opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 20 October 2024

11 October: Nobel afterthoughts | Shortlists: ALTA National Translation Awards - Baillie Gifford Prize | The Third Realm review
12 October: Translators as literary tastemakers ? | Erich Fried Preis | Too long ? | Grand Prix du Roman finalists
13 October: Yasnaya Polyana Awards | Childish Literature review
14 October: Han Kang sales bump | Biyi Bándélé profile | Documentary Poetry review
15 October: Deutscher Buchpreis | Publishing in ... Africa | Ellis Peters, translator
16 October: Antonio Skármeta (1940-2024) | Eclipse review
17 October: Shortlists: HWA Crown Awards - Queen Sofía Translation Prize | South Korean translation support | Siri Hustvedt writing Auster-memoir
18 October: Warwick Prize longlist | Roger Allen Q & A | The Failure review
19 October: Karl Ove Knausgård Q & A | Déry Tibor profile | Clemens Meyer -- sore, sore loser
20 October: Joy Williams Q & A | Prix du meilleur livre étranger longlists | Chinghiz Aitmatov profile

go to weblog

return to main archive

       Joy Williams Q & A

       At The Guardian Alex Clark has a Q & A with American author Joy Williams: ‘The comfy story has got to change’.

       I haven't read any Williams -- I know, I know ... -- but this is a great bit:

I have a number of typewriters, all of which have something wrong with them. I sent my favourite one off for cleaning and UPS lost it. Now I don’t have a favourite. This is not ideal.

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

---

       Prix du meilleur livre étranger longlists

       They've announced the longlists for this year's prix du meilleur livre étranger -- a storied French prize for best foreign work translated into French, in two categories: novel and non-fiction; see, for example the Livres Hebdo report.
       This prize has an impressive list of winners, including Miguel Ángel Asturias' El Señor Presidente in 1950 (long before he won the Nobel Prize), Robert Musil's The Man without Qualities (1958), Günter Grass' The Tin Drum (1962), Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1969), Salman Rushdie's best novel (1985), Fernando del Paso's Palinuro of Mexico (1986), Gonçalo M. Tavares' Learning to Pray in the Age of Technique, and many others .....
       This prize also proceeds more quickly than most: the shortlists will be announced on 23 October, the winners on 4 November.

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

---

       Chinghiz Aitmatov profile

       At eureporter they profile Çıňğız Aytmatov, Kyrgyz pearl of world literature -- and, yes, I hope that's how publishers will print his name from now on.

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

       Karl Ove Knausgård Q & A

       Karl Ove Knausgård's The Third Realm is just out in English, and at The Guardian he's featured in their 'The books of my life'-column, in Karl Ove Knausgård: ‘The book that changed me as a teenager ? The History of Bestiality’
       Not surprising that the Jens Bjørneboe-trilogy -- beginning with Moment of Freedom -- made an impression ("I was 16 when I read it, and it felt like the truth about humanity had been revealed to me"). Not a series that one will find in many American school libraries, I fear .....

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

---

       Déry Tibor profile

       At hlo they profile Hungarian author Tibor Déry: Satire and Controversy -- and I really want to see: "one of the greater works of his later years, the Kafkaesque novel Mr. A.G. in X, published in 1964, and still unavailable in English".
       Quite a few of his works have been translated into English -- including ones from New York Review Books and New Directions.

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

---

       Clemens Meyer -- sore, sore loser

       The Q & A at Der Spiegel is paywalled, so I haven't been able to access it, but various German publications have the highlights: Clemens Meyer was apparently ... disappointed that his 1000-page novel, Die Projektoren, shortlisted for the German Book Prize, did not win -- and he was eager to vent some more; see, for example, the report in the Frankfurter Rundschau. (Hey guten Morgen, wie geht es dir ? by Martina Hefter took the prize; see my recent mention.)
       Yes, Meyer apparently stormed out of the ceremony when he wasn't announced as the winner, cursing the jurors as: 'you damned wankers' ("ihr verdammten Wichser"). He was particularly upset that he won't enjoy the financial upside of taking the prize:

„Dann hätte ich 100.000 neue Leser und könnte meine Schulden bezahlen“, sagte er und ergänzte: „Ich muss eine Scheidung finanzieren und habe 35.000 Euro Steuerschulden angehäuft.“

["Then I would have 100,000 new readers and could pay off my debts," he said, and added: "I have to finance a divorce and have accumulated 35,000 euros in tax debts."]

       Not a great look. And, hey, maybe Hefter has back taxes or student loans to pay off too, right ?

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

       Warwick Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.
       Two of the fifteen titles -- selected from 147 eligible entries from 35 languages (admirably revealed here (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) ) -- are under review at the complete review:

• Saskia Vogel's translation of Linnea Axelsson's Ædnan
• David Boyd's translation of Oyamada Hiroko's The Factory

       The winner will be announced 21 November.

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

---

       Roger Allen Q & A

       At the World Literature Today blog Jonas Elbousty has a Q & A with Roger Allen: Translating Arabic and the Art of Translation.

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

---

       The Failure review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Giovanni Papini's The Failure, in a 1924 translation (one of two that appeared that year !) recently re-issued by Sublunary Editions in their Empyrean Series.

       I particularly like this reaction to it, from back in the day.

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

       Shortlists: HWA Crown Awards

       The Historical Writers Association has announced the shortlists for its various awards, including for the HWA Gold Crown Award for historical fiction, which includes two works in translation.
       The winners will be announced 20 November.

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

---

       Shortlist: Queen Sofía Translation Prize

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize -- and two of the titles are under review at the complete review:

• Adrian Nathan West's translation of Alejo Carpentier's The Lost Steps
• Margaret Jull Costa's translation of Javier Marías' Tomás Nevinson

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

---

       South Korean translation support

       Some very positive post-Nobel fallout in South Korea, as Lee Jian reports at Korea JoongAng Daily that the South Korean Culture Ministry secures 48.5 billion won to support translated Korean literature, as:

The budget for books and translations had consistently been on a downward spiral for the past two years, but the ministry has recovered those numbers for next year, anticipating that Han's Nobel Prize for Literature will increase the demand for translations from domestic and foreign publishers.

       Ah, yes, success breeds ... well, at least investment in a good cause.
       So:

In particular, the Culture Ministry allocated 7.66 billion won to the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, a public institution supporting Korean literature and culture overseas. Of this amount, 3.12 billion won will support the publication of translated books and 4.54 billion won will go toward promoting them. The publication budget increased by 800 million won while the promotion budget increased by 450 million won.

       See also the Culture Ministry announcement.

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

---

       Siri Hustvedt writing Auster-memoir

       At Die Zeit Volker Weidermann has a lengthy Q & A with Paul Auster's widow, Siri Hustvedt, "Die Würde, mit der Paul starb, war ein Geschenk"
       In it she reveals that:

Wenige Tage nach Pauls Tod habe ich angefangen, über ihn zu schreiben, ein Memoir. Ich schreibe immer noch daran. Es heißt Ghost Stories. Ich habe jetzt 120 Seiten. Das war mein erster Impuls.

[A few days after Paul's death, I started writing about him, a memoir. I'm still writing it. It's called Ghost Stories. I've got 120 pages now. That was my first impulse.]

       She also mentions that she will include twelve letters she wrote to friends, as well as Auster's last work -- a small book he was working on, of letters to their grandchild, of which there are some thirty-five pages.

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

       Antonio Skármeta (1940-2024)

       Antonio Skármeta -- best known for his novel The Postman, the basis of a popular movie -- has passed away; see, for example, the University of Chile announcement.

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

---

       Eclipse review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Hirano Keiichiro's Akutagawa Prize-winning novel Eclipse, coming out from Columbia University Press.

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

       Deutscher Buchpreis

       They've announced the winner of this year's German Book Prize -- the biggest German novel prize, essentially: the German Booker Prize -- and it is Hey guten Morgen, wie geht es dir ? by Martina Hefter; see also the Klett-Cotta publicity page.

       Quite a few German Book Prize-winning titles are under review at the complete review, but I don't think I'll get to this one anytime soon.

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

---

       Publishing in ... Africa

       The British Council has released: 'A study of the publishing landscapes in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe' -- Publishing Futures (warning ! dreaded pdf format !); if you don't want to read the whole thing they sum up the 'key findings' here; they include that: "Innovative publishing models and self-publishing are thriving".

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

---

       Ellis Peters, translator

       I often complain about how few Anglophone authors translate, but I was not aware that Edith Pargeter -- who wrote mysteries as 'Ellis Peters' -- translated from the Czech; at Radio Prague International Danny Bate now has a Q & A with Suzanne Bray 'about the Czechoslovak side to this remarkable writer', in The life of Edith Pargeter (alias Ellis Peters): Murder-mystery novelist and self-taught Czech translator.

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

       Han Kang sales bump

       I haven't seen articles about the sales bump Han Kang's Nobel win has led to outside South Korea -- though there surely will be some reports -- but there have been several about how in-demand her books are back home.
       In The Guardian Ella Creamer reported that Han Kang's books sell out as South Korea celebrates her Nobel prize in literature, while in The Korea Times they have some of the impressive numbers, in Nobel laureate Han Kang's books fly off shelves with over 500,000 copies sold -- as: "About 530,000 copies of Han's books had been sold as of 2 p.m. Sunday", and that's apparently only at the two major online South Korean booksellers.
       Meanwhile, Kim Yu-tae's (machine-translated) article at Maeil Business Newspaper notes that: "As Han Kang's book is in short supply, the online secondhand market is infested with the enthusiasm for purchasing a book by a writer"

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

---

       Biyi Bándélé profile

       Biyi Bándélé's Yorùbá Boy Running was recently published, and at The Guardian Alex Clark profiles the author, in ‘He knew this was going to be the last story he wrote’: the epic legacy of literary maverick Biyi Bándélé.

       Three of his earlier novels are under review at the complete review:

• Burma Boy (published in the US as: The King's Rifle)
• The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond
• The Sympathetic Undertaker

       I haven't seen Yorùbá Boy Running, but see the publicity pages from Hamish Hamilton and Harper, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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

---

       Documentary Poetry review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of a collection by Heimrad Bäcker on his Documentary Poetry, recently out in a nice volume from Winter Editions.

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

       Yasnaya Polyana Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Yasnaya Polyana Awards, a Russian literary prize "established by the Leo Tolstoy Museum-Estate and Samsung Electronics", with Leonid Yuzefovich's Поход на Бар-Хото taking the 'Modern Russian Prose' category and the Russian translation of Juhea Kim's Beasts of a Little Land taking the 'Foreign Literature' category.

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

---

       Childish Literature review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Alejandro Zambra's Childish Literature.

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

       Translators as literary tastemakers ?

       In The Japan Times Mike Fu suggests that Han Kang's Nobel win underscores essential role of translators as literary tastemakers -- noting:

Her meteoric rise since attests to the outsize influence that individual translators can exert on the literary world and a burgeoning global interest in East Asian storytelling.

       I'm never thrilled by individuals having "outsize influence" on what gets published, but that is (and will continue to be) one of the huge problems in publishing, as long as only a tiny percentage of books from any language is even considered for translation into English (or other languages).

       (Han's international breakout success also contrasts interestingly with her father's lack thereof. Han Seung-won is apparently a quite highly regarded author in his own right, and has picked up any number of (local) prizes -- and was published in English before she was: his novel Father and Son was translated by Yu Young-nan and Julie Pickering in 2002, by Homa & Sekey Books -- see their publicity page -- but seems to have attracted ... well, basically no notice.
       Han Kang's writings may be more attractive to an international audience, but a lot -- not least: chance, timing, and circumstances -- goes into publishing success, especially in translation, and I suspect that, for example, Han Seung-won's work is worthy of at least more attention (and translation) than it's gotten. (Meanwhile, you can read an excerpt of Father and Son here.))

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

---

       Erich Fried Preis

       They've announced the winner of this year's Erich Fried Prize, and it is Babyf**ker-author Urs Allemann.

       This author prize is one of those where a single juror -- a different one each year -- decides who gets the prize; this year's decider was Ulf Stolterfoht; among others who have had the honor are Elfriede Jelinek, Christoph Ransmayr, Lutz Seiler, and Ingo Schulze; the list of winners isn't bad either, and includes Gert Jonke, Oskar Pastior, and Esther Kinsky.

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

---

       Too long ?

       In The Times Charlotte Alt reports on Ian Rankin complaining Crime novels today are far too long.
       The most recent statistics she cites are almost a decade old:

According to a 2015 survey, the average number of pages of books grew by 25 per cent over 15 years. The survey, by James Finlayson at Verve Search, for the interactive publisher Flipsnack, found the average length increased from 320 pages in 1999 to 400 pages in 2014, based on analysis of more than 2,500 books.

       (The average length of books under review at the complete review has long been around 250 pages, but has tended to the longer in recent years as well.)
       There is something to be said for the shorter mystery novel -- they do seem to have gotten more bloated in recent decades.

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

---

       Grand Prix du Roman finalists

       The Académie française has announced the three finalists for their Grand Prix du Roman.
       The winner will be announced on 24 October.

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

       Nobel afterthoughts

       As I mentioned yesterday, Han Kang has been named this year's Nobel laureate.
       In the aftermath of the Nobel, I'll re-up Álex Vicente's article on When receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature becomes a curse at El País, where he quotes Javier Aparicio Maydeu:

Getting a Nobel Prize never hurts, but authors who won it, such as Camilo José Cela, Nadine Gordimer, J. M. G. Le Clézio or Herta Müller, did not write anything significant after receiving it and today they are dead in literary terms, so to speak: very few people read them anymore

       (Some of these authors -- and many readers -- would beg to differ, but .....).
       This guy also said:

Those who are awarded the prize for reasons that are not strictly artistic or literary, but for geopolitical reasons, such as Orhan Pamuk, can be affected. Many become luxury lecturers, lose their creative intensity and are wasted as authors

       Ouch ..... And, much as I love the term and idea of 'luxury lecturer', how many still-living laureates could be considered one ? Handke ? Ishiguro ? Vargas Llosa ? Maybe Jelinek ? Come on .....

       Meanwhile, at The New Republic Mark Krotov and Alex Shephard suggest that: 'The Swedish Academy's decision to award Korean novelist Han Kang is a minor victory in a world of consolidation' in considering Can The Nobel Prize Save Publishing From Itself ? -- arguing, generously, that: "The Swedish Academy has cast itself as an island of seriousness in a swirling ocean of garbage and filth"

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

---

       Shortlists: ALTA National Translation Awards

       The American Literary Translators Association has announced the shortlists for this year's National Translation Awards, in the two categories -- prose and poetry.
       None of the finalists are under review at the complete review.
       The winners will be announced 26 October.

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

---

       Shortlist: Baillie Gifford Prize

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction -- six titles selected from 349 submissions.
       The winner will be announced 19 November.

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

---

       The Third Realm review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the third in Karl Ove Knausgaard's The Morning Star-series, The Third Realm, just out in English.

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

previous entries (1 - 10 October 2024)

archive index

- search the site -

- return to top of the page -

© 2024 the complete review


Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links