opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 31 January 2025

21 January: Thomas Bernhard Research Centre | Sharjah Festival of African Literature
22 January: PRH takes over Text | There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die review
23 January: Jalal Al-Ahmad Literary Awards | Jewish Book Awards | Edgar Allan Poe Award finalists | English-language publishing in Europe | Margaret Atwood profile
24 January: NBCC Awards finalists | Wolff Translator's Prize longlist | Dylan Thomas Prize longlist | 'World literature' | Perversity review
25 January: New Asymptote | Prix Sévigné | Gordon Burn Prize shortlist
26 January: Bangla Academy Literary Awards | Charlotte Mandell Q & A
27 January: Zadie Smith Q & A | 'Best new novelists' ?
28 January: Libris Literatuur Prijs longlist | Volker Schlöndorff (wants) to film Visitation | Premio Pepe Carvalho | Uketsu profile
29 January: Q & As: Bonnie Marranca - Rohan Murty
30 January: Ockham NZ Book Awards longlists | “Human Authored” certification | 'Audio-based digital narratives in literature' | Sarah McNally profile
31 January: Sapir Prize | Republic of Consciousness longlist | Susan Barker Q & As

go to weblog

return to main archive

       Sapir Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Sapir Prize, a leading Israeli book prize paying out NIS 150,000, and it is שלושה ימים בקיץ by Yossi Avni-Levy; see, for example, Neria Barr's report in The Jerusalem Post, Yossi Avni-Levy wins Sapir Prize for Literature.
       See also the Kinneret Zmora Dvir publicity page for the book.

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

---

       Republic of Consciousness longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses (the original UK/Ireland prize; there's also a US/Canada version now).
       Certainly an interesting selection -- though I haven't seen any of these.

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

---

       Susan Barker Q & As

       Susan Barker's Old Soul is now out -- and there are now Q & As with the author at CrimeReads and Writer's Digest.

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

       Ockham NZ Book Awards longlists

       They've announced the longlists for this year's Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, 43 books in four categories, selected from 175 entries.
       Three of the categories have ten titles each on their longlists, but: "General Non-Fiction judges have longlisted 13 titles, a discretionary allowance that reflects the greater number of entries and range of genres in this category".
       The shortlists will be announced on 5 March, and the winners on 14 May.

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

---

       “Human Authored” certification

       The (American) Authors Guild has announced, sigh, that: Authors Guild Launches “Human Authored” Certification to Preserve Authenticity in Literature -- "a first-of-its-kind official certification system that writers and publishers will be able to use in their books and in marketing to indicate if the text of a book was human-written".
       Yes:

The Human Authored logo and name will be registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office and supported by a registration system that will create a verifiable chain of trust between author and reader through a public database where anyone can verify a book’s human origins.

       Yes, this is what it's come to .....

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

---

       'Audio-based digital narratives in literature'

       In Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Bhuvaneshwari Palanisamy & Rajasekaran V offer The listening renaissance: a theoretical exploration of audio-based digital narratives in literature -- arguing that:

The rise of audio-based digital narratives represents not just a shift in how individuals listen to stories, but a fundamental reimagining of what literature can be and how it can function in society.

       I'm afraid my own literary consumption remains entirely text-based, but, hey, maybe there's something to this.

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

---

       Sarah McNally profile

       At Vulture Matthew Schneier profiles the McNally Jackson-founder, in Sarah McNally's Book Club.
       Among the titbits of interest: numbers ! "The McNally Editions imprint, despite the positive press, made a mere $10,000 last year".

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

       Q & A: Bonnie Marranca

       Disappointing to hear that PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art has finished its run after forty-eight years -- and at The MIT Press Nick Lindsay has a Q & A with its longtime editor, in Saying farewell to PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art with editor Bonnie Marranca.
       It was an impressive journal -- just check out the Plays/Performance Texts Published in PAJ 1976-2024.

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

---

       Q & A: Rohan Murty

       In the New Indian Express Vidya Iyengar has a Q & A with Rohan Murty, founder of the Murty Classical Library of India, in My mother instilled a deep respect for history, Literature: Rohan Murty.
       Good to hear also that: "We aim to expand into additional eastern-Indian languages, such as Odia, Bengali, and Assamese, among others".
       Several Murty titles are under review at the complete review -- and I will certainly be getting to more.

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

       Libris Literatuur Prijs longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Libris Literatuur Prijs, a leading Dutch literary prize.
       This prize admirably reveals all the titles submitted for consideration -- as all literary prizes should.
       The shortlist will be announced 10 March, and the winner on 19 May.

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

---

       Volker Schlöndorff (wants) to film Visitation

       Börsenblatt reports -- via a Märkische Allgemeine report that's unfortunately paywalled -- that German film director Volker Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum, The Handmaid's Tale, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, etc.) has plans to film Jenny Erpenbeck's Visitation.
       Filming is to begin in August -- if the financing works out .....

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

---

       Premio Pepe Carvalho

       They've announced the winner of this year's Premio Pepe Carvalho -- a mystery author prize named after the Manuel Vázquez Montalbán-character, and it is Dead Man's Share-author Yasmina Khadra.
       The prize has a very solid list of winners, ranging from Jo Nesbø last year and Leonardo Padura in 2023 to P.D.James in 2008 and Henning Mankel in 2007.

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

---

       Uketsu profile

       Uketsu's Strange Pictures is now out in English, and in The Guardian Ella Creamer profiles the author, in ‘Am I a Cyclopian monster?’ How masked writer Uketsu went from asparagus videos to literary sensation.
       Yes, apparently Uketsu:

first gained fame posting surreal videos on YouTube: clips of asparagus that turns into fingers when chopped; strips of meat pegged out on a washing line; eight ears spinning on a wheel.

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

       Zadie Smith Q & A

       In the Sunday Times they have a Q & A with the author, in Zadie Smith on White Teeth: ‘I’ve never reread it. I never will’.
       Among her responses:

As a reader I’m a great admirer of philosophical fiction, novels of ideas, science fictions, avant-garde novels concerned with language. But as a writer my business is human beings in their everyday mode.

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

---

       'Best new novelists' ?

       At The Observer they have a feature on what they consider The best new novelists for 2025 -- though limited to writers living in the UK or Ireland.
       They include Q & As with the authors, so of some interest.

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

       Bangla Academy Literary Awards

       As reported at, for example, New Age Bangla Academy suspends literary award list, as the Bangla Academy announced their Literary Awards on the 23rd, and then ... de-nounced them yesterday.
       Apparently:

The winner list of the Bangla Academy Literary Award 2024 drew criticisms from litterateurs.

A group of writers under the platform Jatiya Sangskritik Biplab on Saturday afternoon announced that they would lay siege to the academy today morning, demanding cancellation of the list and making the academy free from the accomplices of fascism.

       (Updated - 31 January): See now also the 30 January New Age report on how Bangla Academy revises its literary award list.

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

---

       Charlotte Mandell Q & A

       At the Asymptote blog Mia Ruf has a Q & A with the translator, in Voiding the Ego: Charlotte Mandell on Translating Paul Valéry.
       Mandell's translation of Monsieur Teste is recently out from New York Review Books; I haven't seen a copy yet, but see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk. I do have the old Jackson Mathews translation -- see the Princeton University Press publicity page -- and I am a big fan of the work.
       Mandell mentions:

[Mathews] often attempted to make the text a little bit “easier,” and shortened some of the sentences, but I tried to just stay as true as possible to the original -- both in terms of the sentence length, and also the way by which the thought unfolds.

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

       New Asymptote

       The January 2025 issue of Asymptote is now out -- lots of great material for your weekend-reading.

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

---

       Prix Sévigné

       The Fondation de la Poste has announced the winner of the 2024 prix Sévigné, a prize for a volume of correspondence, and it is for a collection Italo Calvino's correspondence, Le métier d'écrire; see also the Gallimard publicity page.
       Great to see a letters-prize --maybe the USPS or Royal Mail can be inspired to do something like this .....
       (Impressively: an English edition came out in 2013: see the publicity pages from Princeton University Press and Penguin Classics, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.)

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

---

       Gordon Burn Prize shortlist

       New Writing North has announced the shortlist for this year's Gordon Burn Prize, awarded for: "novels which dare to enter history and interrogate the past; [...] non-fiction brave enough to recast characters and historical events to create a new and vivid reality".
       I haven't seen any of these.
       The winner will be announced 6 March.

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

       NBCC Awards finalists

       The (American) National Book Critics Circle has announced the finalists for its awards.
       The only title under review at the complete review is the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize finalist, Robin Moger's translation of Iman Mersal's Traces of Enayat.
       The winners will be announced 20 March.

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

---

       Wolff Translator's Prize longlist

       The Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize has announced the eighteen translation from German into English published in the USA or Canada in 2024 submitted for consideration -- a good sampler of last year's translations available in English.
       Embarrassingly, only one of these titles is under review at the complete review -- and that's one where I reviewed the original German version, rather than the translation: Byung-Chul Han's The Crisis of Narration, translated by Daniel Steuer.

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

---

       Dylan Thomas Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize -- awarded: "for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under".
       There are eight novels, two short story collections, and two poetry collections on the longlist; I haven't seen any of them.
       The shortlist will be announced 20 March, and the winner on 15 May.

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

---

       'World literature'

       At Qantara.de Gerrit Wustmann explores Who defines "world literature" ? finding:

Almost no one likes to admit it, but non-Western literature in German translation is (again, with some exceptions) a subsidised business, which rarely covers its costs.

Media attention is too limited, as is public interest in anything that could be perceived as "foreign". Small publishers and lesser-known authors have a hard time in the book trade anyway, due partly (if not only) to the market heft of large chains and online retailers, who aim for quick sales rather than cultural sustainability.

       Much as I wish there much more available in translation, this is not quite right:

Iran, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are just as likely as Germany, the United States or France to produce world-class prose and poetry. It's just that we don't hear much about them because so little is translated and those few translations that do exist are usually overlooked.

       But, sure:

So long as amateurish marketing by large publishers combines with the invisibility of small publishers, ignorance in the media and trade, and reluctance on the part of the public, then talk of a true "world literature" will remain little more than a pipe dream.

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

---

       Perversity review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Francis Carco's 1925 novel, Perversity.

       The American publisher of the 1928 English translation of this gave Ford Madox Ford the translation-credit, but in fact it was translated by Jean Rhys (with Ford having gotten her the gig).

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

       Jalal Al-Ahmad Literary Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Jalal Al-Ahmad Literary Awards, a leading Iranian literary prize, with Majid Gheisari's سنگ اقبال ('The Stone of Iqbal') winning the novel prize; see also the Cheshmeh publicity page.

       (Updated - 25 January): See now also the Tehran Times report, Jalal Literary Awards reveals winners.

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

---

       Jewish Book Awards

       The Jewish Book Council has announced the (many) winners of this year's Jewish Book Awards.
       The only winning title under review at the complete review is the winner of the Jane Weitzman Award for Hebrew Fiction in Translation, Jessica Cohen's translation of Maya Arad's The Hebrew Teacher.

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

---

       Edgar Allan Poe Award finalists

       The Mystery Writers of America has announced the finalists for this year's Edgar Allan Poe Awards.
       The winners will be announced 1 May.

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

---

       English-language publishing in Europe

       As I've mentioned before, one of the issues continental European publishers are dealing with is that local book-buyers are buying many books written in English in the original rather than the local translation, cannibalizing translated sales.
       Hanser is taking a new tack with this: they've announced that they will be publishing T.C. Boyle's next novel in Germany in both German translation as well as the English original, as they've acquired the exclusive English-language rights for the EU-territories (so that the US and UK editions of the book won't be sold there).
       Publisher Jo Lendle apparently discusses this in an interview in Die Zeit, but it's paywalled .....
       At Börsenblatt they report more of the details -- including that the German translation will appear first, in the fall, before the English original is published in the US and in the Hanser edition in the spring of 2026. They also provide some numbers, such as that Boyle's previous novel, Blue Skies, sold 120,000 copies in the original, but also 25,000 copies in the English original in the German-speaking area alone. They also note that Sally Rooney's Intermezzo apparently sold more copies in Germany in the English original than in its German translation.

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

---

       Margaret Atwood profile

       At Mexico News Daily Ann Marie Jackson profiles the author, in In conversation with Margaret Atwood in San Miguel de Allende.

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

       PRH takes over Text

       Publishing juggernaut Penguin Random House has taken over leading Australian independent Text; see, for example, the latter's press release, Text Publishing joins Penguin Random House.
       "Joins" ....
       Text has an impressive list -- including the Text Classics series -- and, hey: "As we discussed our future together, PRHA has been deeply respectful of the Text legacy". (Stifle those giggles ....)
       Anyway Text believes:

We have agreed on a Charter of Independence that will allow Text to retain full publishing control as we continue our work of acquiring, editing, curating, designing, marketing, publicising and selling rights in our books.

       We'll see how that works out.
       But maybe more of those Australian titles will be more widely distributed abroad ?

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

---

       There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of a career-spanning selection of poems by Tove Ditlevsen, There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die.

       (This is already out in the UK, and coming out in the US in March.)

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

       Thomas Bernhard Research Centre

       The official opening of the Thomas Bernhard Research Centre is at 18:00 tomorrow.
       The Centre sounds promising:

A key objective of the Thomas Bernhard Research Centre [...] is to create an online research platform that will make the author’s private library accessible and host future digital editions. Furthermore, the first comprehensive translation database of Thomas Bernhard’s complete works is currently being developed.

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

---

       Sharjah Festival of African Literature

       The Sharjah Festival of African Literature runs 24 to 27 January, featurning Nobel laureates Wole Soyinka and Abdulrazak Gurnah, as well as Chika Unigwe, Tendai Huchu, Nnedi Okorafor, and Jennifer Makumbi; see, for example, Saeed Saeed on Sharjah Festival of African Literature: Key sessions not to miss at The National.

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

previous entries (11 - 20 January 2025)

archive index

- search the site -

- return to top of the page -

© 2025 the complete review


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