I want that my monetary assets to go to the Communist Workers Party’s Umeå chapter," wrote Larsson.

However, the will has no witnesses.

       No witnesses, no valid -- yet another reminder to budding authors to put their literary affairs in order. Not only did the commies lose out on what is turning out to be an absolute fortune, but so did his longtime partner -- because they weren't married, the estate went to his dad and brother. (And note that in France, where Stieg-mania continues apace (and all three volumes are already available) the newspapers are constantly full of the latest news.)
       You can already get The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in the UK (get your copy from Amazon.co.uk), but in the US you still have to wait until September (pre-order your copy from Amazon.com).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Ultimate Fighting -star v. Anna Karenina

       'Creative' book reviewing seems to be all the rage these days (with Janet Maslin currently leading the charge), and in the Las Vegas Sun an apparently desperate Jeff Haney decided the only way to take on 'Ultimate Fighting Championship'-participant Tito Ortiz's This Is Gonna Hurt was by pitting it against ... Anna Karenina in A cage match, literary style (as they both draw: "upon the theme of triumph in the face of loss and adversity" ....).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Derek Walcott on Naipaul: 'The Mongoose'

       This sounds like a poem for the anthologies, as one Nobel laureate takes on another in verse. As Active Voice suggests:

Calabash 2008 will always be remembered for Walcott’s stunning denouement: the reading in public for the first time of his poem, The Mongoose, written specifically with V.S. Naipaul in mind.

The audience was left waiting to exhale, an inaudible gasp hovering under the tent as the Poet laureate dissed and dismissed his fellow laureate and literary giant, V.S. Naipaul in a series of the most poetically crafted insults. Aspiring DJs might want to take note -- this is the stuff of great clashes

       It apparently begins:

I have been bitten. I must avoid infection,
Or else I’ll be as dead as Naipaul's fiction.

       And continues much in that vein: Open Source offers extensive quotes (as well as Walcott's whole 42-minute 'Chatterbox' conversation). A lot of fun (though some of it is very unkind) and we look forward to seeing the poem in its entirety.

       (Updated): See now also Daniel Trilling's 'Observations on a literary feud' in the New Statesman, Being nasty to Naipaul. He also notes: "If this all sounds supremely bitchy, the poem is lifted by its final stanzas".

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       French translation awards

       The French-American Foundation and The Florence Gould Foundation handed out their Annual Translation Prizes for the 21st time yesterday; no official press release yet (but see the one announcing the finalists).
       We have both winners under review: in fiction Linda Coverdale took the prize for her translation of Jean Echenoz's Ravel, while in non-fiction Linda Asher won for her translation of Milan Kundera's The Curtain.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       The floodgates open ...

       Bowker Reports U.S. Book Production Flat in 2007 -- so their latest press release, as:

Based on preliminary figures from U.S. publishers, Bowker is projecting that U.S. title output in 2007 increased slightly to 276,649 new titles and editions, up from the 274,416 that were published in 2006.

       But there's a whole new ballgame going on, as:

While traditional book publishing was basically flat last year, there was a staggering rise in the reported number of "On Demand" and short-run books to 134,773, pushing the grand total for projected 2007 U.S. book output to 411,422 books. To maintain the continuity of statistics, Bowker is excluding this output from its traditional reporting and has begun tracking the On Demand industry segment separately.

       We think this is pretty sensational -- though a bit scary too, as this is just the beginning of a tidal wave that will just grow and grow .....
       Also very heartening:

According to Gallagher, among the major publishing categories, the big winners last year were once again Fiction and Literature. There were 50,071 new fiction titles introduced in the U.S. last year, up 17% from 2006, and the number of new titles in the category in 2007 was almost twice what it was as recently as 2002.

       (Which again makes us wonder why fiction doesn't get the review-attention it deserves -- the 25 May issue of The New York Times Book Review reviews two fiction titles and has eleven full-length reviews devoted to a total of twelve non-fiction titles, while the new Bookforum is also way too non-fiction weighted (as was noted at Conversational Reading) -- and while some suggest (scroll down) that this is "the reflection of a reality that non-fiction titles, in fact, outnumber fiction" we want the hard numbers before we'll believe any such reality: admittedly many of the fiction titles are likely hard to take very seriously -- pulp romance and the like -- but surely far, far more non-fiction is essentially unreadable (since it includes everything from cookbooks to specialist scientific monographs). As far as what is actually readable (i.e. a normal (non-specialist) book-buyer might be tempted to purchase it and read it -- or some review-outlet might consider reviewing it), surely the number of titles from last (or any) year is only in the tens of thousands -- and it's hard (for us) not to believe that a larger percentage of that is fiction than non. And, if nothing else, surely if the number of new fiction titles published annually has doubled (!) in the last five years, that should be at least vaguely reflected in the percentage of reviews devoted to fiction -- or at least there should be more reviews of fiction titles than there were in 2002 (maybe not twice as many, but more). (Sure, much of it may be crap fiction of the lowest order, but can't the same be said of the vast majority of non-fiction ?) Certainly the raw figures (which are, admittedly, very raw) belie all the claims that this is an era where non-fiction is taking over (as supposedly knowledgeable folk like the NYTBR's Sam Tanenhaus have hoodwinked the public into believing, as they hand over the majority of their review space to non-fiction ...). Twice as much fiction was published in 2007 as in 2002, people ! Twice as much to choose from !)

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       Following in the footsteps

       Sebastian Faulks got to play at being Ian Fleming, so The Independent 'asked five writers to do the same for their favourite novelists', in If I could bring an author back to life ....
       So D.J.Taylor does Anthony Powell, Suzi Feay does H.P.Lovecraft, etc. Not the worst exercise.

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       BookExpo America

       It seems like everyone is heading to BookExpo America, which runs from today through the 1st, and tempting though it is (okay, not so much ...) we're passing this year. It'll be back in New York in 2009, and attending once every two years sounds like it's more than enough. But we do look forward to all the reports at many of the other weblogs.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Israeli backlists

       In Haaretz Shiri Lev-Ari wonders Where have all the old books gone ?, as:

In a very competitive culture that emphasizes newness and fashion, and promotes the reading of a current blockbuster which is forgotten in a moment's time, the backlist is a vanishing phenomenon. The volume of sales of one-year-old or older books is shrinking, while newer books capture an increasing share of the market. Most major publishers realize that this ratio has changed. The scope of the decrease is estimated to be 20 percent: the backlist which once accounted for 60 percent to 70 percent of the sales volume now represents 40 percent to 50 percent, depending on the size and age of the publisher. Thus good books, which are also fairly new, vanish from cultural memory.

       So, for example:

A few years ago, Yedioth Books published new translations of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita and Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment.

"We used to sell 3,000 copies a year of classic books like that -- now we sell 1,500 copies a year," Eichenold reports. "There are books on the backlist that we print all the time, but in smaller numbers.

       It's apparently gotten so bad that:

One suggestion for toning down competition in the industry and shoring up the backlist is a bill that would establish a stable price law for books. A law of that type would ban discounts of new books during the first year of their release. Publishers are still arguing the efficacy and potential damage of such a law, but most of them would support it.

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       Sarkozy books

       Yasmina Reza's account of A Year with Nicolas Sarkozy, Dawn, Dusk or Night, just came out in English, but in France there's a whole batch of new Sarkozy books, and at Bloomberg Jorg von Uthmann looks at some of them, in Sarkozy Falls From Grace, Fiddles With Cell Phone.

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       Michael Hofmann profile

       In the Independent on Sunday Stephen Knight profiles poet and translator Michael Hofmann in Metric conversion, apparently explaining 'Why poet Michael Hofmann stopped 'wreaking destruction' on his family in verse'.

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       Another (Romanian) prize for Cărtărescu

       The only novel by Mircea Cărtărescu currently available in English is Nostalgia (which we will get to; meanwhile, get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), but it's his recently completed Orbitor-trilogy that seems to really be making his reputation. As Radio Romania International reported a few months ago, it's been getting a lot of recognition -- and the last volume won the 'Book of the Year 2007' award in Romania.
       Now they've handed out the national arts prizes (the Premiul Naţional pentru Arte), and in 'la secţiunea Literatură' Cărtărescu's book took the prize; see, for example, the report at Realitatea.

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       Iranian translators

       Just a few days ago we mentioned one MNA story on translation in Iran, and now they offer another, as Abbas Pejman complains that Some translators ignore style and language of author.
       Yes:

Iranian translator Abbas Pejman complains that most Iranian translators ignore the authors’ individual style and language when translation their works into Persian.

"(Careless translators) not only damage the original text, but also confuse the readers; because each text has its own special characteristics," he told the Mehr News Agency.

"Unfortunately, in Iran, one translates a book by Italo Calvino with the same style he had used for translating a text by Ernest Hemingway," he added.

       They also mention one interesting consequence of the government not giving permission to publish newer works (at least not in a timely fashion):

"Over the past few years, there has been a new return to the translation of world classics. This is good in nature, but the major reason is that new productions have difficulty getting publishing license, and that is why old works which were translated before are being translated again," he continued.

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       The Last Novel review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of David Markson's The Last Novel.

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       Murakami interview

       The first two in a series of interviews with Murakami Haruki are now available at the Mainichi Daily News: first, Haruki Murakami opens up about translating America's literary giants, and then (with some overlap) Murakami says American contemporary classics 'really significant' for his writing.
       Among the points of interest:

Over the past few years, Murakami has rendered into Japanese four full-length novels -- J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye and Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's -- as they are important novels "I really wanted to translate," he says.

Murakami worked on these now-published translations from 2003. The novels are not just representative works of their famous authors, but also stories Murakami has read repeatedly since his high school days and, he says, "I personally like them."

       And:

"I've gradually worked out my translation style and thought it was about time I gave them a try myself," he says, outlining the first of his motives. "And, there's a use-by date for translations and the old translations have reached that time."

       Other translation-observations include:

"Japanese and English are structured differently, so if you just translated directly, it's hard to get the rhythm right. It's up to the individual translator to work out how to get the right rhythm," he says.

Murakami likens translation to math.

"Translating from English into Japanese is like solving a math problem," he says. "Just like there are some math problems that people can spend an entire day trying to work out, it's possible to spend a long time thinking about why particular words are used the way they are. Some people are suited to this and others aren't. But I like that kind of thing."

       And also:

"If I personally had to pick one writer who I consider the greatest of all time, I would choose Dostoevsky," Murakami says.

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       'Bachmannpreis goes Europe'

       The highlight of the Austrian 'Tage der deutschsprachigen Literatur' ('German Literature Days') is the American-/Pop-Idol-like read-aloud (and immediately get judged) Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis.
       Very impressively, they've decided this year that, as they explain:

The Bachmann competition goes out online this year in seven languages. All the texts, discussions and commentaries will be translated into English, French, Spanish, Italian, Czech and Slovenian.

All the texts will be on our internet pages to read simultaneously with the event or for later reference.

       Okay, they obviously need to work on this a bit -- 'Bachmannpreis goes Europe' ? -- but the basic idea is fantastic, as is the fact that they don't just go for the big languages, but also include Slovenian and Czech. (The competition is held in Carinthia, which has a significant Slovenian-speaking minority, and borders on Slovenia, but it's still impressive that they're making the effort.)
       See the English pages for more information -- though some of it (like the list of participating authors) doesn't appear to be available in English yet.
       Of course, scheduled as it is for the end of next month the Bachmann Prize will have to deal with some pretty serious nearby competition -- but we hope they can pull this off.

       (Despite being limited to fairly short texts, this remains one of the foremost German-language literary prizes: consider just a partial list of previous prize-winners (though some of these only picked up some of the secondary prizes on offer), which include: Gert Jonke, Ulrich Plenzdorf, Gert Hofmann, Sten Nadolny, Wolfgang Hilbig, Norbert Gstrein, Thomas Hettche, Marcel Beyer, Ilija Trojanow, Ingo Schulze, Zoë Jenny, Terézia Mora, Julia Franck, Jenny Erpenbeck, and Saša Stanišić.)

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       Netherland reactions

       The first few British reviews for Joseph O'Neill's Netherland are in (see our review-overview), but it's the US reviews that are attracting notice -- mainly because of the high praise that's been sung.
       They haven't reviewed it yet, but in The Observer Peter Beaumont now notes that America hails cricket fan's novel that met 9/11 challenge -- a good overview and offering some additional background information, including author O'Neill's admission:

'When I told publishers that I was writing a novel about cricket in New York people just shook their heads and walked away. There was not so much a bidding war for it as a bidding peace. Only one publisher was interested.'

       But the American critics aren't all overwhelmed: in The Los Angeles Times Laurel Maury now suggests:

There are dime-store novels and half-baked MFA theses written with one-twentieth the skill that work better because something gets loved and something gets lost.

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       Justifying literary festivals

       With the Hay Festival in full swing Tim Walker asks What's behind the rise in literary festivals, and what's their purpose ? in The Independent.
       Profile Books founder Andrew Franklin has one answer:

"But festivals are a pretty big distraction from what being an author is supposed to be about, which is writing. Hay has just become a celebrity-fest."

       Writing in The Telegraph Craig Brown is inclined to agree (scroll down): looking at a list of Hay performers he asks:

What do all these people have in common, besides the fact that they are not writers ?

The answer, of course, is fame. This suggests that an organiser with an eye on the market should inaugurate the world's first Celebrity Festival, at which celebrities can just jabber away without having to read from books. Such a festival would release comedians and generals and aristocrats and politicians and politicians' wives from any obligation to produce books, and autograph-hunters from any obligation to read them.

       Sounds good.

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       The Threepenny Review - summer issue

       Not much of the summer issue of The Threepenny Review is available online, but at least some Javier Marías miscellany, All Too Few, is.

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       International Forum on the Novel

       They're holding AIR 2 -- the second International Forum on the Novel (Les Assises internationales du roman) -- at the Villa Gillet this week, and they've assembled quite an impressive list of participants.
       Le Monde is also hosting five online chats with various authors over the course of the week; the one with Fatos Kongoli (see our review of The Loser) on Tuesday looks particularly interesting; see already his La fissure géographique.

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       Re-reading Milton

       In On re-reading Milton in The Telegraph A.N.Wilson maintains:

The Milton quatercentenary year cannot pass without reading Paradise Lost. It is the great flawed masterpiece of English literature.

       (Updated - 27 May): See now also Return to Paradise by Jonathan Rosen in The New Yorker, in which he discusses 'The enduring relevance of John Milton'.

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       Derek Walcott at Calabash

       Derek Walcott participated in the recent Calabash International Literary Festival , and in The Jamaica Observer Tyrone Reid offers some excerpts from his chat with Kwame Dawes (including some comments about V.S.Naipaul), in Derek Walcott: 'The Chatterbox'.

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       NRC Boeken

       De papieren man points us to the new NRC Handelsblad-site, NRC Boeken, where they finally make their reviews -- 12,000 of them -- freely accessible, as well as offering loads of other book-related content. Looks very promising.

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       Dawn, Dusk or Night review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Yasmina Reza's account of A Year with Nicolas Sarkozy, Dawn, Dusk or Night.

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       McCrum's look back

       After ten plus years as literary editor of The Observer Robert McCrum has called it quits, and in A thriller in ten chapters looks at some of the major changes in the literary world over that time (yes, including the rise of literary weblogs ...).

       (Updated - 26 May): See now also McCrum's addendum, Have blogs been good for books ?, at The Guardian's book blog -- a post that addresses the ostensible subject-matter in only the most roundabout way. More usefully, see the reaction at Syntax of Things (one of the blogs cited in the original article).

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       Hay Festival

       The Hay Festival is going on right now, and in the Western Mail Catherine Jones looks at Making hay: Huge impact of literary event. Meanwhile, of course, The Guardian has extensive coverage of the festival.

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       Feuchtgebiete frenzy

       We've mentioned this dubious German bestseller quite a few times, and now Jason Burke reports in The Observer that, as feared, Publishers battle to sign up Europe's sex sensation, Charlotte Roche's Feuchtgebiete (which, he helpfully notes: "translates as 'wetlands' or 'humid zones'").
       Yes:

Wetlands, which has beaten Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns and Ken Follett's latest to the top of Amazon's international sales list, has sparked a frenzy among major British publishers.

       (No word yet whether or not the Americans are joining in the silliness, but it seems inevitable .....)
       And don't forget Philip Oltermann's interview with Roche at Granta.

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       The Prophet Murders review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Mehmet Murat Somer's 'Hop-Çiki-Yaya'-thriller, The Prophet Murders.
        A Turkish mystery in the transvestite milieu, and the prophets' names ... well, not exactly taken in vain, but ..... It certainly earns marks for the combination of exotic and risqué elements.

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       New Bookforum

       The June/July/August issue of Bookforum is now available online; as usual, there are so many articles of interest that you should really just go check it out for yourself. (With the Memorial Day holidays (in the US) you can put that extra day off to good use, making your way through it. )

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       Ismail Kadare profile

       In The Times Alice Fordham profiles Ismail Kadare.

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       More on the book-burning minister of culture ...

       We recently mentioned Egyptian minister of culture (and UNESCO-head-hopeful) Farouk Hosni's alleged outrageous remarks in parliament, and the story keeps getting cloudier.
       AFP have now picked up the trail (though their story hasn't been widely picked up yet), as they report that Egypt Culture Minister under fire for 'burning books' remark:

"I'd burn Israeli books myself if I found any in libraries in Egypt," Hosni said in parliament on May 10 in reply to questioning from an opposition MP.

The comment, which Hosni admits making but which he says must be put into perspective, sparked an official protest from Israel's ambassador in Cairo Shalom Cohen to the foreign ministry.

       Try as we might, we're missing the 'perspective' here. Admittedly we're pretty dense, but his explanations really don't help us understand his reasoning:

In his defence, Hosni told AFP that he had only used "a popular expression to prove something exists," -- to be specific, Israeli books in Egyptian libraries.

"A minister of culture cannot demand that a book be burnt, and that includes an Israeli book," he added, and pointed out he had spoken in favour of Israeli books being translated into Arabic during during a televised debate on the subject.

       Ah, he only used a popular expression .....
       No, sorry, we still don't get it.
       In his A Week in Books-column in The Independent this week Boyd Tonkin also tackled the issue -- and also didn't get very far in trying to make sense of the facts -- but notes:

I doubt that Hosny really believes in incinerating literature because it hails from an "enemy" nation. But he also has a record as a trimmer, blowing permissive one year and restrictive the next. As with every pillar of Mubarak's fragile secular regime, he comes under pressure to appease the zealots of the Muslim Brotherhood -- by far the strongest popular force in Egypt. Hence, I suspect, the atrocious statement now attributed to him.

       Unfortunately, there's no comment at Hosny's very elaborate official site -- and we wonder whether word of this has gotten to Houston, where his exhibit, Farouk Hosny: The Energy of Abstraction, is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through 1 September.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Alcohol and the American author

       In the Amherst Bulletin Bonnie Wells considers When spirits fuel the muse: Examining alcoholism and madness in literature and film, as:

Here's a statistic you won't pick up in English 101: Of eight native-born Americans awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, five were alcoholics

       So:

"The modern American canon would not exist without all this madness and alcohol," he said, "so let's look below the surface with a clear eye and explore the relationship between alcoholic authors and their characters."

       Let's ! Or let's down a few first and then worry about it.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Translation in Iran

       It's one of the last Berne holdouts, but MNA report that Iranian translators should observe guild's rights: translator:

Although Iran has not signed the international copyright treaties yet, Iranian translators should observe the rights of the translators' guild, Vida Eslamieh told MNA.

The translator of Harry Potter series further described the concurrent existence of 16 different translations of Harry Potter in Iran as a "catastrophe".

       Catastrophe or the free market in its purest form ? We hope economists are taking note and preparing case studies .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Leonardo Padura profile

       Jane Jakeman looks at Leonardo Padura's revolution in crime in The Independent.
       We have three-quarters of his 'Havana Quartet' under review (see, for example, our review of Havana Blue), and will be getting to the final one to appear in English, Havana Gold, soon; meanwhile, see the Bitter Lemon publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       The Nation's Spring Books issue

       The Nation's Spring Books issue is now available, with several of the articles freely accessible online, including Ruth Scurr's Searching for Traces, her look at Kertész Imre' Detective Story (see also our review) and The Pathseeker (see also our review), as well as William Deresiewicz's piece on Stefan Zweig and The Post-Office Girl (see also the New York Review Books publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk).

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       Prix Renaudot pre-preview

       The Prix Renaudot (widely considered the number two French literary prize, right behind the Goncourt) has announced a 'spring selection' -- apparently not a longlist or anything like that, but just books from the spring season to keep an eye on over the summer, before the publishers' lead titles are thrown on the market (and into the prize-fray) in August. To paraphrase Le Figaro's L'été avec le Renaudot: "don't go looking for this year's prize-winner on this spring list".
       Still, some interesting titles here .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       The Man Who Loved China review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom, Simon Winchester's The Man Who Loved China (which will be published in the UK in a couple of months as: Bomb, Book and Compass: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China ).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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