opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 30 June 2019

21 June: Jan Michalski Prize longlist | Beyond All Reasonable Doubt review
22 June: Oxford Professor of Poetry | Académie française palmarès | Europese Literatuurprijs shortlist
23 June: Seoul International Book Fair | Notes Without a Text review
24 June: Le Monde's top 100 novels since 1944 | Kthulhu Reich review
25 June: Chinese books abroad
26 June: Orwell Prizes | Libraries in ... India | The Sundays of Jean Dézert review
27 June: Franz Kafka Prize | Cundill History Prize longlist | Prix Sade longlist
28 June: New Stoppard play | The Peace Machine review
29 June: Phantastikpreis
30 June: Manga from the Floating World review

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       Manga from the Floating World review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Adam L. Kern's Manga from the Floating World: Comicbook Culture and the Kibyōshi of Edo Japan, a second edition of the 2006 work, just out -- now also in a paperback edition -- from Harvard University Press.

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

       Phantastikpreis

       They've announced the winner of this year's Phantastikpreis der Stadt Wetzlar, the German fantasy (including science fiction, horror, and more) prize, and it goes to Hyde, by Antje Wagner; see also the Beltz foreign rights page.
       Lots of familiar authors have won this prize -- notably Cornelia Funke (for Inkheart) and Thomas Glavinic (for Night Work), as well as Johanna and Günter Braun, Herbert W. Franke, and Christian Kracht.
       The Phantastische Bibliothek also looks like a pretty ... fantastic institution -- the world's largest publicly accessible collection of fantastical literature, with over 291,000 titles, in a five-story library.

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

       New Stoppard play

       They've announced that Tom Stoppard has a new play coming out, Leopoldstadt, premiering on the West End on 25 January in a production directed by Patrick Marber -- there's even already an official site.
       See also for example Mark Brown's piece in The Guardian, Jewish district inspires Tom Stoppard in 'personal' new play.

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

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       The Peace Machine review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Özgür Mumcu's The Peace Machine.

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

       Franz Kafka Prize

       The sometime-Nobel-predicting (Jelinek in 2004 and Pinter in 2005) Franz Kafka Prize has announced its 2019 winner and it is ... Pierre Michon.
       Quite a few of his works have been translated into English -- recently from Yale University Press and Archipelago.
       Michon also has the distinction of being the only author with a book rated "F" at the complete review: Rimbaud the Son ....

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

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       Cundill History Prize longlist

       They've announced the fourteen-title longlist for this year's Cundill History Prize, a US$75,000 prize for a book: "that embodies historical scholarship, originality, literary quality and broad appeal".
       The shortlist will be announced 19 September, the three finalists on 16 October, and the winner on 14 November.

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

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       Prix Sade longlist

       They've announced the twelve-title longlist for the prix Sade; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
       You have to figure Philosophie des pornographes by Colas Duflo and Sade Romancier by Dominique Dussidour have the inside track for this one -- but good to see a Pierre Louÿs work in the running too, his never before published 'album érotique' Le cul de la femme; see also the la manufacture de livres publicity page.

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

       Orwell Prizes

       They've announced the winners of this year's Orwell Prizes, including the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, awarded for the first time -- it went to Anna Burns' Milkman.

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

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       Libraries in ... India

       Via Scroll.in I'm pointed to the IndiaSpend piece on How Much Is India Spending On Its Public Libraries ?
       'Not enough' is of course the quick answer -- but then that's true almost everywhere. Still, more investment here certainly would surely be worthwhile.

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

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       The Sundays of Jean Dézert review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Jean de La Ville de Mirmont's small classic, The Sundays of Jean Dézert.

       This 1914 work -- originally self-published -- now appears in English for the first time, in a lovely little volume from Wakefield Press.

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

       Chinese books abroad

       In China Daily Wang Ru reports how China pushing to get more books in global market, reporting on a recent China International Publishing Group seminar.
       The focus isn't so much on fiction -- but interesting also in that it doesn't look primarily at the English-language market. I'm not sure "stories of entrepreneurs" are the way to go, but, hey .....

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

       Le Monde's top 100 novels since 1944

       They've made a list of Les 100 romans qui ont le plus enthousiasmé « Le Monde » depuis 1944 -- Le Monde's top 100 novels since liberation.
       Unfortunately, the list is for subscribers-only; you can, however, make out some of the titles from the accompanying illustration -- unsurprising choices such as One Hundred Years of Solitude, 2666, The Gulag Archipelago, and Albert Cohen's Belle du Seigneur; some other strong and well-known works, such as Sebald's The Rings of Saturn, Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse, Marguerite Duras' The Lover, Philip Roth's American Pastoral, and Ahmadou Kourouma's Allah is Not Obliged; Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita also squeezed in, as a posthumous publication (the author himself having died before the cut-off date). Among the surprises: Pai Hsien-Yung's Crystal Boys -- especially since there doesn't seem to much else from the Chinese. And at least one title hasn't even been translated into English yet: Kateb Yacine's Le polygone étoilé.

       The Livres Hebdo report about the list doesn't reveal titles, but does mention names -- and some who didn't make the cut, including Mo Yan, Murakami, and Camus.
       They also have a helpful if annoying four-chart gallery you can click through, breaking down the list by some of the numbers:

• only seven titles from the 1970s made the cut, compared to 16 each from the 80s, 90s, and 00s
  
  
• the male-female author divide is a truly shocking 78:22
  
  
• 44 of the titles were by authors from France, followed by 12 from the US and 9 from the UK; only two each were from Germany and Japan ...
  
  
• -'autobiographical/auto-fiction' was the most popular type of novel (20), closely followed by historical fiction (19); eight were mysteries/thrillers, seven fantastical fiction

       I hope the full list is eventually made freely accessible.

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

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       Kthulhu Reich review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Asamatsu Ken's Kthulhu Reich, just out from Kurodahan Press.
       Nazis and H.P.Lovecraft, so there's that .....

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

       Seoul International Book Fair

       The Seoul International Book Fair runs through today, with Hungary the Guest of Honor country.
       See also Anna J. Park's report in The Korea Times, Avid book lovers flock to largest book fair in Seoul this weekend.

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

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       Notes Without a Text review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Roberto Bazlen's Notes Without a Text: and Other Writings, forthcoming from Dalkey Archive Press.

       Roberto Calasso edited (and translated part of) this -- and you may remember Bazlen from Enrique Vila-Matas' mention in Bartleby & Co. (though he focuses more on Daniele del Giudice's Bazlen-novel, Lo stadio di Wimbledon, which unfortunately is not yet available in English).

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

       Oxford Professor of Poetry

       As Oxford University has announced, Alice Oswald elected as new Oxford Professor of Poetry, as she easily beat out the competition with 1,046 votes, over Andrew McMillan (210) and Todd Swift (58).
       She is the 46th Professor of Poetry at Oxford, elected to a four-year term.

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

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       Académie française palmarès

       The Académie française has announced its 2019 palmarès (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) -- all sixty-four of them.
       The Grand Prix de la Francophonie went to Abdeljalil Lahjomri and Working Knowledge-author Petr Král, the Grand Prix de littérature to A Modest Proposal-author Régis Debray, and the Grand Prix Hervé Deluen went to Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress-author Dai Sijie.

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

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       Europese Literatuurprijs shortlist

       They've announced the five-title shortlist for the Dutch best translation (from a European language ...) prize, the Europese Literatuurprijs -- though oddly enough not yet at the official site. But see the announcement at the Dutch Foundation for Literature.
       Ali Smith's Winter is the only translation from the English; The Order of the Day by Éric Vuillard the only title under review at the complete review.
       The award will be presented 3 November.

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

       Jan Michalski Prize longlist

       The jury's 'first selection', of six titles, for this year's Jan Michalski Prize, the CHF50,000 prize: "awarded to a work of world literature in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, or illustrated books", has been announced.
       None of the titles was originally written in English, and at this time only one -- Antonio Iturbe's The Librarian of Auschwitz; see the Henry Holt publicity page -- is available in English. Long Litt Woon's The Way Through The Woods: Of Mushrooms and Mourning -- see the Winje Agency information page --, written in Norwegian by the Malaysian-born author, is forthcoming from Spiegel & Grau, and Zeruya Shalev's כאב -- see the ITHL information page -- is forthcoming from Other Press.
       The other finalists are Patrik Ouředník's La fin du monde n'aurait pas eu lieu (see the allia publicity page), Morgan Sportès' Le ciel ne parle pas (see the Fayard publicity page), and Francesca Melandri's Sangue Giusto (see the Rizzoli publicity page).

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

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       Beyond All Reasonable Doubt review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Malin Persson Giolito's Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, recently out from Other Press.

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

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