opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 20 July 2023

11 July: Sri Lankan speculative fiction | Bookselling in ... the US
12 July: Ursula K. Le Guin Prize shortlist | Sports (not) at The New York Times
13 July: Milan Kundera (1929-2023) | The Most Secret Memory of Men review
14 July: International Booker Prize judges | Wales Books of the Year
15 July: Bestselling in ... the US | Kikuchi Kan | Literary fiction
16 July: Pegasus Prize | What Entropy Means to Me review
17 July: Publishing in ... the UK | Kundera in ... China
18 July: Paul-Celan-Preis | People from My Neighborhood review
19 July: Georg-Büchner-Preis | Publishing shake-up | (South African) Sunday Times Literary Awards longlists
20 July: Japanese literary prizes | Ethan Nosowsky Q & A

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       Japanese literary prizes

       They've announced the latest batch of winners for the leading Japanese book prizes, the biannual Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes, and, as the Kyodo report has it, Disabled author wins prestigious Japanese literary award in first
       That author would be Ichikawa Saou (市川沙央), whose ハンチバック ('Hunchback') won the Akutagawa Prize; see also the 文藝春秋 publicity page.
       Meanwhile, the Naoki Prize was shared, by 木挽町のあだ討ち, by Nagai Sayako (永井紗耶子) and 極楽征夷大将軍, by Kakine Ryosuke (垣根涼介).

       Quite a few Akutagawa-winning titles -- especially more recent ones -- have been translated into English -- see also the ones under review at the complete review -- so it's certainly possible we may also see this one eventually.

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

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       Ethan Nosowsky Q & A

       At Epiphany Noreen Tomassi has An Interview with Ethan Nosowsky of Graywolf Press.
       Graywolf Press, where Nosowsky is Editorial Director, publishes "30-33 books each year" and certainly has an impressive list.

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

       Georg-Büchner-Preis

       The German Academy for Language and Literature has announced the winner of this year's Georg Büchner Prize, the leading German-language author prize, and it is Lutz Seiler; see also the Deutsche Welle report, Lutz Seiler wins top German literary award.
       Several of his works have been translated into English; the only one under review at the complete review is his Kruso.

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

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       Publishing shake-up

       Quite the shake-up at publishing behemoth Penguin Random House in the US. As Jim Milliot reports at Publishers Weekly, Layoffs Begin at Penguin Random House as Buyout Departures Come into Focus, while at Intelligencer Shawn McCreesh reports how The Old Guard Is Out at Penguin Random House.
       Apparently there were lots of 'voluntary separation offers' (who comes up with this terminology ?), and quite the list of editors, as well as, for example, head of production Andy Hughes and head of publicity Nicholas Latimer are out.
       And:

     “What is unusual,” says publisher Cindy Spiegel, who worked at PRH before relaunching her imprint independently, “is that these people have been in the same place for so long and hadn’t moved around, and that feels like an old-fashioned, but good, thing. They were part of a culture of a place and helped to make that place and give it its identity, and I don’t think you’re going to find, in 40 years from now, anybody at the same place anymore.”

       It'll be interesting to see what comes next.

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

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       (South African) Sunday Times Literary Awards longlists

       The (South African) Sunday Times has announced the longlists for its Literary Awards this year.
       At twenty-seven titles, the fiction category has quite the ... long list. And the non-fiction one is longer, with thirty titles .....

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

       Paul-Celan-Preis

       They've announced the winners of this year's Paul Celan Prize, a leading German translator-prize, paying out €20,000, and they are Holger Fock and Sabine Müller.
       Among their most notable recent translations is the German one of Mohamed Mbougar Sarr's The Most Secret Memory of Men.

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

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       People from My Neighborhood review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Kawakami Hiromi's collection of stories, People from My Neighborhood.

       This came out a few years ago; with a new collection by Kawakami-- Dragon Palace -- due out in September from Stone Bridge Press; see their publicity page -- I figured I'd get to this one first.

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

       Publishing in ... the UK

       In The Observer Anthony Cummins looks at The indie publishing mavericks shaking up the UK books world.
       As literary agent Anna Webber is quoted:

In our risk-averse climate, a lot of what is exciting, original and untested is being published by independent publishers

       And Fitzcarraldo Editions' Jacques Testard:

Nowhere else in Europe could he have assembled so strong an international list, he points out, because elsewhere on the continent (where they mind about translation), his authors all have homes at the most prestigious houses.

       But perhaps the most revealing/honest quote is:

“The thing about the publishing world is that most people don’t understand how it works,” says Valerie Brandes, chief executive of black-owned London indie Jacaranda Books.

       (I certainly don't.)
       A good overview -- and note that many of the titles and authors discussed are under review at the complete review, including Bret Easton Ellis' The Shards and Shehan Karunatilaka's The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida.

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

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       Kundera in ... China

       In the South China Morning Post Vanessa Cai reports on how Chinese literary world reflects on how ‘Kundera fever’ chimed with country’s 1980s intellectual ferment.
       Those were the days .....

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

       Pegasus Prize

       At Shine Yao Minji reports on how China's Pegasus Prize reflects new generation of diverse literature, as: "China's top literary prize for Internet literature was given to five novels".
       It's a triennial prize
       I wonder whether any of these will make it into English.

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

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       What Entropy Means to Me review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of George Alec Effinger's 1972 novel What Entropy Means to Me.

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

       Bestselling in ... the US

       In Publishers Weekly they report on The Bestselling Books of 2023 (So Far) in the US -- with actual sales numbers !
       Spare sold over a million copies, while three titles by Collen Hoover were in the top five.
       I'm afraid none of these are under review at the complete review.

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

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       Kikuchi Kan

       At nippon.com Takino Yūsaku writes about a new book about Kikuchi Kan: Founder of the Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes.
       He certainly did a lot for and in the Japanese literary world; maybe we'll see the book -- 文豪、社長になる; see the 文藝春秋 publicity page -- in English some day ?

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

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       Literary fiction

       At Esquire Will Blythe finds: 'In the golden age of magazines, short stories reigned supreme. Has the digital revolution killed their cultural relevance ?' in The Life, Death -- And Afterlife -- of Literary Fiction.

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

       International Booker Prize judges

       They've announced the judges for the 2024 International Booker Prize.
       Eleanor Wachtel is the chair, with the rest of the panel consisting of: Natalie Diaz, Romesh Gunesekera, William Kentridge, and Aaron Robertson.

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

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       Wales Books of the Year

       Literature Wales has announced the winners of this year's Wales Books of the Year in a variety of categories.
       The English-language fiction prize went to Drift by Caryl Lewis, while the Welsh-category fiction winner is Pridd, by Llŷr Titus.

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

       Milan Kundera (1929-2023)

       As widely noted, author Milan Kundera has passed away; see, for example, obituaries in The Guardian (by Adam Thirlwell) and The New York Times (presumably paywalled) (by Daniel Lewis); see also Faber remembers Milan Kundera from his UK publisher, and, in The New York Times, Dwight Garner's 'appraisal', In Milan Kundera's Work, the Erotic Meets the Subversive (presumably also paywalled)
       Kundera was among a relatively small number of authors who switched languages well into their careers (Nabokov is another), writing first in Czech and later in French.
       I read most of Kundera's work before I started the site, but several of his works are under review at the complete review:

• The Curtain
• The Festival of Insignificance
• Identity
• See also: François Ricard's Agnès's Final Afternoon

       Also of interest: via I am pointed to this 1999 piece by Caleb Crain, Milan Kundera Is on the Outs With His Translators; But Who's Betraying Whom ? (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) .

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

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       The Most Secret Memory of Men review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Mohamed Mbougar Sarr's 2021 prix Goncourt-winning novel, The Most Secret Memory of Men, coming out in September in the US (from Other Press) and Canada (from Simon & Schuster), and, somewhat bafflingly, only in February of next year in the UK (from Harvill Secker).
       (Other Press has been doing very well with recent Goncourt-winners, and that streak should certainly continue with this one; see also the Goncourt-winners under review at the complete review.)

       I would be very surprised if this doesn't make it to the International Booker Prize longlist, and strongly suspect it has a good chance of making the shortlist.

       One of the nice ripple-effects of this novel coming out is that it has moved the publishers to re-issue Yambo Ouologuem's classic Bound to Violence -- Other Press is bringing it out in the US in conjunction with the Sarr, while in the UK it will be appearing as a Penguin Classic in March. (I reviewed it almost exactly twenty-two years ago; it's been quite a wait for it to be 'found' again.)

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

       Ursula K. Le Guin Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction, "given to a writer for a single work of imaginative fiction".
       Nine titles are left in the running; I haven't seen any of these.

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

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       Sports (not) at The New York Times

       In the early days of this site, at the turn of the millennium, there were still quite a few newspaper book sections out there -- but already also a lot of complaining how they were unsustainable. Even regarding The New York Times Book Review there was lots of discussion about how it wasn't paying its way and about downsizing it -- which repeatedly led me to compare it to the NYT's Sports section, wondering what the excuses were for sustaining that, given how few ads were found in its pages. As I asked more than 20(!) years ago: "why isn't the Sports section being cut back ? (Radically cut back -- this thing looks like a complete dud.)".
       Well, that argument is over, and that day has come: as Katie Robertson and John Koblin report at ... The New York Times: The New York Times to Disband Its Sports Department (presumably paywalled).
       Sports coverage at The New York Times has been terrible for a few years now, as they shifted from comprehensive sports coverage to far fewer, often long-form stories more appropriate for a magazine than a daily newspaper; obviously, it was not the way to go either.
       Apparently: "Coverage of games, players and leagues will now come primarily from" something called 'The Athletic'-- which The New York Times bought last year ..... Amusingly, The New York Times reported some six years ago on Why The Athletic Wants to Pillage Newspapers (presumably paywalled), reporting on The Athletic's "vulture strategy" -- its new owner the latest (willing) victim that's been eviscerated.
       See also the official corporate spin, as A.G.Sulzberger and Meredith Kopit Levien explain Our Plans for Sports Journalism. (Apparently, it's all about the "subscription strategy" .....)

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

       Sri Lankan speculative fiction

       Via I'm pointed to Gautam Bhatta reporting how Sri Lankan speculative fiction lifts off, at Himāl.

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

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       Bookselling in ... the US

       At Publishers Weekly Jim Milliot reports that in the US Book Sales Continue to Slow Down in First Half of 2023.
       Unit sales were down 2.7 per cent compared to the first half of 2022 -- with adult non-fiction down 4.9 per cent, despite the success of Spare, which sold over a million copies.
       The one category that is up is adult fiction -- up 4.2 per cent.
       And I continue to be disappointed by the collapse of the mass-market paperback format -- down a staggering 17.8 per cent.

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

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