opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 20 July 2022

11 July: German publishing numbers - 2021 | Charlotte Mandell Q & A
12 July: '80 Books Every Man Should Read' ?
13 July: New RSL Fellows | New US Poet Laureate
14 July: US 2022 bestsellers | House of All Nations review
15 July: Orwell Prizes | More 'most anticipated' .....
16 July: Paul-Celan-Preis | Hotlist 2022 | Shield of Straw review
17 July: Herbert W. Franke (1927-2022) | Seagull Books profile
18 July: Sahitya Akademi Prizes for Translation | Index, A History of the review
19 July: Caine Prize | Hannah-Arendt Prize
20 July: Prize news | Singapore Literature Prize shortlists | The Fragrant Companions review

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       Prize news

       More British literary prizes are having trouble finding financial support, with The Bookseller reporting that "just weeks after the cancellation of both the Costa Book Awards and the Blue Peter Book Awards" Desmond Elliott Prize on hiatus for 2023 while Sunday Times Short Story Award could be discontinued.

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

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       Singapore Literature Prize shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for the Singapore Literature Prize, in all twelve categories, three each in each of the four languages the prizes are awarded in, selected from 192 submissions (down from 2020's 224 (it's a biennial prize)).
       See also the press release (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) for the English-language shortlists.

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

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       The Fragrant Companions review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Play About Love Between Women, Li Yu's 1651 drama The Fragrant Companions, just out in English, from Columbia University Press.

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

       Caine Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Caine Prize for African Writing, a leading prize for an African short story, and it is Five Years Next Sunday (warning ! dreaded pdf format !), by Idza Luhumyo.

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

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       Hannah-Arendt Prize

       Just a few weeks ago, they announced that Serhiy Zhadan was getting this year's Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, and now they've announced that he will also receive the Hannah-Arendt Prize for Political Thinking; see, for example, the Deutsche Welle report.

       Previous winners of this prize include Julia Kristeva (2006), Tony Judt (2007) -- and fellow Ukrainian author (Perverzion, etc.) Yurii Andrukhovych (2014).

       Several Zhadan titles are under review at the complete review:

• Anarchy in the UKR
• Depeche Mode
• Mesopotamia
• The Orphanage
• Voroshilovgrad
• What We Live For, What We Die For

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

       Sahitya Akademi Prizes for Translation

       I missed this a couple of weeks ago, but the Indian Sahitya Akademi has announced their Prizes for Translation 2021 (for translations published between 2015 and 2019), in all twenty-two languages; the official press release (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) helpfully also lists all the shortlisted titles. Impressive to see so much translation between so many different Indian languages !
       Shanta Gokhale won the award for English translation, for her translation of Laxmibai Tilak's Marathi memoir, Smritichitre -- see also the Speaking Tiger publicity page -- and at Scroll.in they now have an edited version of a talk she gave in 2014, ‘Authors are great, translators are not’: Shanta Gokhale on being a translator.

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

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       Index, A History of the review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Dennis Duncan's Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age.

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

       Herbert W. Franke (1927-2022)

       The remarkable Herbert W. Franke -- "one of the first contemporary German sf writers whose work ranks with that in English and other European languages", as The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction notes -- has passed away; see, for example, the ORF report, or the Ars Electronica Blog post by Martin Hieslmair, When Herbert W. Franke brought art and science together (as Franke was, among much else, also one of the co-founders of Ars Electronica).
       ARTnews posted Reena Davis' Q & A with Franke, Why a 95-Year-Old Computer Artist Has Turned to Making NFTs, just over a week ago .....

       (Updated - 18 July): I see now that there's also a Q & A in last month's issue of The Brooklyn Rail, Herbert W. Franke with Charlotte Kent.

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

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       Seagull Books profile

       Seagull Books is celebrating its 40th anniversary and at Outlook there's another profile, by Nilanjana Bhowmick, Bookmark This ! 40 Years And Counting, The Story Of Seagull Books.

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

       Paul-Celan-Preis

       They've announced the winner of this year's Paul Celan Prize, a leading German prize for a translation, and it is Ulrich Blumenbach's translation of Joshua Cohen's Witz (Schöffling & Co.).

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

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       Hotlist 2022

       They've announced the thirty finalists for this year's 'Hotlist', a German prize for which any independent publisher can submit one German title (translations are eligible, too) -- see all 191 submissions.
       The submissions-list offers a good overview of what small German-language publishers are bringing out.
       Readers can now vote for their favorites, with the top three vote-getters joining seven titles selected by the jury, with the jury then selecting the winner from these ten finalists.

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

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       Shield of Straw review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Kiuchi Kazuhiro's Shield of Straw.

       (This was also made into a movie, directed by Miike Takashi, in 2013.)

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

       Orwell Prizes

       They've announced the winners of the four Orwell Prizes, including the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, which went to Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan.
       See also the publicity pages from Grove Press and Faber, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org or Amazon.co.uk.

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

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       More 'most anticipated' .....

       If the 230 titles on the Literary Hub's Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2022, Part Two -- announced last week -- weren't enough for you, The Millions now has their Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2022 Book Preview, with "more than 175 books".
       Yes, there is some overlap -- and, yes, there are a lot more books out there to look forward to.

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

       US 2022 bestsellers

       At Publishers Weekly John Maher reports on The Bestselling Books of 2022 (So Far) -- helpfully with actual (NPD BookScan) numbers.
       The top-selling title for the first half of the year is It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover, with 925,221 copies sold -- more than 200,000 more than the runner-up, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (a 2018 title).

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

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       House of All Nations review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Christina Stead's 1938 novel, House of All Nations.

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

       New RSL Fellows

       The Royal Society of Literature has announced their new RSL Fellows and Honorary Fellows.

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

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       New US Poet Laureate

       Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has announced the appointment of Ada Limón as the 24th 'Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry', succeeding Joy Harjo, who served for three terms.

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

       '80 Books Every Man Should Read' ?

       Esquire has (another) list of 80 Books Every Man Should Read.
       These kinds of lists don't seem particularly useful, but, hey, it's a list ..... (And it is kind of fun, in its all-over-the-place-ness .....)

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

       German publishing numbers - 2021

       The German Börsenverein has released the German publishing numbers for 2021.
       Turnover was up 3.5 per cent over 2020 but other key numbers continue to decline: the number of people who bought any books was down 5.1 per cent, while the number of new titles released has continued its decline, down 7.5 per cent, to 63,992. Also down: the number of translations -- down 5 per cent, to 8,703.
       You can download all the numbers here.

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

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       Charlotte Mandell Q & A

       At Famous Writing Routines they have a Q & A with the translator, Interview with Charlotte Mandell.
       Among her responses:

If you could give just one piece of advice to someone trying to get into the translation field, what would it be ?

Read as much as you can, in any language you know (and in some you don't).

       Which sounds like good advice for everyone, not just those interested in getting into the translation field .....

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

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