opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 20 April 2021

11 April: Translation from ... Arabic | Wang Xiaobo | Peter Carey profile
12 April: Mita Kapur Q & A | McWhorter on Pevear and Volokhonsky | First Person Singular review
13 April: Premio Formentor | NYPL World Literature Festival
14 April: Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse shortlists | Hugo Award finalists | Jhalak Prize shortlist | Bernard Noël (1930-2021)
15 April: Theodor-W.-Adorno-Preis | Whiting Award winners | Literary prize ripped off | Under the Wave at Waimea review
16 April: Oxford-Weidenfeld shortlist | Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize shortlist | EUPL shortlist | CWA Dagger longlists
17 April: RSL Ondaatje Prize longlist | Desmond Elliott Prize longlist | Griffin Poetry Prize shortlists | Uncertain Manifesto review
18 April: The LA Times Book Prizes | Translation in ... India | German Book Prize submissions
19 April: Ahmet Altan released | Marilyn Booth profile | The Tool & the Butterflies review
20 April: More Murakami | Translation from ... Japanese

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       More Murakami

       Murakami Haruki's First Person Singular just came out in English, but there's more Murakami coming this fall !
       Murakami recently made some news with his Uniqlo-T-shirt collection, and it turns out he's apparently truly a big Tシャツ fan: a book on the subject, 村上T, is already out in Japan (see the マガジンハウス publicity page), and is coming to the US/UK in Philip Gabriel's translation in November, as Murakami T:



       See also the publicity pages from Alfred A. Knopf and Harvill Secker (nice place-holder cover !), or pre-order your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
       It sounds ... well ...:

Here are photographs of Murakami's extensive and personal T-shirt collection, accompanied by essays that reveal a side of the writer rarely seen by the public.

       While it's great to see more Murakami, there's still quite a bit more that hasn't been translated and that surely would be more interesting -- certainly his conversation with Kawakami Mieko , みみずくは黄昏に飛びたつ (see the Shinchosha publicity page), but also the recent collection of dialogues about translation with Shibata Motoyuki, 本当の翻訳の話をしよう; see the Switch publicity page.
       Honestly, pretty much everything else that hasn't been translated sounds more interesting ....
       But, yes, I'll be covering it .....

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

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       Translation from ... Japanese

       At the Asympotoe blog David Boyd has a Q & A: From Japan to Brazil: An Interview with Translator Rita Kohl.
       She translates from Japanese into Portuguese (in Brazil); always interesting to hear about translation in other languages.
       Among her observations:

One important thing to keep in mind is that the direct translation of Japanese fiction by mainstream publishers is a relatively recent development. Up to the 1990s, we had some pivot translations from English, such as a few novels by Mishima translated into Portuguese in the 1980s, but direct translations typically came from the academic world or the Japanese-Brazilian community, and didn't really reach a popular readership.

       And:

The shift we've seen from indirect to direct translation isn't limited to Japanese literature. It reflects a change in public perception of translation on the whole, which can also be seen, for example, in the translation of Russian literature. At the same time, since editors typically can't read the original work, we continue to depend on the canon of Japanese literature translated into other languages

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

       Ahmet Altan released

       Good to hear that Turkish writer Ahmet Altan has been released after more than four years in prison; see, for example, the PEN International statement.
       The European Court of Human Rights ruled against Turkey on this matter the day before -- see the judgment -- and it's good to see that apparently still carries some weight in Turkey .....

       The only Altan title under review at the complete review is Endgame.

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

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       Marilyn Booth profile

       In the new Harvard Magazine Spencer Lee Lenfield reports on how: 'Marilyn Booth translates Arabic literature for Anglophone readers', in Finding Voices.
       Booth mentions:

“I really would love to translate a nineteenth-century novel that I’ve worked on,” she says -- but once again, finding publishers willing to look at any Arabic literature outside the purely contemporary remains difficult.

       I hope she does eventually find a publisher for this .....

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

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       The Tool & the Butterflies review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Dmitry Lipskerov's The Tool & the Butterflies, recently from Deep Vellum.

       I don't often compare books to other books and writers, but rarely has a comparison struck me as as obvious as here; as noted in the review, it's fair to describe this as a (very Russian) César Aira-like variation on Harry Mulisch's The Discovery of Heaven.

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       The LA Times Book Prizes

       They've announced the winners of the 2020 The LA Times Book Prizes -- fourteen categories worth.
       The only winning title under review at the complete review is Fiction-winner At Night All Blood is Black, by David Diop.

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

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       Translation in ... India

       In the Free Press Journal Sapna Sarfare wonders on World Book Day 2021: What ails the Indian regional literature translation industry ?
       K. Hari Kumar is quoted, noting one of the issues:

In India, lakhs of titles are published in English, Hindi and over 20 regional languages. The regional space is a limited market with a few lakh readers. The only universal language that can break the barrier is Indian English.

       Meanwhile, Piyush Jha observes:

The general readership in India likes things that are foreign and tends to look down upon homegrown literature. I would say we suffer from the ghar ki murgi daal barabar syndrome when it comes to Indian translated books.

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

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       German Book Prize submissions

       The big spring German book prize, the Prize(s) of the Leipzig Book Fair, just announced its shortlists (see my mention), and now the big fall prize has announced they've completed their submission-procedure and that Submissions at an all-time high for the German Book Prize, with 197 novels being entered by 125 German-language publishers. (More might still be called in -- the list of recommendations publishers submitted, from which the jurors may request titles, is also at a record 112 titles.) Disappointingly, however, the titles have not been revealed to the public.
       Quite a wait until the longlist is announced now -- that's only due 24 August.

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

       RSL Ondaatje Prize longlist

       The (British) Royal Society of Literature has announced the longlist for this year's RSL Ondaatje Prize, a £10,000 prize awarded: "to a book -- fiction, non-fiction, or poetry -- which best evokes the spirit of a place".
       The shortlist will be announced 27 April, the winner on 11 May.

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

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       Desmond Elliott Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Desmond Elliott Prize, a £10,000 prize: "awarded to the most outstanding first novel of the past 12 months".
       The shortlist will be announced 1 June.

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

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       Griffin Poetry Prize shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for this year's Griffin Poetry Prize in the International and Canadian categories.
       They considered 682 works, including 55 in translation, from 28 languages.
       The winners will be announced 23 June.

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

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       Uncertain Manifesto review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the first in Frédéric Pajak's nine-volume illustrated series, Uncertain Manifesto.

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

       Oxford-Weidenfeld shortlist

       They've announced the eight-title shortlist for this year's Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize, which is: "for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language".
       Always an interesting list -- though only one of the titles is under review at the complete review so far: Anna Moschovakis' translation of David Diop's At Night All Blood is Black.
       The winner will be announced 12 June.

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

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       Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize shortlist

       They've announced the four finalists for this year's Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize, honoring: " an outstanding literary translation from German into English published in the USA [or Canada] the previous year".
       The only one of the four under review at the complete review is Tess Lewis' translation of Jonas Lüscher's Kraft.

       Admirably, this literary prize reveals all the titles that were considered for the prize (as far too few literary prizes do ...) -- 31 this year.
       Impressively, Michael Hofmann was responsible for four of those translations -- though none of them was shortlisted.

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

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       EUPL shortlist

       The European Union Prize for Literature has announced its shortlists for this year's prize.
       They rotate through all the 41 countries which are part of the Creative Europe programme in batches of 13 and 14 annually -- 14 this year (Albania, Armenia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Iceland, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, the Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, and Tunisia) -- with national juries (sigh) nominating a total of 55 titles.
       The winners -- yes, each country gets to name a winner -- will be announced on 18 May.

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

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       CWA Dagger longlists

       The (British) Crime Writers' Association has announced the longlists for this year's Dagger Awards.
       The only longlisted titles under review at the complete review are from the Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger category: The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-eun, in Lizzie Buehler's translation, and To Cook a Bear by Mikael Niemi, in Deborah Bragan-Turner's translation.

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

       Theodor-W.-Adorno-Preis

       They've announced that this year's Theodor W. Adorno Prize -- a triennial, €50,000 prize serving: "to further and acknowledge outstanding performances in the fields of philosophy, music, theatre and film" -- goes to Klaus Theweleit.
       He's still best known for his Male Fantasies -- see the University of Minnesota Press publicity page -- but what I'd really love to delve into is his Pocahontas-series (not just because one of the volumes is »You give me fever«. Arno Schmidt. Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas; see the Matthes & Seitz Berlin publicity page).
       The prize has quite an impressive list of previous winners.

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

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       Whiting Award winners

       They've announced this year's Whiting Award winners -- US$50,000 awarded to each of ten emerging writers (of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama), "based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come".

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

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       Literary prize ripped off

       An amazing story from the Rathbones Folio Prize, as, as reported at Books + Publishing, Rathbones Folio loses £30k prize money to cyber scam, as they sent the prize money to: "a scammer posing as last year's winning author Valeria Luiselli, after the scammer requested payment via online payment system PayPal" (The Bookseller piece that originally reported the story is paywalled.)
       Not the kind of thing that happens when you're able to award the prize in person and hand over a simple paper check -- but, still, surely there should be more safeguards before they transfer these kinds of sums.
       I can't wait to hear more about this (and wonder whether someone already has a book deal to write about this ...).

       (Updated): See now also Sian Cain on how Rathbones Folio prize paid £30,000 to scammers posing as the winner in The Guardian.

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

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       Under the Wave at Waimea review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Paul Theroux's latest novel, Under the Wave at Waimea.

       As I've often noted, I think Theroux is under-rated as a novelist (as is his brother Alexander, but that's a whole different story ...). Some things don't really work with this one, but it's still a solid (and substantial) piece of work; good to see that even at age eighty he's producing work like this.

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

       Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse shortlist

       The Leipzig Book Fair isn't taking place this year, but they are still awarding their literary prizes, and they've now announced the shortlists.
       The German Book Prize is the big fall book prize in Germany -- and only considers fiction. The Prize of the Leipzig Book Fair on the other hand has three categories: fiction, non, and translation
       The fiction shortlist has titles by (ninety-six-year-old !) Friederike Mayröcker, last year's Bachmannpreis-winner Helga Schubert (only eighty-one herself ...), Christian Kracht, Judith Hermann, and Iris Hanika.
       Two of the non-fiction titles are also finalists for the (inaugural) German Non-Fiction Prize; I'm particularly intrigued by Christoph Möllers' Freiheitsgrade; see also the Suhrkamp foreign rights information page.
       Always interesting to see what gets translated into other languages and so the translation shortlist is of particular interest. The combination of Ann Cotten translating Rosmarie Waldrop sounds great -- but the competition is tough and includes translations of Dos Passos' USA Trilogy, Tarjei Vesaas' The Birds, and Szentkuthy Miklós' Marginalia on Casanova.
       The winners will be announced 28 May.

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

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       Hugo Award finalists

       They've announced the finalists for this year's Hugo Awards, "science fiction's most prestigious award".
       Quite a few categories here; the only title under review at the complete review is Best Novel-finalist Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.
       The winners will be announced in December.

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

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       Jhalak Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Jhalak Prize, for a book in pretty much any genre "published in the UK by writers of colour.".
       The winner will be announced 25 May.

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

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       Bernard Noël (1930-2021)

       French author Bernard Noël, best-known for his poetry, has passed away; see, for example, the report in Libération.
       Not much of his work is available in English, but see, for example, The Rest of the Voyage; see the Graywolf publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

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

       Premio Formentor

       Originally awarded 1961 to 1967 -- the international prize going to Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett, Uwe Johnson, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Nathalie Sarraute, Saul Bellow, and Witold Gombrowicz --, the premio Formentor was revived in 2011 and has had a very good run of winners since then as well, including Carlos Fuentes, Juan Goytisolo, Enrique Vila-Matas, and Annie Ernaux, among others, and they've now announced this year's winner of the €50,000 award: César Aira; see, for example, the report at El País.
       Quite a few Aira titles are under review at the complete review -- with more coming --; see, for example, How I became a Nun.

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

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       NYPL World Literature Festival

       The New York Public Library is holding a World Literature Festival through the end of the month, with quite a few online events of interest.
       Also on offer: features such as 25 essential translated titles as well as the Top Checkouts in World Languages at the NYPL -- twenty-one of them.
       See also the official press release about the festival.

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

       Mita Kapur Q & A

       At the Deccan Herald Sheila Kumar has a Q & A with the Literary Director of the JCB Prize for Literature, Mita Kapur -- 'Literature is not just for leisure'.

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

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       McWhorter on Pevear and Volokhonsky

       Via I'm pointed to John McWhorter's lengthy piece arguing that translators-from-the-Russian Pevear and Volokhonsky are Indeed Overrated: My Two Roubles.
       Few translators' work is as-discussed as the Pevear-Volokhonsky team's, and it's certainly good to see people debating such translation issues.
       (I've never really taken to the Pevear-Volokhonsky translations either -- but have not really read enough of them to make a full-fledged judgement. But one of the reasons I haven't read enough is that, well, I never really took to those I looked at .....)

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

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       First Person Singular review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the latest story-collection by Murakami Haruki, First Person Singular.

       That's the eighteenth Murakami-title under review at the complete review.

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

       Translation from ... Arabic

       At Newlines M. Lynx Qualey explains how, disturbingly: 'When Arab women are translated into English, the characters often reflect the prejudices of Westerners', in Who You're Reading When You're Reading Arab Women.
       Among her examples:

When Al-Mohaimeed's Where Pigeons Don't Fly appeared in English, descriptions of sexual pleasure, oral sex, and references to sex between women had been carefully excised.

       (Even if: "The excisions were made with the eventual agreement of the author" -- not good.)
       And:

Khaled Khalifa, by contrast, felt surprised by changes made to his main character. Speaking at Duke University in February 2016, Khalifa suggested he had not known of his publisher's decision to remove the final chapter from the English translation of In Praise of Hatred. The book's translator Leri Price said she also didn't understand the extent of the changes the editor wanted to make until just before the book went into print.

       As long-time readers know, my (strong) preference in translation is fidelity to the original; leaving aside the usual arguments and counter-arguments and line-drawing, surely changes on this scale are ... more than problematic.

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

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       Wang Xiaobo

       At SupChina Hongling Zhang -- Wang Xiaobo's translator --: 'writes about the enduring cult status of this important Chinese writer, who still remains obscure outside his home country', at considerable length, in The yin and yang worlds of a Chinese literary outlier.
       That one collection of Wang's novellas that is available in English -- Wang in Love and Bondage -- is under review at the complete review.

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

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       Peter Carey profile

       In the Sydney Morning Herald Melanie Kembrey profiles Peter Carey: ‘I don’t think we’re going to lose great literature because Philip Roth acted like an arsehole’.
       Among other things:

While acknowledging his status as an “old white guy”, Carey said teaching at New York University’s Hunter College kept him “connected to a complex society” and he didn’t feel alienated from the concerns of his students.

       And while he doesn't reveal much about his work in progress: "Carey hinted that it is set “south of Indonesia”" .....

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

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