opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 30 April 2021

21 April: Wolfson History Prize shortlist | Takamura Kaoru profile | Public Reading Followed by Discussion review
22 April: Literary Translation Model Contract | NFTs in publishing ?
23 April: Österreichischer Staatspreis für europäische Literatur | International Booker Prize shortlist | Stella Prize | Antiquities review
24 April: Litprom Weltempfänger | Philip Gabriel profile
25 April: OCM Bocas Prize | Samanta Schweblin Q & A | Klara and the Sun in ... Chinese
26 April: The Ladies' Paradise review
27 April: NSW Premier's Literary Awards | 2020 UK book sales | 星雲賞 finalists
28 April: RSL Ondaatje Prize shortlist | Honkaku mysteries
29 April: Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist | PEN World Voices Festival | People of the City review
30 April: Chingiz Aitmatov profile | Edgar^® Awards | Fred Jordan (1925-2021)

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       Chingiz Aitmatov profile

       At Russia Beyond Ajay Kamalakaran profiles Chingiz Aitmatov, in How a Russian-Kyrgyz bilingual writer opened Central Asia to the world -- the author offering: "a rare glimpse into the culture, psyche, traditions and landscapes of the heart of Asia".

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

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       Edgar^® Awards

       The Mystery Writers of America have announced the winners of this year's Edgar^® Awards.
       Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, by Deepa Anappara, won the Best Novel award; see also the publicity pages from Random House and Vintage, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Fred Jordan (1925-2021)

       Fred Jordan -- born Alfred Rotblatt --, longtime editor at Grove Press and then publisher of Pantheon Book, has passed away; see, for example, the Publishers Weekly report.

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       Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction.
       The only one of the six shortlisted titles under review at the complete review is Susanna Clarke's Piranesi.
       The winner will be announced 7 July.

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       PEN World Voices Festival

       This year's PEN World Voices Festival, with the theme: 'Power to the People' runs 18 to 22 May and they've now announced the (digital) program.
       Certainly some events of interest here.

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       People of the City review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Cyprian Ekwensi's People of the City, re-issued last year by New York Review Books.

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       RSL Ondaatje Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's RSL Ondaatje Prize -- awarded to: "a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place" --; see also the official press release (warning ! dreaded pdf format !).
       The only one of these I have is Adam Mars-Jones' Box Hill, which I am hoping to get to
       The winner will be announced 11 May.

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       Honkaku mysteries

       In The Guardian Caroline Crampton writes about Honkaku: a century of the Japanese whodunnits keeping readers guessing.
       She notes:

Writer Haruta Yoshitame, who is credited with defining honkaku, described it as "a detective story that mainly focuses on the process of a criminal investigation and values the entertainment derived from pure logical reasoning".

       Among the titles discussed are: The Decagon House Murders by Ayatsuji Yukito, and The Honjin Murders and The Inugami Curse by Yokomizo Seishi.

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       NSW Premier's Literary Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's NSW Premier's Literary Awards, one of the leading Australian multi-category literary prizes -- not that that press release tells you much; see the media release (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) for the full run-down of all the winners
       Ellen van Neerven's poetry-collection Throat was named Book of the Year (and also picked up the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry); see also the University of Queensland Press publicity page.
       The Christina Stead Prize for Fiction went to A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville; see the Text publicity page.
       This was also a year when they awarded the biennial NSW Translation Prize -- but, in what can be taken as an indication that they should make this an annual prize, there were two winners this year: N.N. Trakakis' translation of Autumn Manuscripts by Tasos Leivaditis and Alice Whitmore's translation of Imminence by Mariana Dimópulos.

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       2020 UK book sales

       In The Guardian Alison Flood reports that UK book sales soared in 2020 despite pandemic.
       Fiction sales for UK publishers were up 16%, non-fiction book sales were up 4%. E-sales almost caught up with print sales -- 47% to 53% -- and audio downloads rose by an impressive 37%.

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       星雲賞 finalists

       They've announced the finalists for the Japanese science-fiction Seiun Awards -- "the Japanese equivalent of the Hugo Awards", as Locus puts it, as they also conveniently list in English the finalists in the categories of greatest interest; see their post 2021 Seiun Awards Nominees.
       With the exception of Liu Cixin's The Dark Forest all the finalists in the best translated novel category appear to be translations from the English.

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       The Ladies' Paradise review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Émile Zola's 1883 novel, The Ladies' Paradise.

       This is the eleventh in Zola's Rougon-Macquart series -- and perhaps the most Balzacian of the lot. It is also the novel behind the loose TV mini-series adaptation The Paradise; see also the official pages at BBC One and PBS.

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       OCM Bocas Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and the most intriguing of the three category-winners takes it, poetry category winner The Dyzgraph^xst, by Canisia Lubrin; see also the McClelland & Stewart publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Samanta Schweblin Q & A

       In The Guardian Kathryn Bromwich has a Q & A with Samanta Schweblin: 'In fiction we try not to talk about technology'.

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       Klara and the Sun in ... Chinese

       As Zhang Kun reports in Book publication is story of cooperation at China Daily, Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun is: "one of the few books that have been simultaneously published in its original language and Chinese at the same time", as Shanghai Translation Publishing House brought it out -- see their publicity page -- "on March 3 (March 2 in Britain)".
       While simultaneous publication of high-profile English language books in major European languages is not that unusual, apparently it doesn't happen often with Chinese (yet).
       The novel seems to have done well, too:

The first print run of 100,000 copies for the Chinese edition of Klara and the Sun was a success, and another 20,000 copies are in production

       Interesting also to see both author name and title printed larger in English than, respectively, in Chinese characters on the Chinese cover.

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

       Litprom Weltempfänger

       Four times a year the German Litprom organization chooses a best-of list of books from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Arab world translated into German -- and they've now reached their 50th list; it's topped by Helon Habila's Travelers and also features two graphic novels.
       At Börsenblatt they take the occasion of the fiftieth list to offer an overview and some of the numbers. So, for example, 350 titles have been featured on the 50 lists over the years -- but, rather disappointingly, only 102 were authored by women -- just over 29 per cent, suggesting translation into German, especially from less-translated languages still is (far) too male-dominated. Also: the three countries from which the most books were featured are: 1) Argentina, 2) South Africa, and 3) India.
       Meanwhile, the Litprom Literature Days 2021 take place this weekend with an interesting-sounding programme -- not least: 'Breaking patriarchal patterns', with Kawakami Mieko, among others.

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

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       Philip Gabriel profile

       In the Arizona Daily Star Bill Finley profiles Philip Gabriel, in Meet the Tucson literary translator who works with superstar author Murakami.
       Gabriel translated Murakami Haruki's just-out First Person Singular, among other titles by the author.

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       Österreichischer Staatspreis für europäische Literatur

       They've announced the winners of this year's Austrian state literary prizes, including the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, one of the leading international author prizes (though limited to European authors) -- and this year's winner is Krasznahorkai László.
       The Austrian State Prize for European Literature, awarded since 1965 (to Zbigniew Herbert), has a great list of previous winners, and Krasznahorkai is obviously yet another great choice.

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       International Booker Prize shortlist

       They've announced the six-title shortlist for this year's International Booker Prize:

• At Night All Blood is Black, by David Diop, tr. Anna Moschovakis
  
  
• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, by Mariana Enríquez, tr. Megan McDowell
  
  
• The Employees, by Olga Ravn, tr. Martin Aitken
  
  
• In Memory of Memory, by Maria Stepanova, tr. Sasha Dugdale
  
  
• The War of the Poor, by Éric Vuillard, tr. Mark Polizzotti
  
  
• When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamín Labatut, tr. Adrian Nathan West

       The Labatut is only coming to the US this fall; I am very curious about that one. I haven't seen the Enríquez and only have an e-copy of the Stepanova.
       No clear favorite for me here (yet); the winner will be announced 2 June.

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       Stella Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Stella Prize, "celebrating Australian women's writing", and it is The Bass Rock, by Evie Wyld.
       See also the publicity pages from Pantheon and Jonathan Cape, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Antiquities review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Cynthia Ozick's new novel, Antiquities.

       Ozick just turned 93 last week, and it's great to see her still going strong.
       See also now this Q & A at BLARB.

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       Literary Translation Model Contract

       The Authors Guild recently announced the release of both its Model Trade Book Contract and its Literary Translation Model Contract -- previously only available to members -- to the general public.
       These are very useful reference resources, and it's great to see these made readily accessible for one and all.

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       NFTs in publishing ?

       NFTs are certainly having an impact in the art market -- see, for example, Marion Menaker in ARTnews, considering Art Lasts, Markets Pass: Can NFTs Finally Make Art an Asset Class ? -- but what about in publishing ?
       At Publishers Weekly Bill Rosenblatt wonders Could NFTs Work in Publishing ? -- but he doesn't really see it:

It's possible that authors and publishers will find viable applications for NFTs, but it's too early to tell, and early experiments are likely to lead to dead ends

       Still, it isn't stopping authors and publishers from trying -- Calvin Reid reports in Publishers Weekly that Wiley Teams with Author to Create NFT Author Trading Card.

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       Wolfson History Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Wolfson History Prize, "the UK's most prestigious history writing prize".
       An interesting-sounding selection, though I haven't seen any of these.
       The winner of the £40,000 prize will be announced 9 June.

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       Takamura Kaoru profile

       Takamura Kaoru's Lady Joker (I) recently came out; it hasn't attracted the attention I thought it would/should yet, but it's good to see Paula L. Woods now profile author and book in The Los Angeles Times, in The star Japanese crime novelist almost too good to translate.
       Among the interesting titbits: Soho Press acquired English-language rights to this all the way back in 2014. And among the challenges they faced:

How to package the book for an American audience. Soho considered one 1,000-plus-page volume but abandoned the idea. “We also thought three books was a lot to ask readers to sign up for, year after year,” Grames explains. “And four is an unlucky number in Japanese culture.” So they settled on two.

       (My ideal would of course have been a single mass-market-paperback volume, but I can see how they wouldn't want to do that.)

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       Public Reading Followed by Discussion review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Danielle Mémoire's Public Reading Followed by Discussion, just out from Dalkey Archive Press.

       This is one of the first titles Dalkey has brought out since founder John O'Brien's death, but it is certainly in keeping with his literary vision -- indeed, it's about as Dalkey as a title can get.

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