opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 February 2020

1 February: Victorian Premier's Literary Awards | Wingate Prize shortlist | Flashman ! | Len Rix Q & A
2 February: Gabriel García Márquez exhibit | Foreign Studies review
3 February: Ekushey Book Fair | Reagan Arthur Q & A
4 February: George Steiner (1929-2020) | Vilcek Foundation Awards in Literature | Blues for Outlaw Hearts and Old Whores review
5 February: IPAF shortlist | Kamau Brathwaite (1930-2020) | Naga literature
6 February: Iranian Book of the Year Awards | Svetlana Alexievich Q & A | In Praise of Annada review
7 February: Stella Prize longlist | New Hudson Review | The Seep review
8 February: Pierre Guyotat (1940-2020) | Granthika profile | Charles Yu Q & A
9 February: Harry Potter in Yiddish | Karel Čapek as travel writer | The Secret Tale of Tesur House review
10 February: Krishna Baldev Vaid (1927-2020) | LBF International Excellence Awards shortlists

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       Krishna Baldev Vaid (1927-2020)

       Hindi writer Krishna Baldev Vaid has passed away; see, for example, Ashutosh Bhardwaj in the Indian Express explaining how Krishna Baldev Vaid's novels stepped into uncharted zones.
       A quartet of his books is available from Penguin (India); see their author page -- and their Q & A with him.
       Get your copy of, for example, None Other from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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

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       LBF International Excellence Awards shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for the 2020 London Book Fair International Excellence Awards -- not yet at the official site, last I checked, but see, for example, The Bookseller report.
       There are sixteen categories, and representatives from twenty-nine countries are among the finalists -- including the Yemen Bookstore in Yemen.
       The three finalists for the Literary Translation Initiative Award are:

• Gecko Press (New Zealand)
• SM Traduções (Mozambique)
• Yiddish Book Centre (USA)

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

       Harry Potter in Yiddish

       J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter is among the most widely-translated contemporary works, and in Tablet Yair Rosenbergnow offers: "The inside story of how Harry Potter was translated into Yiddish", in How Do You Say 'Quidditch' in Yiddish ?

       (Updated - 11 February): See now also Jordan Kutzik's report in Forward that Mazel tov: First edition of Yiddish 'Harry Potter' sells out in less than 48 hours -- the whole first print run of 1,000.

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

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       Karel Čapek as travel writer

       Karel Čapek is best-known for his dramas (notably R.U.R., in which he coined the word 'robot') and fiction (e.g. The Absolute at Large), but he was also a travel-writer, and Mirna Šolić recently published a study of these writing, In Search of a Shared Expression: Karel Čapek’s travel writing and imaginative geography of Europe; see for example, the Charles University press release.
       At Radio Praha Ian Willoughby now has an interesting Q & A about this with Šolić.

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

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       The Secret Tale of Tesur House review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A chronicle of old Tibet by W. Tailing, The Secret Tale of Tesur House published by China Tibetology Publishing House.

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

       Pierre Guyotat (1940-2020)

       French author Pierre Guyotat has passed away; see, for example, the Le Monde report.
       His writing was fairly extreme and certainly intense; quite a bit of it has been translated into English. See, for example, Rod Smith's review in Rain Taxi of Tomb for 500,000 Soldiers and Eden, Eden, Eden; those two are hard to find in the US/UK right now, but the recent MIT Press titles are readily available; get your copy of In the Deep at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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

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       Granthika profile

       In Wired Andrew Leonard reports on how A Code-Obsessed Novelist Builds a Writing Bot. The Plot Thickens, as: "Vikram Chandra, the author of Sacred Games, created Granthika to keep track of complex narratives. It could change the future of storytelling."
       Not sure how convinced I am by this.

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

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       Charles Yu Q & A

       In Bomb Gabe Hudson has a Q & A with How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe-author Charles Yu, Weird Political Fiction.
       Yu's Interior Chinatown is just out; get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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

       Stella Prize longlist

       They've announced the twelve-title longlist for this year's Stella Prize -- a: "literary award celebrating Australian women's writing and an organisation that champions cultural change".
       The longlist was selected from 150 entries; the shortlist will be announced 6 March, the winner on 8 April.

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

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       New Hudson Review

       The Winter issue of the Hudson Review is now out, with quite a bit of the contents available online.

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

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       The Seep review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Chana Porter's debut novel, The Seep, just out from Soho Press.

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

       Iranian Book of the Year Awards

       They've announced the Iranian Book of the Year Awards; a full list of the winners (in Farsi) can be found e.g. here -- and see also the Tehran Times report, Iran honors top books of the year.
       The novel of the year award was shared by two books: وضعیت بی عاری ('The Shamelessness Situation') by Hamed Jalali; see also the Adab publicity page, and دور زدن در خیابان یکطرفه ('Turning on the One-Way Street') by Mohammadreza Marzuqi; see also the Third Publishing publicity page. Both of these were also finalists for the Jalal Al-e Ahmad Literary Award, awarded in December.
       A translation of David Damrosch's What Is World Literature ? shared in one of the translation prizes.

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

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       Svetlana Alexievich Q & A

       At Deutsche Welle Anastassia Boutsko has a Q & A with the Nobel laureate, Putin 'his own hostage': Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich on her opera debut.
       The opera is Boris, which premiered at the Stuttgart Opera on Sunday; it's based on Alexievich's Secondhand Time.

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

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       In Praise of Annada review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Bharatchandra Ray's eighteenth century In Praise of Annada, now out complete in two volumes in Harvard University Press' Murty Classical Library of India series.

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

       IPAF shortlist

       They've announced the six-title shortlist for this year's International Prize for Arabic Fiction.
       Lots of geography in the titles -- from The Spartan Court to Firewood of Sarajevo .....
       The winner will be announced on 14 April.

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

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       Kamau Brathwaite (1930-2020)

       Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite has passed away; see, for example, Prime Minister Mia Mottley's tribute to him.
       New Directions has brought out several of his works; see their publicity page.

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

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       Naga literature

       In the New Indian Express Pradip Phanjoubam argues that: "While Naga nonfiction is seemingly unable to break free from revisiting the conflict, fiction is starting to show signs of a new life germinating", in Remembering & forgetting in Naga literature.

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

       George Steiner (1929-2020)

       George Steiner has passed away; see, for example, The New York Times obituary by Christopher Lehmann-Haupt and William Grimes. (Yes, it's one of those creepy The New York Times obituaries (co-)written by someone who pre-deceased the subject.)

       I was a great admirer of Steiner's work, and it was tremendously influential on my reading in my late teens (and also beyond) -- starting with In Bluebeard's Castle and After Babel (of course). (I name-checked him when I spoke On Reading at the Salzburg Festival last year as one of the few (mainly) non-fiction writers who had a profound influence on what (and how) I read -- in contrast to, I noted, for example, a Marcel Reich-Ranicki.) Not that I always agreed with him -- he panned (the first volume of) Peter Weiss' The Aesthetics of Resistance !
       Several of Steiner's works are under review at the complete review:

• Errata
• Grammars of Creation
• Lessons of the Masters
• A Long Saturday (with Laure Adler)
• My Unwritten Books
• No Passion Spent

       But I still have some to get to, too -- such as George Steiner at the New Yorker (which is unfortunately only a selection-of; hopefully, a complete volume will follow ...); see also the New Directions publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

       (Updated - 6 February): See now also Adam Gopnik on The Seriousness of George Steiner at The New Yorker.

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

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       Vilcek Foundation Awards in Literature

       The Vilcek Foundation awards a lot of money in a variety of categories, and they've now announced their literary awards.
       Edwidge Danticat will receive the 2020 Vilcek Prize in Literature, while the Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Literature will go to Yaa Gyasi, Valeria Luiselli, and Jenny Xie.

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

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       Blues for Outlaw Hearts and Old Whores review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Massimo Carlotto's Blues for Outlaw Hearts and Old Whores, the latest in his 'Alligator'-series, which is out ... today.
       This is the tenth Carlotto under review at the complete review.

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

       Ekushey Book Fair

       The Ekushey Book Fair has opened in Bangladesh -- inaugurated by prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
       In The Daily Star report, Translate more Bangla literature (yes !) they report:

Hasina lamented that now she cannot move around the Ekushey book fair freely as she used to do in her student life.

Noting that this book fair is her favorite event, she said, "After becoming the prime minister, it always hurts that I don't have the liberty anymore as I had in my student life when I used to spend hour after hour in the book fair. I feel very good whenever I visit the book fair."

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

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       Reagan Arthur Q & A

       In The Los Angeles Times Maris Kreizman has a Q & A: Reagan Arthur on taking the reins of book publisher Alfred A. Knopf.
       Arthur succeeds Sonny Mehta as head of Alfred A. Knopf -- amazingly, she is only the fourth person to run the house/imprint since 1915 when it was founded.

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

       Gabriel García Márquez exhibit

       At the Harry Ransom Center the exhibit Gabriel García Márquez: The Making of a Global Writer has opened; it runs through 19 July and sounds like it's well worth a visit.

       Only two García Márquez titles are under review at the complete review -- Living to Tell the Tale and Memories of My Melancholy Whores -- but I really should return to his other work as well.

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

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       Foreign Studies review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Endō Shūsaku's Foreign Studies.

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

       Victorian Premier's Literary Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Victorian Premier's Literary Awards -- "Australia's richest literary prize".
       Like the British Whitbread Costa Book Awards, there are category-winners (fiction, non-fiction, drama, poetry, writing for young adults and, every other year (but not this one), Indigenous writing), who each receive A$25,000, with the 'Victorian Prize for Literature' (and another A$100,000) going to the one selected from the category winners as best of all; this year it was the drama winner, S.Shakthidharan's Counting and Cracking; see also the Belvoir production page.
       Christos Tsiolkas' novel, Damascus, won the fiction category award.

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

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       Wingate Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Wingate Literary Prize, "awarded annually to the best book to 'translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader'", with both works of fiction and non under consideration.
       Finalists include novels by Gary Shteyngart, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, Howard Jacobson, and Linda Grant, but the only work under review at the complete review is Benjamin Balint's Kafka's Last Trial: The Case of a Literacy Legacy.
       The winner will be announced 16 March.

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

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       Flashman !

       In the new issue of the New Criterion John Steele Gordon writes on "the beloved brainchild of George MacDonald Fraser", the infamous Flashman, in No flash in the pan.
       Only a trio of the Flashman-titles are under review at the complete review -- including the first, Flashman -- but I've read them all save one (I'm a fan); as with a few much-loved authors all of whose other novels I have read, I've been holding back one in reserve, saving it for desperate times. (Other examples: Graham Greene (Brighton Rock) and Patrick White (The Tree of Man).)
       (Oddly, however, it's another title by Fraser -- Quartered Safe Out Here -- that is one of the titles that, over the years, users have purchased most steadily and frequently via the Amazon link at the site; it's among a dozen or so dependable sellers, year in and year out, and I have no idea why.)

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

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       Len Rix Q & A

       At hlo Owen Good has a Q & A with Len Rix: Magda Szabó inspires deep trust, even as she wrenches the heart, as Rix's translation of Szabó's 1970 novel Abigail is finally out in English.

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

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