opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 28 February 2022

21 February: The book market in ... Georgia | Responses • Kafka's Prague review
22 February: Tawada Yōko profile | Diasporic Hebrew writing | Donbas | The Marquise de Gange review
23 February: Pankaj Mishra/Amit Chaudhuri chat | 100 Russian masterpieces ?
24 February: L.A. Times Book Prizes finalists | The Book of the Most Precious Substance review
25 February: Danmei in English | The Tale of Genji in ... Urdu | Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Q & A
26 February: New World Literature Today | The Cambridge Greek Lexicon
27 February: Aspen Words Literary Prize finalists | Momus review
28 February: Vladimir Sorokin on Vladimir Putin | Open letters

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       Vladimir Sorokin on Vladimir Putin

       Day of the Oprichnik-author Vladimir Sorokin explains how Vladimir Putin sits atop a crumbling pyramid of power in The Guardian.

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

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       Open letters

       PEN International has released a letter " signed by over 1000 writers worldwide, expressing solidarity with writers, journalists, artists, and the people of Ukraine, condemning the Russian invasion and calling for an immediate end to the bloodshed".
       The Los Angeles Review of Books has published an Open Letter from Translators and Interpreters of Ukrainian and/or Russian into English Condemning the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

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

       Aspen Words Literary Prize finalists

       They've announced the five finalists for this year's Aspen Words Literary Prize, awarded to: "an influential work of fiction that illuminates a vital contemporary issue and demonstrates the transformative power of literature on thought and culture".
       The winner will be announced 21 April.

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       Momus review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Leon Battista Alberti's 1450 novel, Momus, an early volume in Harvard University Press' I Tatti series.

       The god Momus -- father to Rumor here -- is a thoroughly disagreeable figure; hard also not to see many shades of Trump here .....

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

       New World Literature Today

       The March/April issue of World Literature Today is now out -- more than enough reading material for the weekend. 'New African Voices' are spotlighted, but there's quite a bit beyond that too.
       And, of course, don't forget the always excellent book review section. (Remarkably, none of the titles under review have been reviewed at the complete review; I can't even recall the last time that was the case.)

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       The Cambridge Greek Lexicon

       Among the more impressive publications that came out in 2021 is the two-volume The Cambridge Greek Lexicon -- see the Cambridge University Press publicity page or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org or Amazon.co.uk -- and the Bryn Mawr Classical Review now has a thorough (and nearly five thousand word long) review, by Luuk Huitink and Arjan Nijk -- a very helpful overview.
       They do conclude that it is: "a flawed colossus", but there seems to be a lot here to like. I am lucky enough to have the LSJ -- the Liddell, Scott, and Jones A Greek-English Lexicon; see also the Oxford University Press publicity page --, so I am more than well-covered, but I do have to admit this one sounds like it would be helpful, too .....

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       Danmei in English

       At SupChina Jin Zhao reports on how Danmei, a genre of Chinese erotic fiction, goes global -- with a trio of Mò Xiāng Tóng titles recently making The New York Times bestseller list.
       I haven't seen any of these (and don't really see myself getting to them) -- but, hey, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System is certainly a ... catchy title; get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org or Amazon.co.uk.
       See also the Seven Seas Mo Xiang Tong Xiu page.

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       The Tale of Genji in ... Urdu

       In Dawn Rehana Alam reviews the new Urdu translation of The Tale of Genji.
       Great to see a full translation available in Urdu -- but it is kind of disappointing that it comes via: "the English versions by Arthur Waley and Edward Seidensticker" ..... (One odd consequence seems to have been that: "English words such as ‘lady’, ‘control’ and ‘master’ -- which have easy Urdu equivalents -- have unnecessarily crept into the translation".)

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       Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Q & A

       Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak turned eighty yesterday, and so at Scroll.in Anjum Katyal has a Q & A with her, in ‘I’m a happy old girl’: The Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 80th birthday interview.

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

       L.A. Times Book Prizes finalists

       They've announced the finalists for this year's Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, in eleven categories.
       The only finalist under review at the complete review is When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, a finalist for the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction.
       The winners will be announced on 22 April.

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

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       The Book of the Most Precious Substance review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Sara Gran's new novel, The Book of the Most Precious Substance, published by her own, newly-founded publishing house, Dreamland Books.

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

       Pankaj Mishra/Amit Chaudhuri chat

       At Scroll.in they have: 'A conversation over 12 successive days, about Mishra’s new novel, ‘Run and Hide’, and more', ‘Dear Pankaj...Yours, Amit’: An email chat between novelists Pankaj Mishra and Amit Chaudhuri.
       Among the interesting observations:

I think that there was much more political and artistic variety in the work of novelists in English who struggled to publish their works or get them noticed before 1982 -- Anita Desai, Raja Rao, and of course Narayan come to mind.

       It's been quite a while since Mishra's last novel, The Romantics, came out. so I am very curious about this one; see also the publicity pages from Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Hutchinson Heinemann, or pre-order your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org or Amazon.co.uk.

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       100 Russian masterpieces ?

       Of (long) literary lists there can never be enough and so Russia Beyond now offers a list of 100 masterpieces of Russian literature you should read.
       Certainly a lot of good stuff here; see also the Russian literature under review at the complete review.

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

       Tawada Yōko profile

       In The New Yorker, Julian Lucas profiles the author who writes in both Japanese and German, in The Novelist Yoko Tawada Conjures a World Between Languages.
       Tawada has a new novel coming out in English, translated from the Japanese -- Scattered All Over the Earth; see the publicity pages New Directions and Granta, or pre-order your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org or Amazon.co.uk; I hope to get to it soon.
       Meanwhile, several Tawada titles are under review at the complete review:

• The Emissary (UK title: The Last Children of Tokyo)
• Facing the Bridge
• Memoirs of a Polar Bear
• The Naked Eye
• Portrait of a Tongue
• Time Differences

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

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       Diasporic Hebrew writing

       In JewishCurrents Maya Rosen has a Q & A with Tal Hever-Chybowski, the editor of Mikan Ve'eylakh: Journal for Diasporic Hebrew, in Reclaiming a Minor Literature.
       Hever-Chybowski explains:

I was never interested in the question of where a writer is from. People can write from Tel Aviv. It's a question instead of where the writing is directed. 99.99% of the texts that are written in Hebrew today, including the texts that are sent to me, were clearly written with an Israeli public in the State of Israel in mind. It's almost impossible for writers in Hebrew to step back and to imagine a readership that is diasporic, that is scattered, that is not in the State of Israel.

       Interesting.

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

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       Donbas

       With Vladimir Putin indulging his Soviet-nostalgic fantasies, regardless of the cost to the citizens of his own country, much less those of Ukraine, readers may want to have a look at Serhiy Zhadan's recently translated The Orphanage -- the best novel available in English describing the sad situation and conflict Russia has been responsible for in Donbas for nearly a decade now. Alas, it looks like things are going to get worse -- apparently much worse, given Putin's delusions.

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       The Marquise de Gange review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the Marquis de Sade's 1813 novel, The Marquise de Gange, finally available in an English translation, in Oxford University Press' Oxford World's Classics-series.

       This Gothic novel is actually a good Sade-starter volume, for readers who aren't quite up to the more explicit and ... sadistic stuff. The story is basic-Sade -- a virtuous woman that evil forces want to ruin -- but without the hallmark Sadean obscenity and violence. Sade-light, practically.

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

       The book market in ... Georgia

       The Georgian Publishers and Booksellers Association recently commissioned a report that's now been released as Georgian Book Market Research: 2016-2020 (warning ! dreaded pdf format !), prepared by ACT. See also the Agenda.ge report, Book market study: less new titles and sales in Covid-hit years, women and youth more avid readers, which sums up some of the findings.
       Lots of interesting odds and ends in the actual report -- including the big fall in the number of both titles published and books printed in 2020. Books originally written in Georgian have pretty steadily made up 45 per cent of the market; the most-translated-from language is English (ahead of French, Russian, and German, respectively). And: the average book sold 264 copies in 2020 (down from 328 in 2019).
       Among the points of interest: they list the bestselling titles, Georgian authors, and foreign authors -- with Guram Dochanashvili's The First Robe the bestselling title of 2020; see also the GNBC information page. (I actually have a copy of the German translation of this -- but only an e-version, which has kept me from getting to it properly .....)
       Meanwhile, the fifth-bestselling non-fiction e-book in translation was ... Mein Kampf.

       There's way too little Georgian literature available in English translation; see also the Georgian literature under review at the complete review.

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

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       Responses • Kafka's Prague review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Jiří Kolář's Responses • Kafka's Prague -- another volume of Kolář from Twisted Spoon Press.

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