opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 15 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

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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       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 -

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