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The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 20 December 2020

11 December: Prix du livre européen | (Other) translated books - 2020 | Translations from the ... Georgian | More books of the year
12 December: Le Point's palmarès des livres 2020 | Best Eastern European books of 2020 ? | Pontano reviews
13 December: Jenny Erpenbeck profile | Le Monde des livres books of the year | Remembering John O'Brien
14 December: John le Carré (1931-2020) | Le Temps' top 50 of 2020 | Bestsellers in ... South Korea | The Golden Child review
15 December: Publishing in the US in 2020 | Latvian favorites | Homeland (Marrow and Bone) review
16 December: WLT's 75 Notable Translations of 2020 | Penguin Classics | 2021 Booker Prize judges | Lobster Life review
17 December: Best Australian books of 2020 | El mundo's top Spanish language books 2020
18 December: International Reads of 2020/2021 | Worst Books of 2020 ? | This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale review
19 December: 2020 translations from Chinese | Five seminal modern Farsi works | Marbach purchases Reclam archive | The Paris Review staff favorites
20 December: El País' top 50 | The Japan Times' reviewers favorites | Marshlands review

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       El País' top 50

       El País has now released its list of Los 50 mejores libros de 2020 -- the leading Spanish-language best of the year list.
       The top title this year is Sara Mesa's Un amor, which is due to come out in English from Open Letter; for now, see the Anagrama foreign rights page. (Two previous Mesa titles are under review at the complete review: Scar, which came out from Dalkey Archive Press, and Four by Four (Open Letter); Open Letter is also bringing out Among the Hedges (the translation of Cara de pan) in the spring.)

       The list is Spanish-fiction-heavy, with translations from the English -- notably quite a few works of non-fiction -- also well-represented. It's actually quite shocking how little translated from any other languages made the top 50: by my count all of four books, in just two other languages: Antonio Scurati's Strega-winning Mussolini-novel at 17 (Italian); and books by Annie Ernaux (25), Éric Vuillard (The War of the Poor; 27), and Vanessa Springora (28; all French).
       While a lot of great stuff is being written and published in Spanish nowadays -- from all over the world -- this still suggests the local publishing/literary scene is (again ?) disappointingly provincial, barely looking outside beyond the English-language world and a few Romance-language places.

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       The Japan Times' reviewers favorites

       In The Japan Times 'six Japan Times book reviewers look back on their top reads released in English this year', in Our critics' favorite books published in 2020.

       The three fiction titles are all under review at the complete review:

• Breasts and Eggs by Kawakami Mieko
• Earthlings by Murata Sayaka
• The Memory Police by Ogawa Yoko

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       Marshlands review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of André Gide's early work, Marshlands, due out shortly in a new translation, by Damion Searls, from New York Review Books. With a Preface by Dubravka Ugrešić, too !

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       2020 translations from Chinese

       At Paper Republic Nicky Harman has a 2020 Roll Call of Published Translations from Chinese.
       There were apparently only seventeen "general fiction single-author books"; only one of these is under review at the complete review -- Jin Yong's A Snake Lies Waiting -- though I do expect to get to Ge Fei's Peach Blossom Paradise as well. One of the 'Classic Fiction' titles is also under review: Li Yu's A Couple of Soles. But most of these I haven't seen .....

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       Five seminal modern Farsi works

       At Qantara.de 'Changiz M. Varzi selects some seminal modern works penned in Farsi', in Five Farsi novels and their impact on Iranian pop culture.
       Only one of these is under review at the complete review -- Sadegh Hedayat's The Blind Owl -- but I also read Iraj Pezeshkzad's My Uncle Napoleon ages ago, definitely also a modern classic.
       (Meanwhile, among the most anticipated translations coming next year is another Pezeshkzad work, Hafez in Love, coming from Syracuse University Press in February; see their publicity page, or pre-order your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.)

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       Marbach purchases Reclam archive

       The German Literature Archive Marbach has announced the purchase of the archives of one of the grand old German publishers, Philipp Reclam jun., founded in 1828; see also the Kulturstiftung der Länder press release for additional information.
       Reclam is best-known for the little yellow pocket-sized editions of classic works in their Universal-Bibliothek -- I have hundreds of these -- but also publish more conventional-sized/formatted works. After the Second World War, there was also an East German Reclam, a split which lasted until 1992; they also had a remarkable list -- of a bit larger-sized paperbacks, including much fiction in (German) translation; I also have a heap of these (though not enough ...); the archive acquisition also includes papers from the GDR-Reclam.

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       The Paris Review staff favorites

       The Paris Review collects The Paris Review Staff's Favorite Books of 2020

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       International Reads of 2020/2021

       At Words without Borders' Daily weblog 'staff, contributors, and board members share their favorite international reads from 2020 and the titles they're looking forward to in 2021', in Our Favorite International Reads of 2020 (and What We'll Be Reading in 2021).
       Certainly some books here to look forward to.

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       Worst Books of 2020 ?

       At the Open Letters Review Steve Donoghue offers up his annual top tens -- including now the always popular The Worst Books of 2020: Fiction !
       I've only seen one of these -- the ... uh, "monosyllabic slab of dead-eyed zombie-fiction" that is Kawakami Mieko's Breasts and Eggs, number three on his list.

       (I do wish more people and publications would publish worst-of lists.)

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       This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Two Anti-Novels by Subimal Misra, This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale.
       This came out from HarperCollins India last year, and Open Letter brought out a US edition this summer; it's great to see they'll also be following up with the collection of Misra's Stories/Anti-Stories, Wild Animals Prohibited next year.

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       Best Australian books of 2020

       In The Guardian 'Guardian Australia critics and staff bring you their top reads of the year', in The 20 best Australian books of 2020.
       (Not many of these seem to have made it to the US/UK yet .....)

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       El mundo's top Spanish language books 2020

       At El mundo they've selected Los 30 mejores libros de literatura en español de 2020.
       Previous titles by many of these authors -- Bernardo Atxaga, Andrés Barba, Alicia Giménez Bartlett, Valeria Luiselli, Sara Mesa, Leonardo Padura, and Arturo Pérez-Reverte, among others -- have been translated into English, so we can expect to see quite a few of these in English sooner or later.

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       WLT's 75 Notable Translations of 2020

       At the World Literature Today blog Michelle Johnson has now collected their annual feature of the year's 75 Notable Translations.
       An always interesting list -- and good to see that (with perhaps mixed success ...) they've: "tried to highlight some perhaps lesser-known translations".
       As far as notable -- and perhaps lesser-known/noticed translations -- I'd also suggest:

• Insomnia, by Alberts Bels
• A New Sun Rises Over the Old Land, by Suon Sorin -- a rare translation from the Cambodian
• Friend, by Paek Nam-nyong -- a rare translation of a North Korean work

       The latter at least got decent attention; still, seems very notable, too.

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       Penguin Classics

       At The Critic 'Alexander Larman talks to the Creative Editor of Penguin Classics, Henry Eliot about what makes a 'modern classic'', in What makes a Penguin Classic ?

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       2021 Booker Prize judges

       They've announced the judges for the 2021 Booker Prize: Maya Jasanoff will chair, and the other judges are: Horatia Harrod, Natascha McElhone, Chigozie Obioma, and Rowan Williams.
       The longlist will be announced in July.

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       Lobster Life review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Erik Fosnes Hansen's Lobster Life, out from Norvik Press.

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

       Publishing in the US in 2020

       At AP Hillel Italie reviews the year that was, in Publishing saw upheaval in 2020, but ‘books are resilient’.

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       Latvian favorites

       At Latvian Literature they talk to a number of translators to learn: Which books translators of Latvian literature love the most ?

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       Homeland (Marrow and Bone) review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Walter Kempowski's Homeland -- that's the title under which it was published in the UK in 2018; it was published earlier this year in a US edition, as Marrow and Bone.

       In an interview at Lizzy's Literary Life translator Charlotte Collins explains that the UK title:

wasn't a good choice for a North American audience because of the popularity of the Homeland TV series, so the NYRB decided to go with a direct translation of the original title.

       This seems ... almost reasonable, but I still wish publishers would get on the same page with this sort of thing. When it confuses even publishing professionals -- Bookmarks didn't register that it's the same work, covering it as two separate works, here and here --, that's not ideal.

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       John le Carré (1931-2020)

       As widely noted, John le Carré has passed away; see, for example, the official statement from Jonny Geller of The Curtis Brown Group, as well as Sarah Lyall's obituary in The New York Times or Richard Lea and Sian Cain's obituary in The Guardian.

       I always enjoyed his work, but I haven't read any since I started the site -- so, for over two decades -- and none is currently under review at the complete review. Maybe I'll try to catch up with some of the more recent novels.

       (Updated - 15 December): See now also John le Carré remembered by writers and friends: 'He always had a naughty twinkle in the eye' in The Guardian.

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       Le Temps' top 50 of 2020

       Another French(-language) best-of-the-year list, as Le Temps present what they consider Les 50 meilleurs livres de 2020.

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

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       Bestsellers in ... South Korea

       In The Korea Times Kwon Mee-yoo looks at How bestsellers have changed during COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea.
       Not sure how encouraging it is to hear that:

Son Won-pyeong's novel Almond ranked the highest in the list as literature. The 2017 novel made its way back to the bestseller chart a few years after its publication as K-pop sensation BTS was seen reading it in reality show "In the SOOP BTS." Almond has been translated into various languages and published in over 10 countries and was named Amazon Best Book of May 2020.

       (Almond is also available in English; see the HarperVia publicity page.)

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       The Golden Child review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Penelope Fitzgerald's first novel, from 1977, The Golden Child.

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       Jenny Erpenbeck profile

       With her new non-fiction collection Not a Novel recently out, Philip Oltermann now has a profile of author Jenny Erpenbeck: 'My experience of East Germany is changed by every book I read' in The Guardian.

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       Le Monde des livres books of the year

       They've now released Les meilleurs livres de 2020 : la sélection du « Monde des livres », where each of their six critics selected their favorite five titles; semi-paywalled at the official site, but Livres Hebdo has the full run-down.

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       Remembering John O'Brien

       As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Dalkey Archive Press founder and publisher John O'Brien has passed away. If you missed last week's John O'Brien's Memorial Service you can now watch it on YouTube.
       Meanwhile, in the Irish Times, 'John Toomey pays tribute to his Dalkey Archive Press publisher, friend and former boss', in Staring down the barrel with John O'Brien.

       (Updated - 17 December): See now also Chad W. Post on Remembering John O'Brien at the WWB Daily.

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       Le Point's palmarès des livres 2020

       French magazine Le Point has announced its 30 books of the year -- paywalled at the official site, but see the run-down at Livres Hebdo.
       Quite a few translations from the English, including the memoirs by Barack Obama and ... Woody Allen.

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       Best Eastern European books of 2020 ?

       At The Calvert Journal Paula Erizanu collects: Feminist poetry, migration tales and satire: the 10 best Eastern European books of 2020 (translated into English, that is).
       I've only seen two of these -- and haven't reviewed either of those -- but the one I'm really eager to see is Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov, not yet out in the US.

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       Pontano reviews

       The most recent additions to the complete review are my reviews of the two dialogues by Giovanni Gioviano Pontano in the recent I Tatti Renaissance Library edition of his Dialogues III:

• Aegidius
• Asinus

       These are the first translations of these dialogues into English.

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       Prix du livre européen

       They've announced the winner of this year's prix du livre européen -- though not yet at the official site, last I checked -- and it is It Happened on the First of September, by Pavol Rankov.
       This Slovakian title is actually already available in English, from Three String Books; see their publicity page; there is an Amazon listing for it, but it doesn't appear to be readily available there (yet ?).

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       (Other) translated books - 2020

       At Words without Borders they have collected The Best Translated Books You Missed in 2020, which certainly includes some titles of interest (though you may not have missed them -- two of them are under review at the complete review).
       Meanwhile, if you need more titles: at the Chicago Review of Books, Kyle Francis Williams collects 13 Books in Translation You May Have Missed in 2020

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       Translations from the ... Georgian

       Writers' House of Georgia has announced 20 projects will be supported in the framework of the first Application Period of the program “Georgian Literature in Translation” 2021.
       Great to see Georgian literature being translated into a variety of languages; less great to see that no English-speaking nations/publishers are represented ..... Simply no interest, I guess.
       (Note that some of these projects have actually previously been translated into English -- Kvachi and Bestseller --, but still, it'd be nice if there were ongoing/future projects .....)

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       More books of the year

       More personal lists: The Age: "asked writers from home and overseas to tell us about their favourite books from this year", in The books authors loved to read in a year of living precariously.
       Meanwhile, at New Books in German they asked: "people we worked with during 2020 to share their read of the year, as well as a New Books in German choice that caught their eye", in Books of the Year 2020.

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