opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 30 September 2023

21 September: Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize finalists | Leipzig Book Fair Guest of Honour 2025 | Bournville review
22 September: Shortlists: Booker Prize - FT Business Book of the Year | Dos Passos Prize finalists | The Night House review
23 September: Prix Médicis longlists | New Latin American Literature Today | The books of my life: Jo Nesbø
24 September: Korean literature abroad | Godzilla reviews
25 September: Han Kang Q & A | Fiction in translation editorial | Dragon Palace review
26 September: The White Review | Baihua Literature Awards
27 September: Language choices | Wilhelm Raabe-Literaturpreis
28 September: Shortlists: Royal Society Science Book Prize - Cundill History Prize | Prix de la page 111 longlist | Yambo Ouologuem profile
29 September: Grand Prix du Roman longlist | Ackerley Prize
30 September: Murakami Haruki and ghost stories | AALA membership survey | International Translation Day | The Masterpiece review

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       Murakami Haruki and ghost stories

       "The pending Nobel Prize did not come up at Thursday's ghost story event", Mari Yamaguchi admits in her AP report, but that didn't stop them from headlining the story: Novelist Murakami hosts Japanese ghost story reading ahead of Nobel Prize announcements.
       Of more interest:

The event featured one from the 18-century collection Tales of Moonlight and Rain which intrigued Murakami since his childhood and is known to have inspired his work.

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

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       AALA membership survey

       The Association of American Literary Agents has released the results of its biennial membership survey -- see the summary, or the full report (warning ! dreaded pdf format !).
       Among the striking numbers: "the profession as a whole, is predominantly female, with 82.1% of respondents identifying as cis women", and 16.2% of respondents represent more than 50 authors, which seems like a lot of authors to take care of .....

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

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       International Translation Day

       Hey, it's International Translation Day !
       Celebrate appropriately !

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

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       The Masterpiece review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Émile Zola's 1886 novel, The Masterpiece, the fourteenth in his Rougon-Macquart series.

       As the Introduction notes, this is: "by far the most autobiographically based of the Rougon-Macquart novels" -- with the main character, Claude Lantier, based on Zola's childhood friend, Cézanne. He's presented as a truly obsessive artist -- going so far as to say:

I don't even want to be happy; all I want is to paint.

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

       Grand Prix du Roman longlist

       The Académie française has announced the longlist for their prestigious Grand Prix du Roman -- an award they started handing out in 1914.
       Twelve previous winners are under review at the complete review -- including last year's winner, Giuliano Da Empoli's The Wizard of the Kremlin, coming out soon in English.
       The winner will be announced 26 October.

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

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       Ackerley Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Ackerley Prize, awarded: "to a volume of autobiography by a British author", and it is Thunderstone, by Nancy Campbell; no word yet at the official site, last I checked, but see, for example.
       See also the Elliott & Thompson publicity page.

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

       Shortlist: Royal Society Science Book Prize

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Royal Society Science Trivedi Book Prize ("previously known under various banners including the Royal Society Prize for Science Books, Aventis Prize and Rhône-Poulenc Prize, The Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books and most recently The Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize", sigh)
       There are six titles left in the running, selected from 255 (unfortunately not revealed) submissions.
       The winner will be announced on 22 November.

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

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       Shortlist: Cundill History Prize

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Cundill History Prize, a Canadian US$75,000 prize "awarded annually to the book that embodies historical scholarship, originality, literary quality and broad appeal".
       Eight titles are left in the running; I haven't seen any of these.

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

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       Prix de la page 111 longlist

       The French have some fun literary prizes, and the prix de la page 111 is certainly one of them: books are solely judged on the basis of their 111th pages.
       They've now announced the longlist for this year's prize; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
       The winner will be announced 20 October.

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

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       Yambo Ouologuem profile

       With Mohamed Mbougar Sarr's prix Goncourt-winning The Most Secret Memory of Men now out in English, Yambo Ouologuem and his Bound to Violence are getting more attention -- and the book has been re-issued -- and in The New York Times Elian Peltier has a profile of the author, Plagiarist or Master ? The Tortured Legacy of Yambo Ouologuem (presumably paywalled).
       Peltier notes Ouologuem: "died in 2017, forgotten by most, his novel read by few -- until recently": I'm pleased to note that my review of the book has been up since 2001. And I agree with Sarr:

“I would be happy,” he said, “If Bound to Violence could be stripped of its maleficent aura, its dark legend. If we could read Ouologuem again and just consider his book for what it is -- a great novel.”

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

       Language choices

       When one of the choices an author has, of what language to write in, is the language of the colonizer or invader, that can complicate matters, and Olivia Snaije considers 'How war and power can usurp language and the many ways that writers push back' at New Lines Magazine, in Ukrainians Eschew Russian But One of Their Bestselling Authors Embraces It.
       That author is, of course, Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees-author Andrey Kurkov.
       He notes that: "the war has made it impossible for Russian to find its place in Ukraine in the way he once envisioned"

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

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       Wilhelm Raabe-Literaturpreis

       They've announced the winner of this year's Wilhelm Raabe Literary Prize, and it is Wir hätten uns alles gesagt, by Judith Hermann; see also the S.Fischer foreign rights page.
       The prize pays out €30,000 -- more than the leading German novel prize, the German Book Prize, where the winner only gets €25,000.
       Several works by Hermann have been translated into English -- the collection Summerhouse, Later (see the Ecco publicity page; published in the UK as The Summer House), for example -- but it looks like it's been ages since anything of hers has come out in the US/UK. Maybe the prize will convince some publisher ? Foreign rights have been sold in several languages but not yet, it seems, English.

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

       The White Review

       Disappointing to hear that the wonderful The White Review, which has been publishing since 2011, has announced that they are: "going on a hiatus and ceasing its day-to-day publishing for an indefinite period".

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

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       Baihua Literature Awards

       The biennial Baihua Literature Awards have been announced, with awards in seven literary categories -- including science fiction and online literature -- as well awards for editors and readers; see, for example, Yang Yang's report at China Daily.

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

       Han Kang Q & A

       At El País Berna González Harbour has a Q & A with the The Vegetarian-author, in Han Kang, the star author of South Korean literature, returns: ‘I stopped writing for a year and forgot how to do it’.

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

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       Fiction in translation editorial

       Good to see a newspaper offer an editorial on the subject, as we now find with: The Guardian view on European fiction in translation: still too little, too late.
       Sadly, as is so often the case with this subject, they make a bit of a mess of some of the facts, as when they note that:

Only in rare cases of “event” publishing -- such as the latest novel from Michel Houellebecq -- are novels published simultaneously in English and their language of origin.

       The cases are indeed rare; sadly, they're rarer than they suggest, as even the latest novel by Houellebecq, Anéantir, which came out in French in January, 2022, still isn't out in an English translation ..... (Books written in English, on the other hand, often appear in translation in many European languages simultaneously with or soon after US/UK publication.)

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

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       Dragon Palace review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Kawakami Hiromi's Dragon Palace, a 2002 story collection now available in English, from Stone Bridge Press

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

       Korean literature abroad

       In The Korea Herald Hwang Dong-hee has a look at Global publishers' take on Korean literature.

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

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       Godzilla reviews

       The most recent additions to the complete review are my reviews of Kayama Shigeru's 1955 novellas Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again -- available in English for the first time, from University of Minnesota Press.

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

       Prix Médicis longlists

       They've announced the longlists for this year's prix Médicis; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
       There are two categories: French novel and foreign novel; always interesting to see what fiction in translation gets prize-attention abroad.
       This is also another example of how well-stocked French literary-prize juries tend to be: Sphinx-author Anne F. Garréta presides, while jurors include Pig Tales-author Marie Darrieussecq, Patrick Grainville, and The Life of an Unknown Man-author Andreï Makine.

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

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       New Latin American Literature Today

       The new issue of Latin American Literature Today is now out, with Carlos Germán Belli as the featured author -- and, of course, an always interesting selection of book reviews.

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

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       The books of my life: Jo Nesbø

       The Guardian's 'The books of my life'-series has Jo Nesbø: ‘Tom Sawyer was my first murder mystery’.
       (His The Night House is just about out in English.)

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

       Shortlist: Booker Prize

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Booker Prize, the leading English-language novel prize, six titles left over from the 163 considered (but unfortunately not revealed ...).
       I haven't seen any of these.
       The winner will be announced 26 November, so you have quite a bit of time to read them all.

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

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       Shortlist: FT Business Book of the Year

       They've announced [paywalled ?] the shortlist for the FT and Schroders Business Book of the Year.
       The winner of this prize gets £30,000, but this is probably also the richest shortlisting-prize out there, with each of the six shortlisted titles getting £10,000.
       The winner will be announced 4 December.

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

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       Dos Passos Prize finalists

       They've announced the four finalists for this year's Dos Passos Prize, honoring: "America's most talented but underappreciated writers".
       I haven't read anything by any of these authors .....

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

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       The Night House review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the latest Jo Nesbø, his Harry Hole-less horror novel, The Night House, which has made it into English admirably quickly.

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

       Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize finalists

       They've announced the finalists for this year's Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, a leading prize for a Canadian work of non-fiction, paying out an impressive C$75,000 to the winner.
       The winner will be announced 21 November.

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

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       Leipzig Book Fair Guest of Honour 2025

       NORLA -- Norwegian Literature Abroad -- is one of the most impressive and active national book-promotion organizations, and, after the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2019 they've landed another big German Guest of Honour-spot, as, as they've announced, Norway to be Guest of Honour at Leipzig Book Fair 2025; see also the Leipzig Book Fair press release.
       Great to see so much Norwegian literature in translation -- the next review going up at the site today is a translation from Norwegian ... -- but it would also be nice to see other languages get this kind of attention as well.

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

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       Bournville review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Novel in Seven Occasions by Jonathan Coe, Bournville, which is belatedly but finally also coming out in a US edition.

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

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