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The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 March 2020

1 March: Multatuli at 200 | Lahore Literary Festival report | PEN World Voices Festival preview | Donna Leon Q & A
2 March: Ernesto Cardenal (1925-2020) | Asian and African science fiction | An Instance of the Fingerpost review
3 March: RBC Taylor Prize | PEN America Literary Awards | Women's Prize for Fiction longlist | Prix Jean d'Ormesson longlist
4 March: 'The Novel Prize' | Litprom-Bestenliste Weltempfänger | The Aosawa Murders review
5 March: Translation Prize finalists | North Korean literature | Lem revival | Olive oil literary prize
6 March: Stella Prize shortlist | Prix Orange du Livre en Afrique finalists | Chigozie Obioma Q & A | Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead review
7 March: Boekenweek | Földényi Q & A | Ockham New Zealand Book Awards' shortlists | The Society of Reluctant Dreamers review
8 March: Casanovas & Lynch profile | New European voices
9 March: Juan Eduardo Zúñiga (1919-2020) | Thomas Piketty Q & A
10 March: Walter Scott Prize longlist | De Sade manuscript | 88 Names review

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       Walter Scott Prize longlist

       They've announced the twelve title longlist for this year's Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
       I haven't seen any of these.
       The shortlist will be announced in April, and the winning title on 12 June.

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       De Sade manuscript

       The 11 March auction at Bonhams features quite a few nice pieces.
       Among those with the highest estimate is a first edition/first impression of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone -- expected to go for £70,000-90,000. The same goes for a whole autograph manuscript by the Marquis de Sade, of his last novel, Histoire secrète d'Isabelle de Bavière reine de France.
       The de Sade was first published only in 1953 -- and doesn't seem to be available in English yet. But with Aline and Valcour recently finally making it into English, maybe this will soon too ..... Meanwhile, there's always the French (published) edition, if you can't afford the manuscript: see the Gallimard publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.fr.

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       88 Names review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Matt Ruff's new novel, 88 Names.

       (This is yet another title to add to the surprisingly extensive index of books under review whose title start with or consist of a number.)

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       Juan Eduardo Zúñiga (1919-2020)

       I missed that Spanish author Juan Eduardo Zúñiga passed away two weeks ago; see, for example, the (Spanish) obituary in El País.
       Pretty much the only work of his that seems to be available is The Last Day on Earth -- published in the Words Without Borders anthology ... Spain's Great Untranslated; get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. A shame -- looks like there would be more of interest; see the Galaxia Gutenberg author page.

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       Thomas Piketty Q & A

       The Harvard Gazette has a Q & A with Thomas Piketty.
       His Capital and Ideolog is due out this week -- see the Harvard University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk --; I haven't seen it yet, but hope to have a look.
       See now also Paul Krugman's review in next week's The New York Times Book Review.

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       Casanovas & Lynch profile

       At the Los Angeles Review of Books Nathan Scott McNamara profiles the literary agency Casanovas & Lynch, in "Books Find Their Way to Readers": The Barcelona Literary Agency Casanovas & Lynch.

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       New European voices

       In The Guardian they present: "six novelists telling fresh stories about Europe", in 'My family are too frightened to read my book': meet Europe's most exciting authors.
       The only one of these authors under review at the complete review is Hassan Blasim -- his The Madman of Freedom Square -- but I do also have copies of Three Apples Fell from the Sky and All About Sarah (well, They Say Sarah, as the US title has it), and should be getting to them.

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       Boekenweek

       Boekenweek -- the Dutch book-week -- starts today and runs through the 15th.
       They have quite a bit going on for that; if you want to join in from abroad and read some Dutch literature, there's quite a bit under review at the complete review to help you choose .....

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       Földényi Q & A

       With two Földényi László books just out in English -- Dostoyevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts into Tears (see the Yale University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) and The Glance of the Medusa (see the Seagull publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) -- hlo continues their Földényi coverage, now with his Q & A with Jánossy Lajos, Modor Bálint, and Nagy Gabriella, László F. Földényi: Being Streamlined Has Become a Universal Criterion.
       Note that the original Hungarian version, at litera, is considerably longer .....

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       Ockham New Zealand Book Awards' shortlists

       They announced the shortlists for the four categories -- fiction, poetry, and two non-fiction (general and illustrated) -- of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards a few days ago, selected from forty longlisted titles, and originally from over 170 (unfortunately unrevealed) entries.
       The winner will be announced 12 May.

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       The Society of Reluctant Dreamers review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa's The Society of Reluctant Dreamers, which came out in the UK last year and is due out, from Archipelago, in the US shortly.

       I am surprised by how little review-attention it garnered in the UK -- despite Agualusa having previously won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and, more recently, the International Dublin Literary Award; it'll be interesting to see how American coverage shapes up.

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

       Stella Prize shortlist

       They've announced the six-title shortlist for this year's Stella Prize -- awarded to a work of fiction or non by a female Australian author
       The winner will be announced 8 April.

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       Prix Orange du Livre en Afrique finalists

       They've announced the six finalists for the prix Orange du Livre en Afrique, a francophone African fiction prize, with books by authors from Morocco, Senegal, Algeria, Tunisia, and Mali.
       Of the finalists, only Youssouf Amine Elalamy appears to have had anything published in English -- see, for example, Two Novellas by YAE; get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
       The winner will be announced 4 June.

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       Chigozie Obioma Q & A

       At Fair Observer Kourosh Ziabari has a Q & A, Talking African Literature with Chigozie Obioma.

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

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       Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of 2018 Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.

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       Translation Prize finalists

       The French-American Foundation has announced the finalists for its Translation Prize -- five titles each in the two categories, fiction and non.
       I have a few of these but, embarrassingly, haven't gotten to any of them yet.
       The winners will be announced on 6 May.

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       North Korean literature

       Very little fiction that is published in North Korea makes it abroad, with Bandi's The Accusation -- definitely not published in the North -- a rare example by a writer from there that's made it into English, so it's good to hear that at least, as Elizabeth Shim reports at UPI, North Korean literature to be published in South, group says; see also the (Korean) Tongil News report for all the titles.
       Let's hope some make it into English as well -- though meanwhile there is at least Paek Nam-nyong's Friend, forthcoming from Columbia University Press, to look forward to; see their publicity page; I have a copy and will definitely be getting to it.
       Meanwhile, also, see for example Sonia Ryang's Reading North Korea -- and surely you're already following the invaluable weblog, North Korean Literature in English.

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       Lem revival

       MIT Press is bringing out a nice pile of Stanisław Lem-titles, and in The Washington Post Scott Bradfield enthuses about how Stanislaw Lem has finally gotten the translations his genius deserves.
       That's a slight exaggeration -- yes, it's great to see that The Invincible is: "now available in the United States for the first time in a proper Polish-to-English translation" (by Bill Johnston; see the publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), but Harcourt, Brace would be surprised to hear that MIT Press' edition of Highcastle is a: "new-to-the-U.S. book" -- they published this same translation in 1995 .....
       In any case, it's great to see these books available again in English.
       (Lem is among the half-dozen authors whom I have read the most by, both pages- (over 10,000) and book- (around 40) wise -- albeit almost all in German (Suhrkamp/Insel did a much better job translating much more of his work than his American publishers) and all before I started the site. But I should really return to him again -- maybe this would be a good occasion (though I haven't seen these nice-looking MIT Press volumes yet).)

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       Olive oil literary prize

       There really are a lot of literary prizes out there, but the Premio letterario internazionale Ranieri Filo della Torre, recently awarded for the fourth time, is among the more unusual I've encountered: it's awarded for the best writing on ... olive oil -- and, as Ylenia Granitto reports in the Olive Oil Times, they had the Largest Field Yet for Olive Oil Literary Prize this year.
       The article also lists the winners in the various categories -- the thesis-categories seem fairly straightforward, but of course what's of real interest are the winners in the poetry and fiction categories .....

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

       'The Novel Prize'

       Three very fine publishers -- US-based New Directions, UK-based Fitzcarraldo Editions, and Australia-based Giramondo -- have announced a new biennial prize for an unpublished manuscript, The Novel Prize, which comes with a cash prize as well as publication in all three markets by these three publishers.
       Submissions will be open 1 April to 1 July for the inaugural prize.

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

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       Litprom-Bestenliste Weltempfänger

       The spring Litprom-Bestenliste Weltempfänger -- Nr. 46 -- is now out; it's a best-of list of recent translations into German from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
       It's topped by a translation of Peruvian author José María Arguedas' posthumously published (in 1971) El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo; this was admirably translated in the Pittsburgh Editions of Latin American Literature back in 2000, as The Fox from Up Above and the Fox from Down Below, but looks to be way out of print; get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk; it definitely sounds like it's time for a re-issue ..... See also the Editorial Drácena publicity page, or that for the German translation at Klaus Wagenbach.
       Other titles making the list include a new translation of Mishima Yukio's The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, as well as Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister, the Serial Killer.

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       The Aosawa Murders review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Onda Riku's The Aosawa Murders, recently out from Bitter Lemon Press.

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

       RBC Taylor Prize

       They awarded the RBC Taylor Prize -- for the last time -- yesterday, and it went to Bush Runner, by Mark Bourrie; see also the Biblioasis publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       PEN America Literary Awards

       They held the ceremony for the PEN America Literary Awards last night; all the winners aren't up at the official site yet, last I checked can now be found here; Where Reason Ends, by Yiyun Li, won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and Allison Markin Powell's translation of Kawakami Hiromi' The Ten Loves of Nishino won the PEN Translation Prize.

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       Women's Prize for Fiction longlist

       They've announced the sixteen-title longlist for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction, which includes Bernardine Evaristo's Booker Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other, the much-anticipated final volume in Hilary Mantel's trilogy, as well as books by Anne Enright, Edna O'Brien, and Ann Patchett, among others.
       I haven't seen any of these.
       The shortlist will be announced 22 April, and the winning title on 3 June.

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       Prix Jean d'Ormesson longlist

       The prix Jean d'Ormesson is one of my favorite book prizes, as judges are allowed to nominate basically any book they please -- new or old -- for the prize; they've now announced this year's eleven-title strong longlist -- see the Livres Hebdo report --; it includes: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Gabriel Garcia Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, and Adalbert Stifter's Der Hagestolz, as well as more recent books by Frédéric Boyer and Olivier Rolin.
       It will be interesting to see where this one goes .....

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

       Ernesto Cardenal (1925-2020)

       Nicaraguan poet -- and priest -- Ernesto Cardenal has passed away; see, for example, the obituaries in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
       New Directions have published several of his books; see their author page.

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

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       Asian and African science fiction

       In The National Amar Diwakar wonders Will Asian and African sci-fi take over our idea of the future ?
       I'm not sure about 'take over', but these new perspectives and voices are certainly welcome, and have certainly broadened the field.

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

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       An Instance of the Fingerpost review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Iain Pears' 1997 novel, An Instance of the Fingerpost.

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

       Multatuli at 200

       Tomorrow is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Eduard Douwes Dekker -- better known as Multatuli, and best-known for his Dutch classic, Max Havelaar.
       Max Havelaar was recently published in a new translation by Ina Rilke and David McKay, by New York Review Books -- and didn't get nearly the attention it deserves; this would certainly be a good occasion to check that out. (My review is of the old Roy Edwards Penguin Classics translation; either way, you really can't go wrong -- it is a wonderful book).
       See also the Multatuli Huis-site, or the useful UCL Multatuli study pack.

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

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       Lahore Literary Festival report

       The Lahore Literary Festival ran 21 to 23 February, and in The News on Sunday Nasir Abbas Nayyar now reports how: "The recently concluded LLF was all about the connection between art and fiction, and how culture blurs all boundaries between various genres", in The 'literature' in a literary festival.
       Good to hear that:

An important idea that evolved during their debate was about the need to set up more translation studies departments in Pakistani universities.

       Also good to hear that at the festival: "the number of sessions for Urdu and Punjabi has been increasing every year".

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

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       PEN World Voices Festival preview

       The PEN World Voices Festival runs 4 to 9 May in NY (and 2 to 6 May in LA) and they've now announced the highlights.
       The theme this year is 'These Truths':

celebrating literature’s deep illumination of cultural, historical, political, and emotional truths in a complex moment when “truth” is destabilized by the constant undermining of a common set of facts, “objective” histories are being interrogated and upended, and radical candor about lived experiences is fueling powerful social movements

       As always, there's an impressive cast of participants.

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       Donna Leon Q & A

       In the Boston Globe Amy Sutherland has a Q & A with the mystery writer, in: Greek and Roman tragedies are still relevant to Donna Leon.
       Leon repeats disappointingly often variations on that: "I don't read fiction very much anymore".
       So also:

BOOKS: Do you read contemporary fiction ?

LEON: I don’t read a lot. I read Greek and Roman tragedies, such as Euripides’s Trojan Women and Medea. I find them so overwhelmingly still relevant.

       But:

When I was in grad school at the University of Massachusetts. I’ve never had a TV, so I turned to the equivalent, which is crime fiction. I read hundreds of them. I read Rendell and Ross Macdonald, a fabulously gifted writer.

       See also the recent profile by Susanna Rustin in The Guardian: Donna Leon: Why I became an eco-detective writer.

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

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