opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

11 - 20 July 2025

11 July: The German book market, 2024 | Fanny Howe (1940-2025)
12 July: Mizumura Minae profile | C.M.Naim (1936-2025) | Fish Letters review
13 July: 'The African Book Industry' | Mulk Raj Anand profile
14 July: Ocean Vuong Q & A | Goffredo Fofi (1937-2025) | The Laboratory review
15 July: Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalists | Martin Cruz Smith (1942-2025)
16 July: Georg-Büchner-Preis | Banned in DoDEA schools | The Highest Exam review
17 July: Akutagawa prize(less) | Taiwan Literature Awards | Genjipoems.org | Japanese fiction in translation | Claus Peymann (1937-2025) | Freudenheim Translation Prize
18 July: HKW Internationaler Literaturpreis | Cynthia Ozick Q & A | Wales Books of the Year | New RSL Fellows
19 July: Theakston awards | Boris Akunin sentenced in absentia | The Girl with the Golden Eyes review
20 July: Tractatus shortlist | Hotlist finalists

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       Tractatus shortlist

       The Philosophicum Lech awards an annual €25,000 prize for a philosophical essay, the Tractatus, and they've now announced this year's shortlist; not at the official site, last I checked, but see, for example, the Börsenblatt report.
       The winner will be announced in September.

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

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       Hotlist finalists

       They've announced the thirty finalists for this year's Hotlist, a German prize where all independent publishers are invited to subit a single title -- 184 did this year.
       It makes for an interesting selection, and overview of recent German publishing.

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

       Theakston awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Theakston awards, with Hunted, by Abir Mukherjee, winning the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.

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       Boris Akunin sentenced in absentia

       Popular Russian author Boris Akunin has been sentenced, in absentia, to fourteen years in jail; see, for example, the report in The Moscow Times.
       Hey, the prosecution had apparently asked for an eighteen year sentence .....
       Aside from the jailtime: "A judge ruled to ban him from operating websites for four years after his release".
       Akunin presumably wasn't going to head back to Russia anytime soon anyway, but this certainly makes any return even less likely.

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       The Girl with the Golden Eyes review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Honoré de Balzac's The Girl with the Golden Eyes -- this translation recently re-issued by New York Review Books.

       (The translation was originally published in 1998; several more have appeared since then; one can see the appeal of it for translators.)

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

       HKW Internationaler Literaturpreis

       HKW Haus der Kulturen have announced the winner of this year's International Prize for Literature, a leading German prize for a translation of a contemporary work, and it is the German translation of Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon; see also the publicity pages from And Other Press and New Directions, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Cynthia Ozick Q & A

       In the Jewish Review of Books Abraham Socher has a Q & A with the author, in Story Evades Cogitation: An Interview with Cynthia Ozick.
       Among Ozick's responses:

I can't and won't reread: What's done is done. Print is writing's final fate; but it's also true that nothing written counts as done -- fully consummated -- until it lands in print.

       As longtime readers know, I'm a huge fan -- and almost all of Ozick's work is under review at the complete review.

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       Wales Books of the Year

       They've announced the winners of this year's Wales Books of the Year, with Carys Davies' Clear winning both the English-language fiction prize as well as being named Wales Book of the Year.
       Gwenno Gwilym's V + Fo took the Welsh-language fiction award.

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       New RSL Fellows

       The Royal Society of Literature has announced the induction of twenty-eight new Fellows and eight new Honorary Fellows.

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

       Akutagawa prize(less)

       They award the two most prestigious Japanese book prizes, the Akutagawa and the Naoki, twice a year -- but apparently this summer-session's finalists were all duds: it's happened before =-- most recently apparently in 1998 -- and, as The Mainichi reports, this year again there were No wins in 2 prestigious Japanese literary awards, 1st in 27 yrs.

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       Taiwan Literature Awards

       The National Museum of Taiwan Literature announced the winners of this year's Taiwan Literature Awards, awarded in nine categories; see also the article in the Taipei Times, Winners of Taiwan Literature Awards announced.
       Chen Long-ting won the Taiwanese-language novel prize with Kéⁿ-kui.

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

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       Genjipoems.org

       This looks like a great new resource: as Alene Bouranova writes at The Brink, The World’s First Novel Has Romance, Tragedy, Adventure. Now, After 1,000 Years, The Tale of Genji’s Poems Have Joined the Digital Age, reporting on the launch of an: "interactive digital database of all 795 poems featured in The Tale of Genji" -- genjipoems.org.
       Each of the poems is presented in the original Japanese as well as five translations.

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

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       Japanese fiction in translation

       At Prospect Susie Mesure reports on how: 'Translated Japanese fiction is suddenly booming in the west. We spoke to publishers, editors and translators to discover why', in Rising sun.
       A solid overview -- though noting also that:

The twin pillars of comfort and crime are driving the boom, with an emphasis on the former: books about cats, cafés and bookshops dominate the bestseller lists for novels in translation from Japanese

       The closing observation by Morgan Giles seems, alas, all too likely:

“I hope that a combination of translators pursuing their own aesthetic tastes and publishers taking more note of what the buzz is in Japan will lead to a new golden era of weird, wonderful Japanese fiction in translation showcasing the many underexamined sides of its society,” says Giles. “But it will probably just be more cats.”

       Many of the Japanese works mentioned here are under review at the complete review.

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

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       Claus Peymann (1937-2025)

       Theater director Claus Peymann -- most notably at the Viennese Burgtheater and at the Berliner Ensemble -- has passed away; see, for example, the obituary at ORF.
       He staged many of the premieres of Thomas Bernhard's play; see also Bernhard's Claus Peymann Buys Himself a Pair of Pants and Joins Me for Lunch (mostly paywalled) at n+1.

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       Freudenheim Translation Prize

       The Jewish Literary Foundation has announced the new Freudenheim Translation Prize, recognizing: "outstanding books that explore Jewish themes, history, identity or culture -- or are of significant interest to Jewish and wider audience", with the (£3,000) prize going to the translator of the work.

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

       Georg-Büchner-Preis

       The German Academy for Language and Literature has announced the winner of this year's Georg Büchner Prize, the leading German-language author prize, and it is Ursula Krechel.
       Not much of her work has been translated into English, but there's a bilingual edition of her Voices from the Bitter Core from Host Publications; see also their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
       She gets to pick up the prize on 1 November.

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

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       Banned in DoDEA schools

       At Military.com Rebecca Kheel reports Here Are the 596 Books Being Banned by Defense Department Schools -- though in fact the books are not listed there, but there is a link to the Memorandum Order (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) where they are listed.
       For some reason the DoDEA was reluctant to release this list -- it took this court order.
       The list is fairly predictable: anything LGBTQ- or gender-related -- right up to Virginia Woolf's Orlando, sigh --, anything race-related, and ... some AP psychology guides.
       Dear god .....

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

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       The Highest Exam review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li, with Claire Cousineau, on How the Gaokao Shapes China, in The Highest Exam, coming from Harvard University Press.

       (I have and have long been meaning to review Ichisada Miyazaki's China's Examination Hell: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China -- see the Yale University Press publicity page -- which looks like it would make a nice complementary volume to this.)

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

       Dayton Literary Peace Prize finalists

       The Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the finalists for its awards, honoring: "writers whose work demonstrates the power of the written word to foster peace", in its two categories, fiction and non -- six titles each
       Percival Everett's James is among the fiction finalists .....
       I haven't seen any of these.

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

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       Martin Cruz Smith (1942-2025)

       Gorky Park-author Martin Cruz Smith has passed away; see, for example, the obituary in The Independent.
       I enjoyed Gorky Park when it came out, but haven't read any of the later Arkady Renko-novels; the last, Hotel Ukraine, apparently only came out recently.

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

       Ocean Vuong Q & A

       At The Times of India Sneha Bhura has a Q & A with Ocean Vuong: Indian students are struggling with visas but the most exciting literature will come from them.
       Vuong says of his latest novel, The Emperor of Gladness: "The book is an epic of interiority. An epic that doesn't go anywhere".
       Among the questions also: the now surely inevitable one about AI .....

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

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       Goffredo Fofi (1937-2025)

       Italian intellectual Goffredo Fofi has passed away; see, for example, the ANSA obituary and The Legacy of Goffredo Fofi at il Messaggero.

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

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       The Laboratory review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's 'last novel', The Laboratory.

       Translated by the indefatigable Arunava Sinha, this is the first book published under his new imprint, Chowringhee Press, offering 'Translations from India' -- a promising-looking venture.

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

       'The African Book Industry'

       They launched this a couple of weeks ago, but it's only come to my attention now: UNESCO has released a substantial new report on The African Book Industry: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Growth (warning ! dreaded pdf format !).
       There's a lot of information here -- including details about the situation in each African country, including the number of titles published in each country, the number of bookstores, and the number of public libraries.
       The thorough report offers a very useful overview; it's well worth downloading.

       This also gives me opportunity to remind you of the invaluable source of books from Africa, the African Books Collective.

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

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       Mulk Raj Anand profile

       At Scroll.in Pushpesh Pant profiles Mulk Raj Anand and his imagination of global resistance against caste, colonialism, propaganda.

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

       Mizumura Minae profile

       In The Japan Times Hanako Lowry profiles the A True Novel- author, in Between reality and fiction: A summer’s day in Karuizawa with Minae Mizumura (possibly paywalled ?).
       Disappointingly:

Though she considers her latest novel to be her final work of fiction, Mizumura says she is now focusing more on the act of writing memoirs — a natural shift in Japanese literary tradition, she notes, for writers who reach a certain stage.

       (That latest novel is 大使とその妻; see also the Shinchosha publicity pages for volumes one and two.)
       Interestingly:

“I am sure AI will write wonderful stories in the future,” Mizumura says, pausing a moment before continuing. “I am glad I am shifting to memoir and writing my life’s stories as AI cannot write them with the same humanity.”

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

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       C.M.Naim (1936-2025)

       Urdu scholar C.M.Naim has passed away; see, for example, One of Urdu's Greatest Scholars, C.M. Naim, Passes Away and Narendra Pachkhédé on C. M. Naim and the Many Lives of Urdu, both at The Wire.

       I would really love to see his Urdu Crime Fiction, 1890-1950: An Informal History; see the Orient BlackSwan publicity page.

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

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       Fish Letters review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of a collection of stories by Goderdzi Chokheli, Fish Letters, now out from Dedalus.

       Always good to see more translations from Georgian -- though Dedalus seems to be the only publisher currently doing this.

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

       The German book market, 2024

       As Christina Schulte reports at Börsenblatt, Die offiziellen Zahlen für den Buchmarkt 2024 sind da, as the German numbers for 2024 are in.
       Turnover was up 1.8 per cent -- with Belletristik (basically trade fiction), which made up 36.6 per centof the market, up 4.3 per cent. Imterestingly, backlist titles (titles first published more than twelve months ago) made up 57 per cent of sales. Meanwhile, the number of new titles published dropped another 3.1 per cent, to 58,346. (As recently as 2019 70, 395 new titles were published.)
       The percentage of titles that were translations increased from 14.5 per cent to 15 per cent.
       The number of book-buyers decreseased 2 per cent, with the only age groups with an increase in book-buyers those aged 16 to 19 (up an impressive 9.6 per cent) and 20 to 29 (up 7.7.per cent).

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

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       Fanny Howe (1940-2025)

       American author Fanny Howe has passed away; not much coverage yet, but the Boston Globe has a (paywalled) report.

       See Q & As with Howe at Bomb, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, and The White Review

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

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