opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 31 January 2022

21 January: NBCC Awards finalists | National Jewish Book Awards | New issue of Asymptote | The Invitation review
22 January: Prix Émile Guimet | Slavenka Drakulić profile
23 January: Banaag at Sikat | Aneesa Abbas Higgins Q & A
24 January: Benjamín Labatut Q & A | Bangla Academy Literary Awards | The Books of Jacob review
25 January: 'Best and Most Anticipated Translated Literature' | Urdu literary magazines
26 January: LTI Korea ambitions | Hopscotch Translation turns one | The Godmother review
27 January: Icelandic Literary Prize | IPAF longlist | PEN America Literary Awards longlists | Ockham NZ Book Awards longlists
28 January: Wingate Literary Prize shortlist | Grand Prix panafricain de littérature
29 January: ''Globetrotting' | Publishing in the UK in 2021 | Klimat review
30 January: Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize | Guyana Prize for Literature | 110 best thrillers ?
31 January: Short story boom ? | The Silentiary review

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       Short story boom ?

       In The Observer Miranda Bryant reports on Tales of the unexpected: the surprise boom in UK short stories.

       (Sorry, I remain a novel-man, through and through .....)

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

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       The Silentiary review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Antonio Di Benedetto's 1964 novel, The Silentiary, now out in English from New York Review Books, in Esther Allen's translation.

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

       Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize

       They've announced the winners of the 2021 Mabati-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature, with Kirusi Kipya ('New Virus') by Halfani Sudy winning in the fiction category, and Chemichemi Jangwani ('Water Spring in the Desert') by Moh'd Omar Juma winning in the poetry category.
       The prize announcement was made in Dar es Salaam -- appropriately enough, as both winners are from Tanzania. Meanwhile, Ferdinand Mwongela's Sunday Standard report is headlined Kenya missing in action at literary prize ....

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

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       Guyana Prize for Literature

       The Guyana Prize for Literature, founded in 1987, was scrapped in 2015 -- but they've now announced The Guyana Prize for Literature returns.
       No details yet, but this sounds like a good development.

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

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       110 best thrillers ?

       At Parade they've "gathered 110 of the best thriller, crime and suspense novels of all time", in The 110 Best Thriller, Crime and Suspense Novels of All Time.
       They're playing it a bit safe by dumping such a huge number -- and not ranking them -- but, hey, maybe it's useful as an overview-reference list.

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

       'Globetrotting'

       The New York Times offers their 'sneak preview of books in translation coming out in 2022', Globetrotting, a decent overview of what's coming out in translation in the US.

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

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       Publishing in the UK in 2021

       In The Bookseller Tom Tivnan offers a fairly detailed look at UK publishers' number, based on Nielsen BookScan data, mainly for the "the last 42 weeks of 2021 which excludes 10 lockdown weeks", in Publishers report brisk business in 2021.
       The biggest publishers had some decent revenue -- though it's interesting to see the range of growth/decline versus the same period in 2019.

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

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       Klimat review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Thane Gustafson on Russia in the Age of Climate Change, in Klimat, out recently from Harvard University Press.

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

       Wingate Literary Prize shortlist

       They've announced seven-title shortlist for this year's Wingate Literary Prize, "awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader".
       The only one of the shortlisted titles under review at the complete review is The Last Interview, by Eshkol Nevo.
       The winner will be announced 16 February.

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

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       Grand Prix panafricain de littérature

       They've announced the first winner of the Grand Prix panafricain de littérature, a US$30,000 prize created by ... Felix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and it is Les Aquatiques, by Osvalde Lewat; see also, for example, Anne Bocandé's report in the africa report, Osvalde Lewat wins the Pan-African Literature Prize with ‘Les Aquatiques’.
       See also the Les Escales publicity page, or the Linwood Messina agency information page for Les Aquatiques.

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

       Icelandic Literary Prize

       They announced the winners of this year's Icelandic Literary Prize, and Hallgrimur Helgason's Sextíu kíló af kjaftshöggum won in the fiction category; see, for example, the (Icelandic) report at mbl.is.
       This is the third time he's taken the prize -- winning it also for Sextíu kíló af sólskini, which Sextíu kíló af kjaftshöggum is the sequel to.
       See also the Forlagið foreign rights page for Sextíu kíló af kjaftshöggum.

       Two earlier Hallgrimur Helgason titles are under review at the complete review: 2001 Icelandic Literary Prize-winner Höfundur Íslands as well as 101 Reykjavík.

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

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       IPAF longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's International Prize for Arabic Fiction, sixteen novels selected from 122 entries.
       I'm particularly intrigued by Haji Jabir's The Abyssinian Rimbaud.
       The shortlist will be announced in March, and the winner in May.

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

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       PEN America Literary Awards longlists

       PEN America has announced the longlists for their Literary Awards
       The only longlisted title under review at the complete review is from the PEN Translation Prize category, Lara Vergnaud's translation of Fatima Daas' The Last One.

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

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       Ockham NZ Book Awards longlists

       They've announced the longlists for this year's Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, selected from 160 entries.
       The shortlists will be announced on 2 March, and the winners on 11 May.

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

       LTI Korea ambitions

       In The Korea Herald Park Ga-young profiles the president of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, Kwak Hyo-hwan, in Bringing Korean content to the world.
       Among other things Kwak notes:

LTI Korea will broaden its scope to encompass any content requiring translation from Korean, including webtoons, dramas and movies.

       Amusing to see that the Nobel-obsession continues, too:

Although winning a Nobel Prize should not be the main goal for Korean literature, we see it as being possible if we continue to work to better to represent our literature

       Still eyeing the prize .....
       (Hey, they're not the only ones; see also Julia Lovell on China's Quest for a Nobel Prize in Literature, in her The Politics of Cultural Capital.)

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

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       Hopscotch Translation turns one

       Hopscotch Translation -- "an online revue dedicated to celebrating and discussing the complexity and diversity of literary translation" -- is celebrating their one-year anniversary, and on the occasion they asked: "a group of literary translators to reflect on works in translation they have loved, that were translated from a language that they don't themselves know" -- certainly an interesting exercise.

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

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       The Godmother review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Hannelore Cayre's The Godmother.

       This took several European best-mystery awards but, despite some good review-coverage, seems to have flown a bit under the radar in the US. (Maybe also because the North American edition is from a Canadian publisher ?) The movie tie-in -- despite starring Isabelle Huppert -- probably didn't help, since they fatally retitled it Mama Weed.

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

       'Best and Most Anticipated Translated Literature'

       At WNYC's All Of It Corinne Segal recommends: "the best of 2021 and upcoming translated books", in The Best and Most Anticipated Translated Literature.

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

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       Urdu literary magazines

       In Dawn Rauf Parekh reports on how Urdu's literary magazines surviving against all odds.

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

       Benjamín Labatut Q & A

       In Physics Today Ryan Dahn has an Author Q&A: Benjamín Labatut on physics and the void.
       The subject is, of course, mainly his book, When We Cease to Understand the World. Among the interesting titbits, he says about the English version of the book:

I wrote the last section of the book, “The Night Gardener,” directly in English and had to translate it into Spanish. So I was very involved with the translation. [...] I prefer the English version.

       More disappointing:

I don’t enjoy reading anymore because I judge books too harshly. I can’t enjoy straight narrative anymore.

       Also: some teasers as to his forthcoming work.

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

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       Bangla Academy Literary Awards

       The Bangla Academy has announced their literary awards -- fifteen writers, poets, researchers, and translators winning the award in eleven categories; see also the New Age report.

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

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       The Books of Jacob review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk's The Books of Jacob.
       The UK edition came out last year already, but it's only coming to the US now, from Riverhead Books.
       It won both the leading Polish literary prize, the Nike Award (in 2015), as well as the 2018 Jan Michalski Prize.

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

       Banaag at Sikat

       In The Philippine Star Danton Remoto writes about his recently published translation of Lope K. Santos' 1906 novel, Banaag at Sikat: Radiance and Sunrise, in ‘Asia’s first proletariat novel’.
       It's apparently the first in a new series of Penguin Classics -- Southeast Asian Classics; see also the publicity page. Unfortunately, it seems only to be readily in Southeast Asia at this time; hopefully it and the other titles in the series will also eventually be available in US/UK editions.

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

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       Aneesa Abbas Higgins Q & A

       At Words without Borders' WWB Daily Samantha Schnee has a Q & A with the National Book Award for Translated Literature-winner, in Becoming a “Second-Career” Translator: A Conversation with Aneesa Abbas Higgins.
       The prize-winning translation was of Elisa Shua Dusapin's Winter in Sokcho.

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

       Prix Émile Guimet

       They've announced the winner of the 2021 prix Émile Guimet de littérature asiatique, and it is the French translation of Ng Kim Chew's 雨 ('Rain'); see the Livres Hebdo report; see also the Éditions Picquier publicity page.

       (Columbia University Press has published an earlier collection of his, Slow Boat to China and Other Stories; see their publicity page.)

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

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       Slavenka Drakulić profile

       At Eurozine they have Zsófia Lóránd on 'How Slavenka Drakulić made space for women's issues in Yugoslavia', in The stakes of feminism.

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

       NBCC Awards finalists

       They've announced the finalists for the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Awards.
       The only two finalists under review at the complete review are Criticism-finalist Everything and Less by Mark McGurl and Fiction-finalist The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen.
       The Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing went to Merve Emre.
       The winners will be announced 17 March.

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

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       National Jewish Book Awards

       The Jewish Book Council has announced the winners of the (many) 2021 National Jewish Book Awards.
       The only winning title under review at the complete review is Fiction-category winner The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen.

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

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       New issue of Asymptote

       The January issue of Asymptote is now available -- their 43rd issue, featuring new work from 43 countries.
       Among the material: a Flemish literature feature, and an interview with George Szirtes.

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

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       The Invitation review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Nobel laureate Claude Simon's 1987 novel The Invitation, published by Dalkey Archive Press, back in the day.

       New York Review Classics is bringing out a new edition of The Flanders Road this summer -- see their publicity page -- so I thought I'd have a look at this little curiosity in preparation. It's an odd little work -- a roman à clef featuring, basically undisguised, Peter Ustinov, Arthur Miller, and Mikhail Gorbachev, among others.

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

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