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The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 April 2020

1 April: LaLiGaBa finalists | Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award | Coming translations from the ... Korean
2 April: Best Translated Book Awards longlists | New World Literature Today | National Book Awards judges | A Bond Undone review
3 April: International Booker Prize shortlist | Prix Batty Weber | Science fiction in ... South Korea | Insomnia review
4 April: Quais du polar prizes | Sami Rohr Prize finalists | Markoosie Patsauq (1941-2020)
5 April: Yoko Tawada Q & A | Providence review | The Complete Review at ... 21
6 April: 'Sade's new moment' | Publishing in ... India | French lockdown diaries
7 April: Desmond Elliott Prize longlist | Breasts and Eggs review
8 April: 'Lockdown erotica' | Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist | Griffin Poetry Prize shortlists | German Book Prize submissions
9 April: Orwell Prize longlists | Japanese Booksellers' Awards | A Life Without End review
10 April: 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship winners | European Literature Network Q & A

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       2020 Guggenheim Fellowship winners

       They've announced the 175 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship winners.
       Two of the fellows are pursuing translation projects: Jenny McPhee is translating Elsa Morante's Menzogna e sortilegio (previously translated as House of Liars) and Emily Wilson is translating the Iliad. (Yes, interestingly both are re-translations.)
       Quite a few writers also received fellowships, including Garth Greenwell, Yiyun Li, Valeria Luiselli, Celeste Ng, Sigrid Nunez, and Helen Phillips.

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

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       European Literature Network Q & A

       At the Asymptote blog Julia Sherwood has a Q & A with Rosie Goldsmith and West Camel of and about the European Literature Network, whose: "mission is to help promote international literature among a broader audience of England and to support other groups working in this area", in Riveting Reviews: An interview with the European Literature Network.
       They talk a lot about the ELN magazine, The Riveter, generally devoted to one language, country, or theme -- and always worth a look.

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

       Orwell Prize longlists

       They've announced the longlists for this year's Orwell Prize for Political Writing (twelve titles) and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction (thirteen titles).
       Quite a few big names on the fiction list -- including Bernardine Evaristo's Booker Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other -- but none of them are under review at the complete review.
       The shortlists will be announced next month, and the winners on 25 June.

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       Japanese Booksellers' Awards

       They've announced this year's Japanese Booksellers' Awards.
       Nagira Yu's 流浪の月 ('Wandering Moon') took first place -- while Kawakami Mieko's 夏物語, just published in English as Breasts and Eggs, came in seventh. A new Yokoyama Hideo placed fourth.
       In the translated category a Korean novel, Almond, by Sohn Won-pyung, took first place -- it's forthcoming in English from HarperCollins --, beating out Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women and Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem.

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       A Life Without End review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Frédéric Beigbeder's A Life Without End, just out in English, from World Editions.

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       'Lockdown erotica'

       I have to admit I am impressed and amused by how quickly some writers adjust to changing circumstances, as described in The Guardian's fun feature on Filth in a time of handwashing: why lockdown erotica is the hottest trend in publishing.
       I don't think I'll get to any of these, but apparently there is an audience out there for this.

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       Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist

       They've announced the six-title shortlist for this year's Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize, awarded: "for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under", which consists of three poetry collections, two novels and one short story collection.
       The winner will be announced 14 May.

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       Griffin Poetry Prize shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for this year's Griffin Poetry Prize in its two categories, international and Canadian.
       The winners will be announced 19 May.

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       German Book Prize submissions

       The German Book Prize -- the leading German book prize -- limits publishers to two submissions apiece (even more stringent than the Booker Prize), though publishers can recommend up to five more titles for the judges to call in, and they've now announced that they got 187 submissions for this year's prize, thirteen more than last year; unfortunately, they do not reveal what those titles are.
       Still quite a while until the longlist is announced -- 18 August -- with the shortlist to follow 15 September and the winner on 12 October.

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

       Desmond Elliott Prize longlist

       They've announced the ten-title longlist for this year's Desmond Elliott Prize for debut fiction -- not yet at the official site, last I checked, but see for example Katherine Cowdrey's report at The Bookseller.
       Interesting to see the big-house dominance: six titles "from Hachette's stables" and three from Penguin Random House imprints, alongside just one title from an independent, Holland House Books.
       The shortlist will be announced on 6 May and the winner will be announced on 2 July.

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       Breasts and Eggs review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Kawakami Mieko's Breasts and Eggs -- certainly one of the most anticipated translations of the year.

       This is the first of three Kawakami works coming out from Europa Editions (in the US) and Picador (in the UK); it comes with a blurb from Murakami Haruki, who is apparently a big fan -- hardly surprising: this book is very Murakamiesque, albeit from a female perspective.
       Of course, the book we really need to see in translation is the one subtitled: 'Haruki Murakami: A Long, Long Interview by Mieko Kawakami', みみずくは黄昏に飛びたつ; see also the Shinchosha publicity page. [Updated: Nice to see at the Literary Hub they now have what looks like an excerpt from that interview/book.]

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

       'Sade's new moment'

       At the Los Angeles Review of Books John Galbraith Simmons makes the case for Sade, Too: A New Moment for a Complex Monster.
       Simmons translated Sade's Aline and Valcour with Jocelyne Geneviève Barque; it came out last year from Contra Mundum Press, and he discusses it at length here.

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       Publishing in ... India

       At Scroll.in Vasudhendra looks at How is the coronavirus lockdown affecting Indian language publishing ? A case study from Kannada.
       As he notes, even in the best of times Kannada-language publishing is a small market:

Although the population of Karnataka state is over 60 million, a maximum of only about a thousand copies of any Kannada book is actually sold, and then with great difficulty. Only a few well-known writers manage to sell between five thousand and ten thousand copies.

       Many of the specifically Coronavirus-induced issues are, of course, also common to publishing and bookselling elsewhere in the world; still, interesting to hear about the local situation.

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       French lockdown diaries

       Via I'm pointed to Erin Zaleski's look at how in France: "Diaries of privileged literati inflamed smoldering class resentments that always lie near the surface here, and are only likely to get worse as the COVID-19 crisis drags on" in the Daily Beast, in The 'Let-Them-Eat-Cake' Lockdown Diaries.
       (English-language publications of course are also offering their fair share of lockdown chronicles -- such as The New York Review of Books' Pandemic Journals (from all over the world) -- but one can see why the French examples, in particular, are not going over well domestically.)

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

       Yoko Tawada Q & A

       At the Literary Hub Madeleine Thien has a Q & A with Yoko Tawada: 'Language is a Living Thing' -- discussing, in particular, The Naked Eye -- and how Tawada wrote it back and forth in Japanese and German -- as well as The Emissary (published in the UK as: The Last Children of Tokyo).

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

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       Providence review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Max Barry's latest, Providence -- science fiction, with an alien encounter and a prominent role for AI.

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

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       The Complete Review at ... 21

       The first reviews were posted at the complete review on 5 April 1999 -- the start of all this. Now, twenty-one years later, there are 4547 -- and they continue to appear apace; since August 2002 there's also been near-daily posting at this Literary Saloon.
       As usual, there's not much to say regarding these kinds of anniversaries -- it's not like much will be different tomorrow compared to yesterday (or last year, or a decade ago ...). You know what you'll find here -- and I'll do my best to see to it that there will be more of the same in the future.
       Still ... damn ... twenty-one years, that's quite a chunk of time ......

       Thanks for your continued interest (and forbearance ?), and I hope you continue to enjoy the site !

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

       Quais du polar prizes

       The French Quais du polar festival has had to go virtual this year, but they did announce most of their prizes, including the prix des Lecteurs Quais du Polar/20 Minutes, which went to Requiem pour une République by Thomas Cantaloube.
       This one has been racking up the crime-novel prizes, and I suspect we'll see it in English fairly soon; the fact that Cantaloube was long a US-based journalist can't hurt. Meanwhile, see the Gallimard publicity page.

       They presumably also announced the prix du polar européen, but at this time they only list the seven finalists and I can't find mention of who won the prize anywhere.

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       Sami Rohr Prize finalists

       They've announced the four finalists for this year's Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature -- not yet at the official site, last I checked, but they did tweet the list.
       The prize -- one of the richest US book prizes, with US$100,000 going to the winner -- alternates between fiction and non every year, and this is a non year -- but one of the titles is nevertheless under review at the complete review: Benjamin Balint's Kafka's Last Trial.
       The winner will be announced next month.

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

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       Markoosie Patsauq (1941-2020)

       I missed this last month, but Markoosie Patsauq has passed away; see the fascinating tribute by Mark Abley at the McGill-Queen's University Press.
       His Harpoon of the Hunter was first published in an Inuktitut-language magazine in 1969-70, and then in a version adapted by the author in English by MQUP. Impressively:

Harpoon of the Hunter has never gone out of print in the forty-nine years since its publication, and it is the best-selling work in the history of McGill-Queen's University Press.

       Even more impressively and excitingly, they're coming out with: "a critical edition of the book including a new translation, based closely on the Inuktitut original", titled Hunter With Harpoon, in November.
       No publicity page at the MQUP site yet, but you can pre-order your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
       This obviously almost immediately shoots to near the top of my list of most-eagerly anticipated fall books.

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

       International Booker Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's International Booker Prize, and the six titles are:

• The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, tr. Iona Macintyre and Fiona Mackintosh
  
  
• The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, tr. Michele Hutchison
  
  
• The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar, tr. anonymous
  
  
• Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, tr. Sophie Hughes
  
  
• The Memory Police by Ogawa Yoko, tr. Stephen Snyder
  
  
• Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann, tr. Ross Benjamin

       I have Hurricane Season and hope to get to it -- it's just out in the US; The Discomfort of Evening and The Adventures of China Iron are only due out in the US this fall.
       The winner will be announced 19 May.

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

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       Prix Batty Weber

       They've announced that this year's prix Batty Weber -- the triennial luxembourgeois national literary prize -- goes to Pierre Joris; see also his official site.

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

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       Science fiction in ... South Korea

       In The Korea Times Kwak Yeon-soo considers whether this is Science fiction's golden age in Korea ?
       They have some catching up to do -- as, for example:

A growing interest in science fiction spawned the launch of the Science Fiction Writers Union of the Republic of Korea (SFWUK) in December 2017 with the aim of supporting the development of the sci-fi industry and related literary endeavors.

There are only about 52 sci-fi writers in the union, compared with nearly 2,000 members in Science Fiction Writers of America.

       Seems a bit early to consider this a golden age, but it would be great to some in translation. And of course what I'd really love to see is some North Korean science fiction .....

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

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       Insomnia review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Alberts Bels' Insomnia.

       Bels wrote this in 1967, but even in censored form it only appeared in the Soviet Union twenty years later -- and only uncensored in 2003. Now it's out in English translation from Parthian -- who really have an excellent little translation series.

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

       Best Translated Book Awards longlists

       They've announced the longlists for this year's Best Translated Book Awards.
       The twenty-five fiction finalists are:

• Animalia by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, tr. Frank Wynne
  
  
• Beyond Babylon by Igiaba Scego, tr. Aaron Robertson
  
  
• The Book of Collateral Damage by Sinan Antoon, tr. Jonathan Wright
  
  
• The Boy by Marcus Malte, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan and Tom Roberge
  
  
• The Cheffe by Marie NDiaye, tr. Jordan Stump
  
  
• China Dream by Ma Jian, tr. Flora Drew
  
  
• Death Is Hard Work by Khaled Khalifa, tr. Leri Price
  
  
• Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz, tr.Sara Moses and Carolina Orloff
  
  
• A Dream Come True by Juan Carlos Onetti, tr. Katherine Silver
  
  
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones
  
  
• EEG by Daša Drndić, tr. Celia Hawkesworth
  
  
• Good Will Come From the Sea by Christos Ikonomou, tr. Karen Emmerich
  
  
• A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio, tr. Ann Goldstein
  
  
• Labyrinth by Burhan Sönmez, tr. Umit Hussein
  
  
• The Memory Police by Ogawa Yoko, tr. Stephen Snyder
  
  
• Parade by Hiromi Kawakami, tr. Allison Markin Powell
  
  
• 77 by Guillermo Saccomanno, tr. Andrea G. Labinger
  
  
• Space Invaders by Nona Fernández, tr. Natasha Wimmer
  
  
• Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman, tr. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler
  
  
• Tentacle by Rita Indiana, tr. Achy Obejas
  
  
• Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima, tr. Geraldine Harcourt
  
  
• Vernon Subutex 1 by Virginie Despentes, tr. Frank Wynne
  
  
• Welcome to America by Linda Boström Knausgård, tr. Martin Aitken
  
  
• Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth, tr. Charlotte Barslund
  
  
• The Wind that Lays Waste by Selva Almada, tr. Chris Andrews

       Yes, eight of them are under review at the complete review -- last year there were nine on announcement day -- while I haven't seen ten of them. Obviously, the Boström Knausgård is my favorite of the ones I'm familiar with; there are a few titles I'm ... somewhat surprised to find here.
       As to titles that didn't make the list: somewhat surprising neither Han Kang nor the Krasznahorkai made the cut; not so surprising that the Houellebecq didn't.
       Disappointments ? Certainly that Dag Solstad -- this year with Professor Andersen's Night -- again didn't make the cut. And I would have picked Doppelgänger over EEG as far as the eligible Drndićs go.

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

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       New World Literature Today

       The Spring issue of World Literature Today is now available, with a spotlight on: 'Graphic Nonfiction' -- and the always useful extensive collection of book reviews.

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

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       National Book Awards judges

       They've announced the judges for this year's National Book Awards, with Heather Cleary, John Darnielle, Anne Ishii, Brad Johnson, and Dinaw Mengestu the panel for the Translated Literature category.
       Submissions are now open, with the longlists to be announced in mid-September.

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

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       A Bond Undone review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the second volume of Jin Yong's Legends of the Condor Heroes, A Bond Undone, now also out in the US.

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

       LaLiGaBa finalists

       They've announced the finalists for this year's Latvijas Literatūras gada balva, the Latvian Literary Awards.
       There are five categories -- prose, poetry, children's book, debut, and translation.
       The translation finalists include a translation of a collection by Mo Yan (transliterated as: Mo Jens in Latvian), and works by Italo Calvino and Federico Garcia Lorca.
       The winners will be announced 30 April.

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

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       Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

       They've announced the winner of this year's Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award -- "the world's largest award for children's and young adult literature", with a payout of 5 million SEK (just over US$500,000) -- and it goes to South Korean author Baek Heena.
       A while back, the Wall Street Journal's Korea Real Time weblog reported on how little she made from her first big success, Cloud Bread, so it's nice to see her getting a proper payday.

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       Coming translations from the ... Korean

       In The Korea Times Song Seung-hyun reports that Four notable Korean authors to be published in foreign languages this year.
       Not just four, actually:

According to the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, a state-run institute that promotes Korean literature abroad, at least 91 Korean books are being published in 19 countries this year.

       Of these: "17 books will be translated into English, followed by 15 and 11 that will be published in Japanese and French, respectively". Good to see the wealth being spread around a bit -- but it's impressive that that much is being translated into English.

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

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