opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 30 November 2019

21 November: (American) National Book Awards | Warwick Prize for Women in Translation | Prix du meilleur livre étranger | 人質の朗読会 review
22 November: RBC Taylor Prize | Literatürk Festival | The Great Fall review
23 November: NYTBR 10 Best Books of 2019 | The Camp of the Saints
24 November: Fiction in translation | Murakami and the Nobel | Chinese fiction abroad
25 November: Indigenous literature | George Eliot Archive
26 November: Augustpriset | Bookselling in ... Pakistan | NYTBR 100 notable books | Aline and Valcour review
27 November: 1984 in ... Russian | David Cohen Prize | Whitbread Costa Book Awards shortlists
28 November: Clive James (1939-2019) | Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead review
29 November: TLS (contributors') Books of the Year | Books of the year in ... France
30 November: 'Best of the 21st century', Spanish edition | Translating from the ... Japanese | The Crooked Line review

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       'Best of the 21st century', Spanish edition

       In El País they asked 84 experts to select Los 21 mejores libros del siglo XXI, not restricted by genre. Certainly a lot one could argue about, but some decent choices. And revealing about Spanish literary preferences.
       Quite a few of the titles are under review at the complete review:

• 1. 2666, by Roberto Bolaño
• 4. The Feast of the Goat, by Mario Vargas Llosa
• 5. Atonement, by Ian McEwan
• 6. Limonov, by Emmanuel Carrère
• 9. Summertime, by J.M.Coetzee
• 11. My Struggle, by Karl Ove Knausgaard
• 18. Soldiers of Salamis, by Javier Cercas
• 20. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
  
  
• 23. Never Let me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• 27. The Years, by Annie Ernaux
• 30. Kafka on the Shore, by Murakami Haruki
• 32. The Diaries of Emilio Renzi, by Ricardo Piglia
• 37. The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen
• 38. The Adversary, by Emmanuel Carrère
• 41. Elizabeth Costello, by J.M.Coetzee

       It's also interesting to see how the choices shaped up, depending on the gender of the selectors.

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

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       Translating from the ... Japanese

       In Metropolis Eric Margolis looks at: 'The ongoing battle to translate Japan's leading literary women', in Mind the Gap, as a gender parity in Japanese hasn't translated into gender parity as far as translations into English go.

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       The Crooked Line review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Ismat Chughtai's 1944 Urdu classic, The Crooked Line.

       This translation first came out, in 1995, in Heinemann's Asian Writers Series; it was recently re-issued by the Feminist Press (and Speaking Tiger in India).

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

       TLS (contributors') Books of the Year

       At the Times Literary Supplement they have their: "contributors select their favourite books of 2019", in Books of the Year 2019 -- always an interesting exercise.

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       Books of the year in ... France

       While literary coverage at this time of year is wall-to-wall best-of-the-year-lists in the US/UK media, there are far fewer of these elsewhere (and the ones that do appear tend to appear ... closer to the actual end of the year) -- but Le Point joins in the fun with their 30 meilleurs livres de l'année.
       Not many of these are under review at the complete review -- just Middle England by Jonathan Coe and Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq.

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

       Clive James (1939-2019)

       Clive James -- critic, poet, broadcaster -- has passed away; see, for example, the obituary by Jim Waterson and Sian Cain in The Guardian.
       Only one James title is under review at the complete review, his Cultural Amnesia.

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       Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Sara Gran's Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, the first in the series.

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

       1984 in ... Russian

       An interesting lengthy piece on George Orwell's 1984 in Russian by Leonid Bershidsky at Bloomberg Opinion, I Just Translated ‘1984’ Into Russian. I’m Gasping for Air.
       He's not the first to translate it, but it:

was banned in the Soviet Union in any language until 1988. To the best of my knowledge, my Russian translation will be the fifth to be published officially.

       Among the previous translations:

Done by Soviet writer and journalist Sergei Tolstoy from the French edition of “1984” — and therefore woefully imprecise — it had mysteriously leaked to the West and then back to the Soviet Union.

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       David Cohen Prize

       The David Cohen Prize for Literature is a leading biennial English-language author prize that: "recognises a living writer from the UK or the Republic of Ireland for a lifetime's achievement in literature", and they've announced that this year's prize goes to Edna O'Brien; no word yet at the official site, last I checked, but see, for example, Heloise Wood's report at The Bookseller

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       Whitbread Costa Book Awards shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for the Whitbread Costa Book Awards, twenty books nominated in five categories, selected from 701 entries.
       The only shortlisted title under review at the complete review is Middle England by Jonathan Coe.

       The category winners will be announced 6 January; the Costa Book of the Year will be announced 28 January.

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       Augustpriset

       They've announced the winners of this year's Augustpriset, the leading Swedish literary prize.
       Marit Kapla's Osebol won in the 'skönlitteratur'-category -- though this 800-page work, based on interviews with the 40 adult inhabitants of Osebol, sounds like a Svetlana Alexievich-like documentary work, rather than fiction. See also the Teg Publishing publicity page.

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       Bookselling in ... Pakistan

       Via I'm pointed to Irfan Aslam's piece in Dawn, The Damned Books, on the consequences of the Pakistani authorities having stopped all trade -- including of books -- with India -- a considerable problem, since a significant percentage of books sold in Pakistan are imported from India, as: "India has become a hub of the publishing industry in the last couple of decades and serves the whole region, not only Pakistan".
       Among the problems:

The bigger issue is that many publishers in the UK and US have given distribution rights to distributors in India and the publishers would forward the order back to India. Such books can’t be acquired even from the UK or the US then.

       Yet more arguments for free trade .....

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       NYTBR 100 notable books

       A couple of days ago The New York Times Book Review announced their 10 Best Books of 2019; usually they first announce their list of '100 notable books' and then select the top ten from that, but not this year ... but they have now gotten around to their 100 Notable Books of 2019.
       Last year they had nine works of translation on the list; this year ... all of three, best I can tell. And only two of the 100 titles are under review at the complete review: Ogawa Yoko's The Memory Police and Neal Stephenson's Fall; or, Dodge in Hell.

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       Aline and Valcour review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the Marquis de Sade's Aline and Valcour or, the Philosophical Novel.

       This is the first full translation of the novel -- a few pages were translated in Selected Writings of de Sade by Leonard Saint-Yves (1953), but now the entire 800-page work is available, in a three-volume edition from Contra Mundum Press.

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

       Indigenous literature

       In the Sydney Morning Herald Broede Carmody reports that: 'Quite incredible': demand for Indigenous literature goes global.
       HarperCollins publisher Judith Curr is quoted as saying:

There is a general reawakening in the United States to the past, present and future realities of First Peoples' lives and readers want to know more," she says. "Mainstream publishers are more open to Indigenous stories of late ... [and] US readers have always been interested in Australia.

       I haven't really noticed this yet, but it would certainly be great to see.

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       George Eliot Archive

       Via I'm pointed to Tara Thomas' Q & A with Beverley Rilett, Introducing the George Eliot Archive.
       That site, the George Eliot Archive, looks impressive -- but see also the George Eliot 2019 site in this, the bicentenary of her birth.
       The only Eliot title under review at the complete review is the great Middlemarch.

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

       Fiction in translation

       In The Guardian 'Lara Feigel talks to the UK editors who are rediscovering classics and finding new audiences', in Border crossing: How translated fiction can open up the world.
       Certainly, these are improved times as far as what's available in translation in the US/UK, and the attention and readers translated fiction is finding -- but it's probably worth noting that this seems cyclical, more than anything else: so, as Feigel notes, it is, for example, a: "rediscovery of Natalia Ginzburg", with Happiness, As Such having previously been translated into English (way back in the 1970s); I still remember the previous time of Ginzburg enthusiasm (in the 1980s). But maybe this wave of translation-enthusiasm will be bigger, and last longer, than previous ones.

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       Murakami and the Nobel

       In The Japan Times William Lang wants to put us all out of our misery and end the annual discussion, arguing Let us put an end to Haruki Murakami's decade-long Nobel Prize pilgrimage.
       Yes, every year Murakami Haruki is said to be a favorite for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and every year he and his fans and all of Japan are disappointed ..... Lang has a few suggestions -- such as: "get a European passport. This strategy worked for Sir Kazuo Ishiguro" .....

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       Chinese fiction abroad

       At Xinhua Yang Shilong and Ding Yimin profile Charles A. Laughlin, finding U.S. professor endeavors to present today's China through literary translation.
       Among Laughlin's observations: how when he started teaching there was little in English translation to choose from -- "The names included Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Cao Yu, and Ba Jin, mostly authors from the first half of the 20th Century" -- whereas now: "It's hard for me to keep up with all of the great (Chinese) authors who are being brought into English".

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

       NYTBR 10 Best Books of 2019

       The New York Times Book Review usually announces their '100 Notable Books' of the year before they get to their top 10, but this year apparently the pressure of competing lists got to them and they've now already announced their 10 Best Books of 2019.
       I only have/seen two of these -- Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips and The Club by Leo Damrosch .....

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

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       The Camp of the Saints

       The recent reminder from the SPLC of just what a nasty piece of work low-profile keeping White House senior (ill-)advisor for policy Stephen Miller is -- Stephen Miller's Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails -- has also brought with it mention of that awful book so beloved by Miller and his ilk, Jean Raspail's The Camp of the Saints -- yes, one of the most atrocious books under review at the complete review.
       So see -- if you must -- for example now Lulu Garcia-Navarro at npr on Stephen Miller and The Camp of the Saints, A White Nationalist Reference and Elian Peltier and Nicholas Kulish in The New York Times on A Racist Book's Malign and Lingering Influence.

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

       RBC Taylor Prize

       The RBC Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction will announce the longlist for the 2020 prize on 4 December -- but first they've announced that this will be the last time they award the prize, as they believe: "the original mandate of the Foundation has been more than fulfilled".
       The prize has been awarded for twenty years.

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

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       Literatürk Festival

       The Literatürk Festival in Essen runs 11 through 23 November, and at Qantara.de Sabine Peschel reports on it, in Dissecting the toxic concept of Heimat.

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

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       The Great Fall review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the most recently translated novel by this year's Nobel laureate, Peter Handke, The Great Fall.

       Krishna Winston's translation came out from Seagull Books last year -- but it doesn't seem to have gotten pretty much any English-language review coverage, which is kind of ... astounding. But it has now been longlisted for the International DUBLIN Literary Award (albeit as a homer-nomination ...), and that and the Nobel might lead to a bit more coverage .....

       Meanwhile, the Salzburg Festival has announced its programme for next year -- the 100th anniversary of the festival -- and while it isn't mentioned in Michael Cooper's overview in The New York Times, The Salzburg Festival Prepares to Turn 100, one of the highlights will certainly be the premiere of a new Handke play, Zdeněk Adamec; see also the Suhrkamp foreign rights page.

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

       (American) National Book Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's (American) National Book Awards, with the Translated Literature prize going to Ottilie Mulzet's translation of Krasznahorkai László's Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming, and Susan Choi winning the Fiction prize with Trust Exercise.

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

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       Warwick Prize for Women in Translation

       They've announced the winner of this year's Warwick Prize for Women in Translation -- not yet at the official site, last I checked, but see, for example, their tweet -- and it is the very deserving The Years by Annie Ernaux, in Alison L. Strayer's translation.

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

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       Prix du meilleur livre étranger

       They've announced the winners of this years prix du meilleur livre étranger, a French foreign literature prize with two categories, fiction and non; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
       Both winners were translations from the German, with the fiction prize going to Christoph Hein's Glückskind mit Vater; see, for example, the Suhrkamp foreign rights page.
       The non-fiction prize went to Wolfram Eilenberger's Zeit der Zauberer; see, for example, the Klett-Cotta publicity page.

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

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       人質の朗読会 review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Ogawa Yoko's 人質の朗読会.

       This is the eleventh Ogawa under review at the complete review -- but, disappointingly, there are only five available in English. Meanwhile, more than two dozen have been translated into French .....

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

previous entries (11 - 20 November 2019)

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