opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 20 November 2024

11 November: Emmanuel Carrère profile | Jürgen Becker (1932-2024)
12 November: AI and translation | 'Globalizing' Korean literature
13 November: Booker Prize | Grand prix de littérature américaine
14 November: Premio Cervantes | GGs | NBA finalists Q & As | Neal Stephenson Q & A | The City and its Uncertain Walls review
15 November: Melbourne Prize for Literature | NIF Book Prize | Oddest Book Title finalists
16 November: AI-generated poetry
17 November: Richard Flanagan Q & A
18 November: Peter Handke Q & A | Schweizer Buchpreis
19 November: Österreichischer Buchpreis | Cercador Prize | Brenner Prize | Tanikawa Shuntarō (1931-2024)
20 November: Baillie Gifford Prize | Giller Prize

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       Baillie Gifford Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction -- "The UK's premier annual prize for non-fiction books" -- and it is Question 7, by Richard Flanagan.

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       Giller Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Scotiabank Giller Prize -- a ... big Canadian prize, recognizing: "excellence in Canadian fiction -- long format or short stories" -- and it is Held, by Anne Michaels.

       The prize had ... considerable sponsorship issues this year -- as, as the CBC reported:

In July, more than 20 authors pulled their books from consideration for the prize, which is sponsored by Scotiabank, to protest the bank's investment in Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence contractor. By the time of the short list announcement, approximately 45 authors had signed a letter demanding the Giller Foundation pressure Scotiabank to fully divest from Elbit Systems.

       Meanwhile, Dan Sheehan describes the prize as: "formally Canada’s most prestigious literary award, now synonymous with artwashing genocide and apartheid" in the Literary Hub report on the award, The book world’s most bloodstained award was handed out in Toronto last night..... (I suspect there quite a few more-bloodstained awards out there, but who can resist a bit of hyperbole ?)

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       Österreichischer Buchpreis

       On Sunday they announced the Swiss Book Prize -- see my mention -- and yesterday it was the turn of the Austrian Book Prize: they announced the winner, and it is Brennende Felder, by Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker; see also the S.Fischer foreign rights page.

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       Cercador Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation -- recognizing: "works of literature in translation as selected by a committee of independent booksellers based across the United States", and it is Agustín Fernández Mallo's The Book of All Loves, in Thomas Bunstead's translation; see also the Fitzcarraldo Editions publicity page.

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       Brenner Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Brenner Prize, a leading Israeli literature prize, and it is שלושה ימים בקיץ, by Yossi Avni-Levy; see also Neria Barr's report in The Jerusalem Post, Brenner literature prize goes to Yossi Avni-Levy.

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       Tanikawa Shuntarō (1931-2024)

       Japanese poet -- and Peanuts-translator -- Tanikawa Shuntarō has passed away; see, for example, the reports from Kyodo News and the AP.
       Quite a bit of his work has been translated into English, including The Art of Being Alone; see the Cornell East Asia Series publicity page or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Peter Handke Q & A

       Nobel laureate Peter Handke (On a Dark Night I Left my Silent House, etc.) was awarded the Großes Goldene Ehrenzeichen des Landes Steiermark mit dem Stern (the 'Great Golden Badge of Honor of the State of Styria with the Star' (with the star !) -- see, for example, the ORF report -- and in the local Kleine Zeitung editor in chief Hubert Patterer has a (German) Q & A with him in which he reminisces about his years in Graz.
       He amusingly admits to being something of a dandy -- and recounts being taken to a Beatles concert around 1966 and getting John Lennon to sign a copy of In His Own Write.
       He was also a student in Graz -- studying law, and so Patterer asked him:

Wären Sie ein guter Anwalt geworden, wie Schirach ?

Ich glaube nicht. Ich glaube, ich wäre ein Star-Anwalt geworden, aber nicht im guten Sinn.

[Would you have become a good lawyer, like Schirach ?

I don't think so. I think I would have become a star lawyer, but not in a good way.]

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       Schweizer Buchpreis

       They've announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the winner of this year's Swiss Book Prize -- the leading German-language Swiss book prize, paying out CHF30,000 -- and it is Seinetwegen, by Zora del Buono; see also the C.H.Beck publicity page.

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       Richard Flanagan Q & A

       At The Guardian Anthony Cummins has a Q & A with Richard Flanagan: ‘I’m not sure that I will write again’.
       Among his responses:

Do you think you’ll go back to writing novels of plot and character ?

I am not sure if I will write again. Whatever impelled me for so long has left, for now at least. Perhaps I’m just happy to be in the company of friends and family.

       Always good to hear when a writer doesn't force the issue -- as far, far too many do.

       Several of Flanagan's books are under review at the complete review -- e.g. Gould's Book of Fish -- but I haven't seen Question 7 yet.

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       AI-generated poetry

       Via and via, I'm pointed to the recent Scientific Reports paper by Brian Porter and Edouard Machery that found that AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably.
       These are rather ... unsettling findings, beginning with: "Notably, participants were more likely to judge AI-generated poems as human-authored than actual human-authored poems".
       Amusingly (I guess ...):

Our findings suggest that participants employed shared yet flawed heuristics to differentiate AI from human poetry: the simplicity of AI-generated poems may be easier for non-experts to understand, leading them to prefer AI-generated poetry and misinterpret the complexity of human poems as incoherence generated by AI.

       The El País report claim that: "Would a group of critics, academics, or poetry experts have given more precise answers ? A group of Spanish academics already asked this question" is somewhat misleading, as it dealt with AI-generated stories rather than poetry, but good to see that at least as far as prose goes, humans have the edge for now (and maybe even a few more weeks ...).
       The future is ... well, it depends on your point of view, but in any case it's coming faster than most people seem willing to admit.

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       Melbourne Prize for Literature

       They've announced the winner of this year's Melbourne Prize for Literature, a triennial Australian author prize, and it is Alexis Wright.
       Previous winners include Helen Garner (2006) and Gerald Murnane (2009).

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       NIF Book Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize, a leading Indian non-fiction book prize, and it is the B.R.Ambedkar-biography by Ashok Gopal, A Part Apart; see also the Navayana publicity page.

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       Oddest Book Title finalists

       The Bookseller has announced the finalists for its Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year -- six titles, all from American university presses.
       The winner will be announced on 6 December.

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       Premio Cervantes

       They've announced the winner of this year's Premio de Literatura en Lengua Castellana Miguel de Cervantes, the leading Spanish-language author prize, and it is Álvaro Pombo.
       He does not appear to have made great inroads into the USK/UK market; see, however, the Anagrama author page for an overview of his works.

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       GGs

       The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the winners of this year's Governor General's Literary Awards, in seven categories each in English and in French.
       The English fiction winner is Empty Spaces by Jordan Abel, while the French fiction prize went to Lait cru by Steve Poutré.

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       NBA finalists Q & As

       At the Literary Hub they have "Quick Questions for the Year's Best Writers, Poets, and Translators" in Meet the 2024 National Book Award Finalists.

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       Neal Stephenson Q & A

       The latest of Tyler Cowen's 'Conversations with Tyler' is episode 226, Neal Stephenson on History, Spycraft, and American-Soviet Parallels.
       Among the interesting responses:

Man, I don't know if I’ve ever read a single word of Soviet fiction.

       I haven't seen his new novel, Polostan, yet, but quite a few of his works are under review at the complete review, e.g. Cryptonomicon.

       And, yes, I've done one of these too -- it's episode 11.

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       The City and its Uncertain Walls review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Murakami Haruki's latest, The City and its Uncertain Walls, just (about) out in English, from Alfred A. Knopf in the US and Harvill Secker in the UK.

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       Booker Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Booker Prize, the leading English-language novel prize, and it is Orbital, by Samantha Harvey.

       I've been curious about this one, but I haven't seen it yet; meanwhile, see the publicity pages from Vintage and Grove Press, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Grand prix de littérature américaine

       Should we leave it up to the French to chose the best American novel ? In case you want to, they've now decided to award this year's Grand prix de littérature américaine to the French translation of Wellness, by Nathan Hill; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.

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       AI and translation

       Another article finding ‘It gets more and more confused’: can AI replace translators ? -- this one by Keza MacDonald at The Guardian.
       MacDonald does suggest that: "There are however some scenarios in which machine translation could arguably help the creators of cultural works" ..... Ah, the slippery slope .....

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       'Globalizing' Korean literature

       Grabbing the moment and the momentum, New LTI Korea president aims to globalize Korean literature following Han Hang's Nobel win, as Lee Gyu-lee reports in The Korea Times; among the ambitions: Literature Translation Institute aims to establish graduate school for translation, as reported in The Dong-a Ilbo.
       LTI Korea's Chon Soo-yong is quoted:

To maintain this momentum, we must cultivate discourses on Korean literature abroad while establishing graduate schools of translation to nurture high-quality Korean literary translators,” the president said during a press conference in Seoul, Monday, marking 100 days since her appointment.
     “With the mindset that the Nobel Prize is the beginning, not the end, we will lay the groundwork for establishing Korean literature as a new pillar of world literature.”

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       Emmanuel Carrère profile

       At The Guardian Mark O'Connell has a profile of the author, in ‘Why do I have an interest in such horrible things?’: Emmanuel Carrère on the Paris terror attacks trial.
       Carrère's V13 is now out in English -- see the publicity pages from Fern Press and Farrar, Straus and Giroux -- but, while quite a few of his works are under review at the complete review (e.g. 97,196 Words), I think I'll give this one a pass.

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       Jürgen Becker (1932-2024)

       German poet Jürgen Becker has passed away; see, for example, Zum Tod von Jürgen Becker – Was man verschieben kann und was nicht by Martin Oehlen in the Frankfurter Rundschau.
       Becker won many of the leading German literary prizes, culminating in the Georg-Büchner-Preis 2014. Not much of his work has been translated into English, but see the Suhrkamp foreign rights page for an overview of his work.
       Among the works that have been translated is The Sea in the Radio, out from Seagull; see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk

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