opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 May 2024

1 May: Ottaway Award | Writers and AI | Censorship in ... Russia
2 May: Paul Auster (1947-2024) | Peter Demetz (1922-2024) | New World Literature Today | Walter Scott Prize shortlist | Dominican literature
3 May: Stella Prize | Prix Jean d'Ormesson finalists | John Guillory Q & A | 'Faith and Russian Literature'
4 May: 'Me, me, me' reviewing | Edgar® Award winners | NSW Premier's Literary Awards shortlists | Mina's Matchbox review
5 May: Margaret Atwood profile | Magnesia Litera
6 May: Literature in ... India | They review
7 May: Pulitzer Prizes | Bernard Pivot (1935-2024) | Simon & Schuster buying VBK
8 May: Oxford-Weidenfeld longlist | Max Lawton Q & A
9 May: Joyce Carol Oates Prize | TIBF | Salomé on stage | Takaoka's Travels review
10 May: Berman Literature Prize | Shirley Conran (1932-2024)

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       Berman Literature Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Berman Literature Prize -- a 750,000 Swedish kronor (almost US$70,000) prize which rewards: "an author whose works embody the statues of the Prize, in the spirit of the Jewish tradition and literary works aiming to explore the rich Jewish culture and at the same time “exceed times and cultures” thereby striving for the universally human" -- and it is Eduardo Halfon, for his Canción.
       Bellevue Literary Press has brought this out in English; see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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

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       Shirley Conran (1932-2024)

       Lace-author Shirley Conran has passed away; see, for example, Lucy Knight's obituary in The Guardian.

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

       Joyce Carol Oates Prize

       The New Literary Project has announced the winner of this year's Joyce Carol Oates Prize, awarded to: "a mid-career fiction writer who has earned a distinguished reputation and the approbation and gratitude of readers", and it is Ben Fountain, best known for his novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.

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       TIBF

       The Tehran International Book Fair has opened and runs through the 18th; see also the Tehran Times report, 35th TIBF opens doors to public.
       India was scheduled to be the 'Guest of Honour' this year, but, pretty much at the last minute, was replaced by ... Yemen; see, for example, the Tehran Times report -- where they note:

With only 10 days remaining until the event, it remains to be seen what plans Yemen has for its participation in the Tehran International Book Fair.

       Ten days does seem like a short time to organize much of a presence .....

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

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       Salomé on stage

       As I've mentioned re. my novel Salome in Graz, the Wilde-play isn't performed all that often; a recent Salome in Tehran -- see my mention -- is a rare exception -- but the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club's production of a "radical new adaptation" by Evie Chandler is being performed at the Corpus Playroom through Saturday.
       I'm not sure what my protagonists would make of this one, but always interesting to see the different spins put on the material.

       (Updated - 11 May): See reviews of this production here (Jack Marley, in Varsity) and here (Carissa Wong, in The Cambridge Student).

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       Takaoka's Travels review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's only novel, the 1987 Takaoka's Travels, now out in English, from Stone Bridge Press.

       Shibusawa also translated extensively from the French, notably the works of the Marquis de Sade; his collected translations run to fifteen volumes; see the Kawade publicity page.

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       Oxford-Weidenfeld longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, awarded "for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language".
       Three of the sixteen longlisted titles are under review at the complete review:

• Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop, translated by Sam Taylor
• Exiled Shadow by Norman Manea, translated by Carla Baricz
• Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade, translated by Katrina Dodson

       The winner will be announced 15 June.

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       Max Lawton Q & A

       At minor literatures there's a Q & A with the translator, “I have a weird fearlessness with translation [...] I don’t think they can’t speak with an accent”: An interview with Max Daniel Lawton — Cristina Politano
       Much of the discussion is about Vladimir Sorokin's Blue Lard -- and among Lawton's responses is:

Do you have a favorite Dostoyevsky translator ?

I like the Pevear and Volokhonsky. They get a lot of flack, but their fucked-up English is a good match for Dostoyevsky’s fucked-up Russian.

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

       Pulitzer Prizes

       They've announced the winners of this year's Pulitzer Prizes, with Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips taking the fiction prize; the other two finalists were: Wednesday's Child by Yiyun Li and Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park.
       The criticism prize went to a film critic, Justin Chang; Zadie Smith was also a finalist -- but also for a film review.

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

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       Bernard Pivot (1935-2024)

       Bernard Pivot, host of the famous French literary talk show, Apostrophes, which ran 1975 to 1990, has passed away; see, for example, the report at France24.
       You can find an Apostrophes-sampler here -- and see also the Q & A with Ma vie avec Bernard Pivot-author Noël Herpe at the Blogs of Alexandre Gilbert from just a few weeks ago.

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

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       Simon & Schuster buying VBK

       Simon & Schuster has announced that they are buying leading Dutch publisher Veen Bosch & Keuning; see the press releases from S & S (English) and VBK (Dutch).
       VBK CEO Geneviève Waldmann says: "We would like to offer our writers a larger and international platform. By joining S&S, we can expand on this ambition". I am curious to see how that pans out .....

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

       Literature in ... India

       At EFE Rita Cardeira looks at the ‘Modi-fied Narrative:’ India’s literary landscape reflects ‘saffron’ shift, as: "Indian bookstores currently reflect a shift in the concept of the new India, rewriting history to align with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist ideology as he gears up for a third consecutive term".
       Sigh.

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

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       They review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Sequence of Unease by Kay Dick, her 1977 novel They, 'rediscovered' a couple of years ago, and re-issued by McNally Editions (in the US) and Faber & Faber (in the UK), and then in translation by all the publisher-lemmings in all the major international markets .....

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

       Margaret Atwood profile

       At The Guardian Lisa Allardice profiles the author, in ‘I can say things other people are afraid to’: Margaret Atwood on censorship, literary feuds and Trump.

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

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       Magnesia Litera

       I missed this a couple of weeks back, but they've announced the winners of this year's Magnesia Litera awards, the leading Czech literary prize.
       Hella, by Alena Machoninová, won book of the year; see also the maraton publicity page.
       The Czech translation of Szilasi László's A harmadik híd won for best translation; see the publicity pages from Protimluv (Czech) and Magvető (Hungarian). (This was also reviewed in World Literature Today in 2014 -- unfortunately, paywalled.)

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

       'Me, me, me' reviewing

       The new -- 23 May -- issue of The New York Review of Books offers the usual interesting mix, and I'm looking forward to making my way through it. However, upon my initial leaf-through when my print copy arrived yesterday I couldn't help but notice that in four (out of thirteen) reviews the reviewer begins personally, mentioning themselves in the opening sentence:

• Martin Filler: "In the pre-Trump, prepandemic paradise of 2015, when I first wrote in these pages about [...]"
  
  
• Joanna Biggs: "I was eight, and I wore a black tulle petticoat from Marks and Spencer."
  
  
• Pamela Druckerman: "When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell me [...]"
  
  
• Clair Wills: "If it is true, as Saint Augustine says, that the dead aren’t absent but merely invisible, then somewhere round about, as I write about her and you read about her, Hilary Mantel is present."

       One almost has to admire Matthew Aucoin's restraint -- he waits until the second sentence to introduce himself ("For most composers, the only way to learn how to write operas is to write operas. I may not love every one of the works that W.A. Mozart dashed off [...]":) .....
       (Two more pieces also have an "I" in the opening sentence, but Catherine Lacey certainly gets a pass -- she's quoting from the book under review ("“I was wrong to buy this notebook, very wrong,” writes Valeria Cossati [...]") -- and Stephen Breyer's piece is adapted from a lecture he gave, so the personal mention seems more reasonable ("For more than forty years I served as a federal judge").)

       The success of 'BookTok' certainly suggests that the personal approach -- the reviewer front and center -- appeals to audiences, and certainly the reviewer putting themselves out there is ... honest -- after all, there is a person, an individual, behind the review --, but I have to say, I long for the days of the (more or less) invisibility of the reviewer (even if that is entirely artificial); indeed, I'd love to see a whole lot less 'personal' writing in non-fiction generally .....

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

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       Edgar® Award winners

       The Mystery Writers of America Inc. has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the winners of this year's Edgar® Awards, with Flags on the Bayou by James Lee Burke winning Best Novel.

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

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       NSW Premier's Literary Awards shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for this year's NSW Premier's Literary Awards, "the richest and longest running state-based literary awards in Australia".
       They do a horrible job of presenting the shortlists at the official site -- come on folks, one simple press release (but, please, not in pdf form ...), listing categories and finalists, it shouldn't be this hard ! -- but the Australian Arts Review does it much better.

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

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       Mina's Matchbox review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Ogawa Yōko's Mina's Matchbox -- coming out in English this August (in both the US and UK).

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

       Stella Prize

       They have announced the winner of this year's Stella Prize, an Australian prize awarded: "to one outstanding book deemed to be original, excellent, and engaging" and written by a woman or non-binary author, and it is Praiseworthy, by Alexis Wright.
       See also the publicity pages from Giramondo, New Directions, and And Other Stories, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.
       I do have a copy of this and am looking forward to getting to it.

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

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       Prix Jean d'Ormesson finalists

       They've announced the finalists for the prix Jean d'Ormesson, a French prize where the jurors get to select whatever books they want -- old or new -- to be considered; somewhat disappointingly, this year's finalists are all more or less new publications; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
       The winner will be announced 29 May.

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

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       John Guillory Q & A

       At Public Books John Plotz and Nicholas Dames have a Q & A with the Professing Criticism-author, Interpret or Judge ?: John Guillory on the Future of Literary Criticism.

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

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       'Faith and Russian Literature'

       At First Things Gary Saul Morson writes about Faith and Russian Literature.
       I'm not sure about sweeping generalizations such as: "Russians dwell in abstractions and aren’t very good at producing actual things (apart from weapons), which is one reason their economy always lags behind", so .....

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

       Paul Auster (1947-2024)

       American author Paul Auster has passed away; see, for example, Paul Auster, American author of The New York Trilogy, dies aged 77 in The Guardian and Paul Auster, the Patron Saint of Literary Brooklyn, Dies at 77 in The New York Times (presumably paywalled).
       I've enjoyed some of his work, but haven't read any of his mroe recent work; none of his books are under review at the complete review.

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

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       Peter Demetz (1922-2024)

       Czech-born author Peter Demetz has passed away; see, for example, Benjamin Ivry on How a Jewish son of Prague became a 101-year-old historian of human ideals in Forward and Andreas Platthaus on this Jahrhundertfigur der Literaturwissenschaft in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung .
       A longtime professor at Yale, Demetz was also a judge for the annual Franz Kafka Prize, which had a very nice run for a while. The only one of his works I've read is his useful look at (then-) 'Recent Writing in the Germanies, Austria, and Switzerland', After the Fires; get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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

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       New World Literature Today

       The May-June issue of World Literature Today is now available, with a spotlight as The City Issue: Buenos Aires -- and of course the always interesting and extensive book review section.

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

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       Walter Scott Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
       One of the six titles is under review at the complete review: Tan Twan Eng's The House of Doors.
       The winner will be announced 13 June.

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

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       Dominican literature

       In Evangelical Focus Tomás Gómez Bueno complains about there being No Dominican evangelical literature.
       I don't know about the 'evangelical' part -- who needs or wants that ? -- but striking that: "over 95% of the titles on offer here are by foreign authors", so there's certainly some room for some local literature in the Dominican Republic. (I do think they might fare better gaining market share by decidedly not focusing on or worrying about: "Dominican evangelical reality".)

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

       Ottaway Award

       Words without Borders has announced the winner of this year's Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature, and it is Marcia Lynx Qualey, of the essential ArabLit -- certainly a deserving winner !
       She will receive the prize on 4 June.

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

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       Writers and AI

       At npr Chloe Veltman reports that AI is contentious among authors. So why are some feeding it their own writing ?
       Among them: Ken Liu, who:

attempted to train an AI model solely on his own output. He says he fed all of his short stories and novels into the system — and nothing else.

Liu says he knew this approach was doomed to fail.

That's because the entire life's work of any single writer simply doesn't contain enough words to produce a viable so-called large language model.

"I don't care how prolific you are," Liu says. "It's just not going to work."

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

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       Censorship in ... Russia

       At France 24 Sébastian Seibt reports that Russia’s book police: literature, once exempt, gets censor’s chop.

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

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