opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 February 2019

1 February: Dylan Thomas Prize longlist | Infinite Jest in ... Russian
2 February: Becoming in ... Iran | The Spirit of Science Fiction review
3 February: Tintin in the Arab world | Piercing -- the movie | Prix des libraires du Québec finalists
4 February: Robert Walser complete works editions | Publishing in ... France | The Republic review
5 February: NOS Literary Prize | Bookselling in ... Iraq | In Your Face review
6 February: Wellcome Book Prize longlist | IPAF shortlist | Literary boredom
7 February: Book of the Year Awards - Iran | Homer: Odyssey, Book I review
8 February: Wortmeldungen Literaturpreis | Translation collective Q & A | The Man Who Couldn't Die review
9 February: Friedrich Ulfers Prize | Allmen and the Pink Diamond review
10 February: Stella Prize longlist | Small and independent UK/Ireland press 2019 highlights | Tomi Ungerer (1931-2019)

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       Stella Prize longlist

       They've announced the twelve-title longlist for this year's Stella Prize, the prize celebrating: "the best book by an Australian woman, whether fiction or nonfiction".
       The shortlist will be announced 8 March, and the winner on 9 April.

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

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       Small and independent UK/Ireland press 2019 highlights

       In the Irish Times Deirdre Falvey has: 'Irish and British independent and smaller publishers pick some of their favourites' coming out this year, in 50 books to keep you reading all year long -- a lot of good things to look forward to.

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

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       Tomi Ungerer (1931-2019)

       French artist and author Tomi Ungerer has passed away; see also his official site or, for example, this Q & A with Natalie Frank at Bomb.
       Among his works his childhood memoir, Tomi: A Childhood Under the Nazis, is certainly recommended (get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), and while many of his books for kids are wonderful, there's also some great adult stuff -- like The Joy of Frogs (get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) or the even-harder-to-find-in-English Fornicon. As he explained in the Bomb Q & A:

In Fornicon, I was showing the clinical aspect of lovemaking nowadays, which is being mechanized. I was struck at the time -- it was the '60s -- by how in America one book came out after the other about how to do it. So I did The Joy of Frogs, which is a satire. It's the Kama Sutra of Frogs, showing all the different positions -- as if people didn't have enough imagination for how to do it. The Fornicon was just an extension of the same thing -- do people need gadgets and instruments ? It was a rebellion against a mechanization of our lives, not only of sex. We live in a world that's completely ruled by machines. I don't have a computer. I don't have a cell phone. I believe in my freedom. I don't want to be tied up by everything that is imposed upon me.

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

       Friedrich Ulfers Prize

       The Friedrich Ulfers Prize is awarded to a: "leading publisher, writer, critic, translator, or scholar who has championed the advancement of German-language literature in the United States", and they've now announced that this year's winner is translator Susan Bernofsky.
       She gets to pick up the prize at this year's Festival Neue Literatur, which runs 28 to 31 March in New York.

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       Allmen and the Pink Diamond review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Martin Suter's Allmen and the Pink Diamond, the second in the series, forthcoming from New Vessel Press

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       Wortmeldungen Literaturpreis

       The Wortmeldungen Literaturpreis is a relatively new prize -- awarded for the first time last year -- for short German texts, be they fiction or varieties of non, that critically 'engage with the socio-political challenges pf our times'; with a pay-out of €35,000 - a lot for any sort of German literary prize -- this is one of the richest-per-word prizes you'll find anywhere.
       They've announced this year's winner, and it is Die Toten von Zimmer 105 (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) -- all of ten pages long ! -- by Thomas Stangl; he'll get to pick up the prize on 26 May.
       Last year's winner was Petra Piuk's Toni und Moni oder: Anleitung zum Heimatroman (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) -- a (twenty-six-page) excerpt of her (two-hundred-plus page) novel, published by Kremayr & Scheriau.

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       Translation collective Q & A

       At the ALTA weblog they've started a new series of Q & As, with translation collectives interviewing other collectives: the first one is now up, with Smoking Tigers (working from Korean into English) being interviewed by Cedilla & Co..

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       The Man Who Couldn't Die review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Olga Slavnikova's 2001 novel, The Man Who Couldn't Die: The Tale of an Authentic Human Being, just out in Columbia University Press' Russian Library-series.

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

       Book of the Year Awards - Iran

       They've announced the winners of the 36th Book of the Year Awards in Iran; see, for example, the Tehran Times report, There will be no regression in Iran: Rouhani (yes, kind of overshadowing the literary aspect, President Hassan Rouhani, before handing out the awards: "pointed to the history of relations between Iran and the United States and said, "We shall never regress because we have chosen the right path as is confirmed by the numbers."") or the full run-down of winners (in Persian ...) at IBNA.
       The fiction prize went to Reza Amirkhani's رهش -- which already won the best novel category at the recent Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Awards; see my previous mention and also the Afeg publicity page.

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

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       Homer: Odyssey, Book I review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Homer: Odyssey, Book I, edited and with an Introduction, Translation, Commentary, and Glossary by Simon Pulleyn, recently out from Oxford University Press.

       Longtime readers will not be surprised that this is my kind of thing; indeed, that the 1:1:10 (page-)ratio of original text to very literal translation to commentary is pretty much my ideal for works in translation. Would that everything were available like this, even contemporary fiction ! (I exaggerate a bit, but not much .....)
       It's only book one of the Odyssey, but given all the interest in recent translations of the whole maybe there are more readers who are tempted to take a closer look at the original -- and this is a great volume to help you dip into it. (Not that it doesn't remain ... daunting.)

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       Wellcome Book Prize longlist

       They've announced the twelve-title strong longlist for the Wellcome Book Prize -- given for: "works of literature that illuminate the many ways that health, medicine and illness touch our lives", both fiction and non.
       The shortlist will be announced on 19 March, and the winner on 1 May.

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

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       IPAF shortlist

       They've announced the six-title strong shortlist for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, the leading Arabic novel prize.
       The winner will be announced 23 April.

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

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       Literary boredom

       At iAi news Ralph Clare finds: '‘Boring’ narratives challenge the way we understand experience and consciousness', in How We Think of Our Lives: Boredom in Contemporary Literature.

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

       NOS Literary Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Russian NOS Literary Prize, and it's Памяти памяти by Maria Stepanova, which was already awarded the 'Big Book' Award; see, for example, the Meduza report.
       This is apparently a hot property, due out in English from New Directions (in the US) and Fitzcarraldo (UK); see also the Suhrkamp foreign rights page.
       The book I'm curious about, however, is the 'reader's choice'-winner, Viktor Pelevin's latest. The title ? The promising sounding: iPhuck 10.

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

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       Bookselling in ... Iraq

       At TRT World Lizzie Porter and Leila Molana-Allen report that: 'Demand for books is growing in the city, so is the need for good coffee as Iraq steps out of the shadow of war and discovers a love of reading', in Literature and lattes in Baghdad, looking at the scene beyond the traditional hub of Mutanabbi Street.

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       In Your Face review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the second of Scarlett Thomas' Lily Pascale-mysteries, the 1999 In Your Face.

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

       Robert Walser complete works editions

       Lucas Marco Gisi writes about the two complete-works editions of Robert Walser that are in the works, in Robert Walser: «Jedes Buch, das gedruckt wurde, ist doch für den Dichter ein Grab oder etwa nicht ?»
       The Kritische Robert Walser-Ausgabe is set to have 50 (!) volumes (the other one only has thirty ...) -- including twelve of the 'Mikrogramme' alone. (New Directions published a lovely volume of these as Microscripts a few years ago; get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.)
       Impressive, too: the Kritische Robert Walser-Ausgabe is budgeted at CHF 18 million, which is a ... tidy sum. (Sure, that's over twenty years, but still .....)

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       Publishing in ... France

       At Scroll.in Jaya Bhattacharji Rose has a Q & A, asking What's brewing between Indian and French publishing ? French Ambassador Alexandre Ziegler explains -- including: 'about plans for translations of French literature into Indian languages and collaborations at books fairs'.
       India will be guest of honor at the 2020 Paris Book Fair.

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

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       The Republic review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Joost de Vries' The Republic, forthcoming from Other Press in April.

       This (originally) came out before Laurent Binet's The Seventh Function of Language; those who enjoyed the Binet will probably like this one too.

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       Tintin in the Arab world

       In The National Chris Newbould talks with Louis Blin about his book, Le Monde Arabe dans les Albums de Tintin, in Tintin in the Arab world, a comic book history
       Interesting to learn about the changes to Land of the Black Gold -- and how: "Subsequent French editions have also been based on the English version, and only a few copies of the original, French language, first edition remain".
       See also the L'Harmattan publicity page for the book.

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

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       Piercing -- the movie

       Murakami Ryu's Piercing has been made into a movie, directed by Nicolas Pesce and starring Christopher Abbott and Mia Wasikowska, which just came out in the US.
       Glenn Kenny's review in The New York Times finds:

Pesce violently divorces Murakami's work from its socioeconomic context in favor of a more generalized war-between-the-sexes dynamic. The movie gains momentum as it indulges in hallucinogenic phantasmagoria. Whatever you make of its intentions, it's certainly exceptional in its visual distinction.

       At Vulture Bilge Ebiri calls it: "A tribute to Italian giallo movies" and: "an unnerving mix of loveliness and lunacy".
       See all the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.

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       Prix des libraires du Québec finalists

       They've announced the finalists for the prix des libraires du Québec, which has awards both for books from Québec and from those 'hors Québec'.
       Paul Auster's 4321 is among the foreign fiction finalists -- but of course it's the Québecois novels that are of particular interest.

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

       Becoming in ... Iran

       Former American 'First Lady' Michelle Obama's memoir, Becoming, has been an incredible bestseller, not only in the US, but also abroad; as I mentioned a few weeks ago, it was the top-selling non-fiction title in Germany in 2018, for example, and it was a top ten bestseller in the UK for the year; it was fifth on last week's French bestseller list, etc.
       Now, as the Tehran Times reports, Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” bestseller in Iran, as Mehrandish Publications has announced that: "the book has been republished 17 times within less than a month".
       Of course, this being Iran, where 'copyright' is a ... looser concept, the Mehrandish translation isn't even the only one on the market. They don't seem to have their own site, but see, for example, this bookstore page for Ali Salami's translation -- and compare to the Hurmzad publicity page for Mehri Madabadi's translation.

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       The Spirit of Science Fiction review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Roberto Bolaño's The Spirit of Science Fiction.

       Bolaño wrote this in the mid-1980s, but it was never published during his lifetime and only came out posthumously in Spanish in 2016; now finally the US/UK editions are also available.

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

       Dylan Thomas Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize, a £30,000 prize awarded: "for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under".
       The shortlist of six finalists will be announced in April, and the winner will be announced 16 May.

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

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       Infinite Jest in ... Russian

       David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest is one of those big novels where even the translations are news.
       The German version, Unendlicher Spaß, came out in 2009 -- see the Kiepenheuer & Witsch publicity page and, for example, Amanda DeMarco on The Mistake on Page 1,032: On Translating Infinite Jest into German at Publishing Perspectives.
       In 2015, Abby McIntyre explained The French Translation of Infinite Jest Comes Out This Week. Here's Why It Took So Long. at Slate; see also the Éditions de l'Olivier publicity page for L'Infinie Comédie.
       And now there's a Russian translation -- Бесконечная шутка; see the АСТ publicity page -- and in The Calvert Journal Josh Nadeau writes about how Infinite Jest comes to Russia. Why translators finally took on the ‘untranslatable’ novel

       (See also the older Literary Hub piece by (Veronica) Scott Esposito that looked at Infinite Jest Around the World.)

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