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The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 20 December 2021

11 December: El País' top 50 of 2021 | The Paris Review's contributors' favorites | Termination Shock review
12 December: New Trafika Europe | Mircea Cărtărescu Q & A
13 December: Le Monde critics' top 30 of 2021 | Paco Ignacio Taibo II on John le Carré | Anne Rice (1941-2021)
14 December: 2022 P.C. Hooft-prijs | David Cohen Prize
15 December: WWB Best Translated Books 2021 | Prime Minister's Literary Awards | ARB's 50 Highlights from 2021 | The Wedding Party review
16 December: 2022 PEN Literary Awards longlists | Wingate Literary Prize longlist | 2021 Translations from Chinese into English | Worst of 2021 ?
17 December: Translation in ... India | WLT now six times a year | Co-wives, Co-widows review
18 December: Reviewing literature in translation panel | Transit Books Q & A | Best reviewed literature in translation ?
19 December: De Boon longlists | Eve Babitz (1943-2021) | Deon Meyer Q & A | Silent Parade review
20 December: Hugo Awards | Rationality in language trends

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       Hugo Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Hugo Awards, awarded for works of science fiction and fantasy.
       Martha Wells' Network Effect was named best novel; see also the Tor.com publicity page.

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       Rationality in language trends

       Via I'm pointed to the PNAS article The rise and fall of rationality in language which finds:

After the year 1850, the use of sentiment-laden words in Google Books declined systematically, while the use of words associated with fact-based argumentation rose steadily. This pattern reversed in the 1980s, and this change accelerated around 2007, when across languages, the frequency of fact-related words dropped while emotion-laden language surged, a trend paralleled by a shift from collectivistic to individualistic language.

       A few caveats, but the overall picture looks pretty accurate -- fascinating.

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       De Boon longlists

       De Boon is a new Flemish book prize awarded in two categories for books written in Dutch -- one for works for children/young adults and one for works (fiction or non) for adults, the winner in each category getting €50,000 --, and they've now announced their first longlists.
       Among the authors with longlisted titles are Frank Westerman, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, and David Van Reybrouck.

       They're off to a good start -- because, like every literary prize should, they provide a list of all the titles considered for the prize: 459 titles (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) in the fiction and non category.

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       Eve Babitz (1943-2021)

       American author Eve Babitz has passed away; see, for example, the AP report at NPR
       New York Review Classics has re-issued several of her books.

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       Deon Meyer Q & A

       Deon Meyer has a novel coming out in the US and UK next spring, The Dark Flood -- see the publicity pages from Atlantic Monthly Press and Hodder & Stoughton -- and in the Sunday Times Michael Connelly now has a Q & A with him.
       Ten of Meyer's novels are under review at the complete review -- see, for example, Trackers -- and I hope to get to this one as well.

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       Silent Parade review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Higashino Keigo's Silent Parade, the latest in his 'Detective Galileo'-series.
       See also An Interview With the Translators of Keigo Higashino's Crime Novels -- Giles Murray (who translated this one) and Alexander O. Smith -- by Hector DeJean, just up at CrimeReads,

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       Reviewing literature in translation panel

       The National Book Critics Circle had a panel on The Art of Reviewing Literature in Translation last month, with Jeremy Tiang, Emma Ramadan, Samuel Martin, Kevin Blankinship, and Shelley Frisch -- and you can now watch the whole thing here.

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       Transit Books Q & A

       At the Literary Hub Corinne Segal continues their Interview with an Indie Press-series with a Q & A with co-publishers Adam Z. Levy and Ashley Nelson of Transit Books.
       They have an impressive list, including many works in translation.

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       Best reviewed literature in translation ?

       At Book Marks they now list the The Best Reviewed Books of 2021: Literature in Translation -- whereby there also seems to be some correlation between 'best' and 'most', with these all also among the most-reviewed 2021 works in translation. Still, of some interest.

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       Translation in ... India

       In The Print Yauvanika Chopra writes about how Translations in Indian languages gaining momentum. But we lack access to regional non-fiction.
       Good to hear that:

It is the gap in accessing non-fiction from Indian languages, or knowledge texts translated to English for broader interest, that the New India Foundation aims to address with its inaugural round of Translation Fellowships.

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       WLT now six times a year

       For the past three years World Literature Today has been a quarterly; before that, they published six issues a year -- and it's great to hear that they're going back to the bi-monthly schedule starting in 2022.

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       Co-wives, Co-widows review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Adrienne Yabouza's Co-wives, Co-widows, just out from Dedalus.
       Yabouza is from the Central African Republic -- from which we unfortunately see very little fiction, so it's great that Dedalus has brought this out.
       (There is some traffic from the Central African Republic to the complete review -- but only a smattering; it ranked 214th out of the 222 countries that sent visitors to the site last year.)

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       2022 PEN Literary Awards longlists

       PEN America has announced the longlists for their 2022 Literary Awards.
       Only one of all the longlisted titles is under review at the complete review -- in the Translation Prize-category, Lara Vergnaud's translation of Fatima Daas' The Last One.
       While there are certainly other titles that I thought might have made the Translation Prize longlist, the real surprise for me is that Richard Zenith's Pessoa didn't make the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography longlist.

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       Wingate Literary Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for the 2022 Wingate Literary Prize, awarded for: "the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader".
       Seven of the longlisted works are fiction, and six non; only one is under review at the complete review -- Eshkol Nevo's The Last Interview.

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       2021 Translations from Chinese into English

       At Paper Republic Nicky Harman now presents the useful 2021 Roll Call of Published Translations from Chinese into English.

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       Worst of 2021 ?

       Steve Donoghue now offers his annual list of The Worst Books of 2021: Fiction -- none of which I have read (and only one of which I've seen).
       With all the best-of-the-year lists out there, I think we could use more of these ..... At BookMarks, for example, they now list The Best Reviewed Fiction of 2021 -- but surely a list of the worst reviewed would also be helpful .....

       (As point of reference for Donoghue's worst-list, see also what he considers The Best Books of 2021: Fiction.)

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       WWB Best Translated Books 2021

       At their WWB Daily weblog Words without Borders' "staff, contributors, and board members look back on their favorite international reads from 2021". in: The Best Translated Books of 2021 -- certainly a solid selection.

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       Prime Minister's Literary Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Prime Minister's Literary Awards, one of the leading Australian literary awards, awarded in six categories.
       The fiction winner is The Labyrinth, by Amanda Lohrey -- definitely the Australian novel of the year, having previously won both the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Voss Literary Prize; see also the Text publicity page.
       There doesn't seem top be US or UK edition yet, but one has to imagine this will change soon.

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       ARB's 50 Highlights from 2021

       The Asian Review of Books's offers their 50 Highlights from 2021 -- books they: "thought worthy of particular mention over the past 12 months".

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       The Wedding Party review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Liu Xinwu's Mao Dun Prize-winning novel from 1985, The Wedding Party, now available in English -- from Amazon Crossing.

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

       2022 P.C. Hooft-prijs

       The P.C. Hooft Prize is the leading Dutch author-prize, a €60,000 prize that rotates through three main areas of writing: prose (fiction), poetry, and essayistic; the 2022 prize is for prose, and they've now announced the winner -- and it is Arnon Grunberg.
       Quite a few works by Grunberg are under review at the complete review

• Het aapje dat geluk pakt
• Amuse-Bouche
• De asielzoeker
• Het bestand
• Huid en haar
• The Jewish Messiah
• De man zonder ziekte
• Monogaam (writing as Marek van der Jagt)
• Onze oom
• Phantom Pain
• Silent Extras
• The Story of My Baldness (writing as Marek van der Jagt)
• Tirza
• Het tweede bestand

       Disappointingly, none of his books have been published in English translation in a while; read Chad Post on Reason #387 Why Publishing Is a Thankless, Frustrating Business for some background into the path his handlers chose. (That's a post from 2014; the mom-novel -- which they saw as having: "lots of sales potential. For us it would be the Grunberg book to break open the market, get him out there, and find the readers he truly deserves" -- is Moedervlekken, which came out in Dutch in 2016 and does not seem to have found an English-language publisher yet; see also the Dutch Foundation for Literature information page, so, yeah, that's worked out ... not so well.).

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       David Cohen Prize

       The David Cohen Prize is a biennial £40,000 lifetime-achievement prize for an English-writing citizen of the UK or Ireland, and they've now announced this year's winner -- Colm Tóibín.

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

       Le Monde critics' top 30 of 2021

       At Le Monde six of their critics each chose their five top titles for a top-30 of the year; the Le Monde page is half-paywalled, but helpfully all the selections can be found at Livres Hebdo.
       All of Florence Noiville's selections were originally written in English -- i.e. are available in English -- but the rest are mostly not-yet-translated French title.

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       Paco Ignacio Taibo II on John le Carré

       At Jacobin they now have Paco Ignacio Taibo II on John le Carré, in John le Carré’s Novels Weren’t Just Spy Thrillers — They Were High Literature; see also the Spanish original.

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       Anne Rice (1941-2021)

       Interview with the Vampire-author Anne Rice has passed away; see, for example, The New York Times' obituary as well as her official site.

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       New Trafika Europe

       A new issue, Trafika Europe 22 is now available online -- this issue presenting: "a potpourri of fiction and poetry from across Europe".
       More than enough reading for you for the rest of the weekend .....

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       Mircea Cărtărescu Q & A

       At The Collidescope George Salis has The Purity of the Empty Page: An Interview with Mircea Cărtărescu.

       Cărtărescu's Solenoid, in Sean Cotter's translation, is due from Deep Vellum next year; see also the Hanser foreign rights page (where they present it as: "Brilliant, insane and huge").

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

       El País' top 50 of 2021

       El País has now revealed what they consider Los 50 mejores libros de 2021 -- their top fifty of the year, with Rafael Chirbes' diaries taking the top spot; see also the Anagrama publicity page.
       Chirbes' On the Edge was the top title in 2013; his Cremation just came out in English -- see the New Directions publicity page --; I have a copy and should be getting to it soon.
       Lots of other big names in the top ten -- with Maggie O'Farrell's Hamnet the runner-up, followed by, in turn, the latest by Javier Marías, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, and Antonio Muñoz Molina.
       While several of these were written in or are available in English, none of the top fifty are under review at the complete review.

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

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       The Paris Review's contributors' favorites

       The Paris Review presents Our Contributors' Favorite Books of 2021.

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

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       Termination Shock review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Neal Stephenson's latest, Termination Shock -- the fifteenth Stephenson title under review at the complete review.

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

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