opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 31 July 2024

21 July: Peter Blackstock Q & A | China Miéville/Keanu Reeves profile
22 July: Latest PEN Translates winners
23 July: Proust and translation | New Saudi novel prize | A Maggot review
24 July: Lev Grossman Q & A
25 July: Reading in ... the UK | Lewis Lapham (1935-2024) | Hillbilly Elegy dumped by German publisher | The Understory review
26 July: Sinan Antoon profile | Veza-Canetti-Preis
27 July: Ovid's Heroides | TikTok Book Awards
28 July: Mick Herron profile | Kehlmann on Perutz
29 July: Edna O'Brien (1930-2024)
30 July: Eisner Awards | Rejtő Jenő profile | The Utopian Generation review
31 July: Booker Prize longlist | Abdulrazak Gurnah in Swahili

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       Booker Prize longlist

       They've announced the thirteen-title longlist for this year's Booker Prize -- which touts itself as: "the world's most influential prize for a single work of fiction" --, selected from 156 (unfortunately not revealed) titles.
       American-heavy, the list also features an also-English-writing Dutch author, Yael van der Wouden, with The Safekeep; see also the publicity pages from Viking and Avid Reader Press.
       I haven't seen any of these .....

       The shortlist will be announced 16 September, and the winner on 12 November.

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

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       Abdulrazak Gurnah in Swahili

       At African Arguments Karen Chalamilla has a Q & A with Mkuki Bgoya, the managing director of Tanzanian publisher Mkuki na Nyota, who have published a Swahili translation of Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah's Paradise -- see their publicity page -- in Mkuki Bgoya: “Swahili writers should be mandatory reading in Tanzania, but there’s a deep trauma around books”.
       Among his comments:

I also wish more writers who submitted just wrote in Swahili. We get a lot of people writing terribly in English instead of the language they’re comfortable with, thinking it will increase their chances of getting published.

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

       Eisner Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards -- given out in thirty-two categories.

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

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       Rejtő Jenő profile

       At hlo Hanna Zelma Horányi profiles Jenő Rejtő: Dirty Fred, the Captain -- author also of Quarantine in the Grand Hotel.

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

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       The Utopian Generation review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Pepetela's 1992 novel The Utopian Generation, finally coming out in English, from Biblioasis.

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

       Edna O'Brien (1930-2024)

       Irish author Edna O'Brien has passed away; see, for example, Richard Lea's obituary in The Guardian.

       None of her work is under review at the complete review, but see her books published by Picador and Faber.

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

       Mick Herron profile

       At The Guardian Alex Clark profiles the The Secret Hours-author, in Mick Herron: ‘Most people didn’t know I was writing – I was a secretive kind of writer’ as his first novel, Down Cemetery Road is now also being adapted for TV; see also the Apple TV press release.

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

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       Kehlmann on Perutz

       Daniel Kehlmann has a new book coming out this fall, Daniel Kehlmann über Leo Perutz -- see the Kiepenheuer & Witsch publicity page -- and of course any work touting Perutz is welcome. (Pushkin Press has published several of his books.)
       This is part of a new-to-me series, edited by Volker Weidermann, Bücher meines Lebens -- 'Books of my life' -- where well-known German-writing authors write about authors (not books ...) highly regarded by them. Other volumes include Jenny Erpenbeck on Christine Lavant and Clemens Meyer on Christa Wolf; I look forward to seeing some of these.

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

       Ovid's Heroides

       A University of Kansas press release suggests that a New translation of Ovid’s ‘Heroides’ offers insight into ‘ancient fan fiction’; see also the Hackett Classics publicity page for the new translation.
       (There's also a Loeb edition -- an older translation --; see the Harvard University Press publicity page.)

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

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       TikTok Book Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's TikTok Book Awards; see, for example, Lucy Acheson's BBC report.
       From what I hear, 'BookTok' is incredibly popular; I'm afraid I still don't have the patience to watch this kind of stuff (well, pretty much anything for that matter) online (I remain a text person, through and through), and I am not familiar with the award winners -- neither the BookTokers nor the books ....

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

       Sinan Antoon profile

       At The New Arab Sarah Shaffi profiles the The Book of Collateral Damage-author, in Echoing Palestinian perseverance: Iraqi novelist Sinan Antoon on NYU Gaza protests arrest and upcoming translation of Palestinian story.

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

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       Veza-Canetti-Preis

       The city of Vienna has announced the winner of this year's Veza Canetti Prize, a €10,000 author-award for a female Austrian author, and it is Karin Peschka.

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

       Reading in ... the UK

       The Reading Agency has issued their 'The State of the Nation's Adult Reading: 2024 Report', reporting on the results of a survey conducted 2 to 4 April of 2003 people in the UK 16 and older -- see their summary or the full report (warning ! dreaded pdf format !).
       Only 50% of respondents report reading for pleasure any longer -- down from 58% in 2015 -- with 24% of those aged 16-24 saying they were never regular readers, while an astonishing 44% in that age group are 'lapsed readers', having given up on it.
       Interestingly, 55% of respondents reported borrowing books from their local library (16% doing so once a week)
       Oddly, while only 50% report reading for pleasure, 52% say: "they enjoy visiting a bookshop or library" .....

       (Hey, at least this is all (slightly) more than just anecdotal; for a really silly why-aren't-they/we-reading-? (non-)thought piece, see Georgina Elliott at Dazed exploring the tough question(s) of ... uh, Why don't straight men read novels ?)

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

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       Lewis Lapham (1935-2024)

       Much-admired editor -- of Harper's and Lapham's Quarterly -- Lewis Lapham has passed away; see, for example the mention at Lapham's Quarterly or Robert D. McFadden's obituary in The New York Times (presumably paywalled).

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

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       Hillbilly Elegy dumped by German publisher

       The German publisher of Hillbilly Elegy -- the bestseller written by American vice-presidential candidate (for now) J.D.Vance --, Ullstein, has declined to renew the license for the German edition of the book (i.e. they no longer wanted to be tainted by association with it and what its author has come to represent); see, for example, Florian Kappelsberger's report in Der Spiegel.
       A new edition will now be brought out by some new and not quite as illustrious outfit called YES

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

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       The Understory review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Thai author Saneh Sangsuk's novel The Understory -- out from Peirene in the UK last year, and Deep Vellum in the US earlier this year.

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

       Lev Grossman Q & A

       Lev Grossman's The Bright Sword is now out, and at the Literary Hub Jane Ciabattari has a Q & A with the author, in Lev Grossman on Adapting Arthurian Legends for a World in Turmoil.

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

       Proust and translation

       At the drift Simon Leser considers 'Proust in the Age of Retranslation', in Time and Time Again -- well worth a look.

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

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       New Saudi novel prize

       The Saudi General Entertainment Authority has announced a new 'Golden Pen Award for the Most Influential Literature', focusing: "on the most popular novels with the highest potential for adaptation into films", whereby the: "first and second place winning novels will be adapted into films". There will also be a 'Best Screenplay Adapted from a Literary Work' -- where, again: "the first and second place screenplays will be adapted into films".
       The prize money is good, too -- the main novel and screenplay prizes pay out US$100,000 to the winners, and US$50,000 to the second-place titles; novel category winners -- there are eight, including Best Comedy Novel and Best Historical Novel -- each get US$25,000. And there's even a translated novel-category -- also paying the winner US$100,000.

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

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       A Maggot review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of John Fowles' strange 1985 novel, A Maggot.

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

       PEN Translates winners

       English PEN has announced the latest batch of PEN Translates winners -- 16 titles originally written in 10 languages, including Greenlandic (Zombieland by Sørine Steenholdt -- see the milk publicity page -- in Charlotte Barslund's translation, forthcoming from Norvik Press) and two titles in Vietnamese.
       I look forward to seeing these .....

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

       Peter Blackstock Q & A

       Via I'm pointed to Tim Groenland's Q & A with the Grove Atlantic-editor in “A list that reflects the world”: An Interview with Peter Blackstock at Post45.
       It's part of their Issue 9: Editing American Literature, which includes some other interesting pieces, too.

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

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       China Miéville/Keanu Reeves profile

       China Miéville and Keanu Reeves have collaborated on a novel, The Book of Elsewhere, apparently based on a popular comic book series -- see the official site, or pre-order your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk -- and at The Guardian Sam Leith profiles them, in ‘I wanted to do pulpy, hyper-violent action’: Keanu Reeves on his novel with China Miéville and the afterlife of The Matrix.

       Several books by Miéville are under review at the complete review -- e.g. Perdido Street Station -- but, while I do have and expect to get to the two volumes of Dial H, I don't think I'll be getting to this one. (Nothing by Reeves is under review at the site.)

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

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