opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 20 December 2019

11 December: World Literature Today's 75 Notable Translations | Fabulous Monsters review
12 December: 100 works in Spanish by women from the past 100 years | Literary prizes (in Germany) | 'How Reading Has Changed in the 2010s'
13 December: Indie booksellers favorite translations of the decade | Nobel Prize sales effect | Free Day review
14 December: PEN America Literary Awards longlists | Best of 2019 in ... Spain | More favorites of the year
15 December: Translations from the ... Chinese | A Couple of Soles review
16 December: Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Awards | Book-distribution in ... Germany | Purloining Tiny review
17 December: DSC Prize for South Asian Literature | LTI Korea awards | Forthcoming translations from ... the Arabic
18 December: Athens Prize for Literature | International Prize for Arabic Fiction longlist | Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize shortlists | Les prénoms épicènes review
19 December: Wingate Prize longlist | Accident review
20 December: The Story of the Stone exhibit | Arabic 2019 favorites | Foreign Affairs' best books list | Worst of the year ?

go to weblog

return to main archive

       The Story of the Stone exhibit

       An exhibit dedicated to that great(est) Chinese novel, The Story of the Stone, opens at the National Museum of China today -- 隻立千古——《红楼梦》文化展.
       With some 600 pieces on display in the six-part exhibit it sounds promising; see also Lin Qi's preview report in China Daily, 'Dream of the Red Chamber' center of exhibition.

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

---

       Arabic 2019 favorites

       ArabLit's annual feature where: "authors, critics, and contributors recommend their favorites of 2019" is now up: ArabLit's List: Best Reads of 2019.
       Mainly titles that have not (yet) been translated from the Arabic -- and some from other languages, available in Arabic but not in English (including an Ogawa Yoko novel(la) !) -- but certainly an interesting selection.

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

---

       Foreign Affairs' best books list

       Limited to books they've reviewed -- but they do review a lot -- Foreign Affairs now offers The Best of Books 2019.
       It's basically limited to non-fiction, too -- though Valeria Luiselli's Lost Children Archive does slip in.

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

---

       Worst of the year ?

       Among all the best books of the year lists, there's far too little mention of what fell short. Thankfully, Steve Donoghue does also annually compile worst lists -- and his The Worst Books of 2019: Fiction ! is now up at the Open Letter Review.
       Mainly high-profile titles, and many by very high-profile authors -- though amazingly I have not only not read but actually not seen a one of these. (I mean, I've seen them in bookstores and libraries etc., but haven't taken one in hand and did not receive any of them as a review copy.)

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

       Wingate Prize longlist

       They've announced the twelve-title longlist for the 2020 Wingate Literary Prize -- "awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader".
       Two of the titles are under review at the complete review: Kafka's Last Trial by Benjamin Balint and The Order of the Day by Éric Vuillard.

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

---

       Accident review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Nicholas Mosley's 1965 novel, Accident -- one of many Mosley titles out from Dalkey Archive Press.

       This was also filmed in 1967; Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay, Joseph Losey directed, and it starred Dirk Bogarde, Michael York, and Jacqueline Sassard.

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

       Athens Prize for Literature

       They've announced the winners of this year's Athens Prize for Literature in its two novel categories, Greek and translated.
       Fernando Aramburu's Homeland was named the best translated novel, beating out Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, Mike McCormack's Solar Bones, David Foenkinos' Charlotte (!), Lutz Seiler's Kruso, and Paul Auster's 4321, among others. Homeland also appeared in English translation this year, but I haven't seen it yet; see also the Pantheon publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
       Kostas Akrivos' Γάλα μαγνησίας was named best Greek novel; see, for example, the Μεταίχμιο page and the (Greek) magnesia report.
       You can find all the finalists in this preview article.

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

---

       International Prize for Arabic Fiction longlist

       They've announced the longlist (and the judges) for the 2020 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, the leading Arabic-language literary award.
       Sixteen novels were selected from 128 entries.
       A shortlist of six titles will be announced 4 February, and the winner on 14 April.

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

---

       Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for the Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize, a prize for: "the best unpublished manuscript or book published within two years of the award year across the categories of fiction, poetry and memoir, and graphic novels", in Kiswahili -- not yet at the official site, last I checked, but see, for example, their tweet, or a copy of the press release.
       The finalists were selected from 96 entries.

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

---

       Les prénoms épicènes review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Amélie Nothomb's Les prénoms épicènes.

       This is the 25th Nothomb under review at the complete review, so I'm now just three short of the complete works. Or at least the complete published works, as Nothomb famously writes some four books a year but only publishes one; there are apparently some seventy-odd in the drawer(s) .....

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

       DSC Prize for South Asian Literature

       They've announced the winner of this year's DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and it is Half the Night is Gone, by Amitabha Bagchi; see also the Juggernaut publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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

---

       LTI Korea awards

       Anna J. Park reports that LTI Korea honors devoted literary translators in The Korea Times, as the Literature Translation Institute of Korea awarded the LTI Korea Translation Award, Distinguished Service Award, and Translation Award for Aspiring Translators.
       The LTI Korea Translation Award went to the Spanish translation of Han Kang's Human Acts, the Russian translation of Cheon Myeong-gwan's Whale, and Sora Kim-Russell's translation of Kim Un-su's The Plotters.

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

---

       Forthcoming translations from ... the Arabic

       In The National M.Lynx Qualey presents some of The Arabic books being translated into English for 2020.
       Quite a few to look forward to -- and I'm particularly curious about The Magnificent Conman of Cairo, by Adel Kamel, forthcoming from Hoopoe.

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

       Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Awards, one of the leading Iranian literary awards; see also the Tehran Times report, Memoirs of suspect in Mykonos murders case wins Iran's most lucrative literary prize.
       It's interesting to see that no prize was awarded in the fiction categories -- neither best novel nor best short story. I wonder what messages the judges (authorities ?) were sending .....

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

---

       Book-distribution in ... Germany

       An interesting (German) article by Carla Neuhaus on the German book-distribution system -- and what happens when the distributors don't carry all a publisher's titels -- in Der Tagesspiegel, "Wir sind mitten drin im Verlagssterben".
       Among the examples they give: ten titles by Officer Pembry-author Giwi Margwelaschwili are in print from Verbrecher Verlag -- but many booksellers can only order two of them for readers. Meanwhile, Amrûn Verlag reports that only 100 of its 180 titles are available via distributors -- i.e. almost half its titles are inaccessible for most booksellers (and hence most book-buyers).
       The recent bankruptcy of one of the major distributors, KNV, compounded the problem.

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

---

       Purloining Tiny review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of John Franklin Bardin's Purloining Tiny.

       Bardin is best-known for a trio of novels published just after the Second World War -- The Deadly Percheron, Devil Take the Blue-Tail Fly, and The Last of Philip Banter -- and this one, written three decades later, has the reputation of being something of a very late in the day and somewhat desperate effort to try to repeat the same trick(s) of these works from his glory days, but I found it rather better than its reputation suggested.
       Still, the Penguin omnibus edition of the earlier trio is the one to get ... (get yours at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk).

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

       Translations from the ... Chinese

       At Paper Republic Nicky Harman tallies the 2019 Book Translations from Chinese into English -- coming up with only 27, way down from last year. Shockingly, too, only three of those twenty-seven are by women authors.
       A useful overview -- though disappointingly, aside from The Handsome Monk I've only seen a single one of these titles (the Jia Pingwa).

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

---

       A Couple of Soles review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Comic Play from Seventeenth-Century China by Li Yu, A Couple of Soles, just out from Columbia University Press.

       I only knew Li Yu from his novel, The Carnal Prayer Mat, but he was a leading playwright of his time; surprisingly, this is apparently the first of his ten surviving stageworks to be translated into English.
       I've been meaning/hoping to cover more plays, especially classical ones, but one of the problems with covering them is that they're often printed in collections and I prefer to review them individually; this one at least has the advantage of being a one-volume, one-play edition. Still, I do hope to pick and choose from the many impressive collections I've accumulated and review more plays .....

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

       PEN America Literary Awards longlists

       They've announced the longlists for the 2020 PEN America Literary Awards.
       Lots of categories here, including the PEN Translation Prize ("for a book-length translation of prose") and the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
       Two of the ten longlisted titles for the PEN Translation Prize are under review at the complete review:

• At Dusk, by Hwang Sok-yong; translated by Sora Kim-Russell
• The Ten Loves of Nishino, by Kawakami Hiromi; translated by Allison Markin Powell

       I have several more of these, and do hope to get to some of them. And interesting to see that an AmazonCrossing title is in the running (The Dead Wander in the Desert, by Rollan Seisenbayev).
       There is also one of the titles longlisted for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation under review:

• What We Live For, What We Die For, by Serhiy Zhadan; translated by Virlana Tkacz and Wanda Phipps

       The finalists will be announced next month, and the winners on 2 March.

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

---

       Best of 2019 in ... Spain

       Another foreign best-of-the-year list: in Spain, the year-end El País-list is the big one, but before we get that Vanity Fair (Spain) offer what they consider Los 42 mejores libros del año.
       A lot in (Spanish) translation -- including many from English -- but at least that means many are also available in English .....

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

---

       More favorites of the year

       The Sydney Morning Herald asked: "writers from here and overseas to tell us about their favourite reads this year", and collect them in The books we loved in 2019.

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

       Indie booksellers favorite translations of the decade

       At the Center for the Art of Translation blog Chad Felix has Indie Booksellers Share Their Favorite Translations of the Decade -- twenty-three works of literature in translation.
       Lots of great titles here -- and several that are obvious choices, including Anniversaries and Zibaldone, but John E. Woods' translation of Arno Schmidt's Bottom's Dream only gets an incidental mention ("which I'd venture to say is more admired than read") ? Slightly disappointing too: only one title not translated from a European language (and French and Spanish ... very well represented).

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

---

       Nobel Prize sales effect

       I haven't seen any discussion of the extent to which this year's Nobel Prize in Literature announcements have had an effect on sales of books by laureates Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke, but at Deutsche Welle Sabine Peschel offers a look at How the Nobel Prize affects book sales, mainly in the German-speaking world.
       Interesting, for example, that:

The publisher mentions the case of Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, who was unexpectedly named the winner in 1988: "Nobody knew him, or even how to spell his name right. We had sold 300 copies in three years — and then 30,000 in three minutes."

       (In German they write his name: 'Nagib Machfus' .....)
       As to this year's prizes: Handke has always been a big seller in German, but: "In the seven weeks following the announcement of the Nobel Prize, Suhrkamp sold 150,000 copies of Handke's books, according to press spokesperson Tanja Postpischil".
       As to Tokarczuk:

Her 1,200-page opus magnum, The Books of Jacob, was published in German 10 days before she was awarded a Nobel Prize. Before the announcement, Kampa had sold about 1,200 copies. After that, the 3,000 copies of the available print run were sold out in no time.

       No doubt, they've sold quite a few more copies since.

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

---

       Free Day review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Inès Cagnati's 1973 novel, Free Day, just out in translation from New York Review Classics.

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

       100 works in Spanish by women from the past 100 years

       Instead of a 'best of 2019'-list, the Colombian publication Arcadia had a jury of 91 people select a hundred titles by Spanish women authors from the past century -- Cien años, cien libros de escritoras en español (with Portuguese-writing Clarice Lispector sneaking her way onto the list).
       The official site presents the titles in rather annoying slideshow fashion, so see, for example, the whole list more conveniently at infobae.

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

---

       Literary prizes (in Germany)

       At the Universität Duisburg-Essen they have a research project, Literaturpreise im deutschsprachigen Raum seit 1990: Funktionen und Wirkungen -- a project that: "intends a comprehensive analysis of the phenomenon of literary prizes in the German speaking cultural area since 1990 examining its functions for and effects on the literary field, cultural policies, and the publishing world".
       At Börsenblatt they have a Q & A two of those involved in the project, Sarah Maaß and Dennis Borghardt, in Mehr Literaturpreise, mehr Wettbewerb, mehr Publikumsbeteiligung.
       Some interesting titbits, including that there are currently some 950 literary prizes in Germany (though not all are awarded annually -- in 2018 only 579 were).

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

---

       'How Reading Has Changed in the 2010s'

       At the BBC site Erica Wagner "picks the most important book trends of the past decade", in How Reading Has Changed in the 2010s.

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

       World Literature Today's 75 Notable Translations

       At World Literature Today they have their 75 Notable Translations of 2019.
       As usual, this is a fairly useful overview of much that has appeared in translation in the US over the past year -- but, as they acknowledge, it is: "admittedly incomplete"; notable omissions include the Marquis de Sade's Aline and Valcour, certainly one of this year's more interesting translations.

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

---

       Fabulous Monsters review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Alberto Manguel on Dracula, Alice, Superman, and Other Literary Friends, in Fabulous Monsters, recently out from Yale University Press.

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

previous entries (1 - 10 December 2019)

archive index

- return to top of the page -

© 2019 the complete review


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