opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 31 July 2025

21 July: Ten years of 'Literary Activism' | Ingvar Ambjørnsen (1956-2025) | One Shot review
22 July: Vladimir Sorokin Q & A
23 July: First Novel Prize longlist | 'Books by the metre' | The Pearlsong review
24 July: Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist | The 'African literature ecosystem'
25 July: Miles Franklin Literary Award | PEN Translates grants | cake & prostheses review
26 July: საბა awards shortlists | New Asymptote
27 July: JHUP AI-licensing
28 July: Nobel Prize in Literature betting | Censorship in ... Russia | Writing in ... Saudi Arabia
29 July: Cundill History Prize longlist
30 July: Booker Prize longlist | Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels | Héctor Abad Q & A
31 July: PRH UK Library and Archive | Lambda Literary Awards finalists

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       PRH UK Library and Archive

       At the BBC Mousumi Bakshi reports on the Penguin Random House UK Library and Archive, in 'Books are for everyone': Inside Penguin's hidden archive -- with pictures, too.

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

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       Lambda Literary Awards finalists

       They've announced the finalists for this year's Lambda Literary Awards in its 26 categories, selected from 1,339 submitted titles.
       The winners will be announced 4 October.

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

       Booker Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Booker Prize -- thirteen books, selected from 153 submissions, including one by an author who has won the prize before (Kiran Desai).
       Several of these have not yet been published, or been published in the US, yet, but I haven't seen any of them.
       The shortlist will be announced on 23 September, and the winner on 10 November.

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

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       Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels

       They've (finally) announced who will be getting this year's Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, and it is Karl Schlögel.
       Several of his works have been translated into English, including The Scent of Empires (publicity page), Moscow, 1937 (publicity page), and most recently, The Soviet Century (publicity page); his American Matrix is apparently forthcoming (also from Polity) in English; meanwhile, see the Hanser foreign rights page.
       He gets to pick up the prize on 19 October.

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       Héctor Abad Q & A

       At Worldcrunch Edu Galán has a Q & A with the The Joy of Being Awake-author Héctor Abad, in “I Thought I Had Died, Too”: A Colombian Author Reckons With Survivor’s Guilt.

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       Cundill History Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Cundill History Prize, a US$75,000 prize awarded: "to a book that demonstrates excellence across the prize's guiding criteria: craft, communication, and consequence".
       Fifteen titles, with the shortlist to be announced in September.

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

       Nobel Prize in Literature betting

       This year's Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced 9 October -- and while there's not much betting on it (yet ?), there are odds up at Betus: twenty-four possibilities, including ... Taylor Swift.
       More interesting, however, is that Kalshi, one of the (relatively) new prediction markets, also offers ... position-taking opportunities on the prize. Not so much interesting for only having ten possible choices but because, unlike the betting shops, this market allows you to take a position on an author not winning the prize -- and there's money here for the taking, since one of the options they offer (as I write this, and surely not for much longer ...) is Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, who -- being deceased -- can't win the prize. But a 'No' option on him only costs $0.93 -- a $100 stake paying out $108 (before fees). Not a great return, but, hey, it's free money -- there's no way Ngũgĩ can be awarded the prize.
       (I hope whoever takes advantage of this opportunity -- and someone surely will -- takes them for as much as possible.)
       Meanwhile, Kalshi admirably also reveals how much money has been bet -- staked -- so far on the potential winner (and non-winners) of the prize, and it's .... $5116.00.

       Post-Dylan, I've had trouble working up much interest in the run-up to the prize, but if you want to follow or engage in discussion, the Nobel Prize in Literature 2025 Speculation thread at the World Literature Forum is presumably the place you want to go; they're up to 957 engagements, last I checked.

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       Censorship in ... Russia

       In The Guardian Anna Aslanyan reports how Russia has also declared war on literature. Look at what's happening and be warned -- noting that: "The result of Russia's latest assault on free speech is a book industry in turmoil".

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       Writing in ... Saudi Arabia

       At Arab News Hajjar Al-Qusayer reports on how Young Saudi authors reshape Kingdom's literary landscape.
       Author Linah Alshaalan is quoted as saying:

Now, to write anything, if you just have a concept or an idea, you can just feed it into the AI and see it more fleshed out. It helps people. But a good author that cares about their own integrity would probably not rely on it too much

       Not too much ......

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

       JHUP AI-licensing

       As, for example, Ellie Wolfe reports at The Baltimore Banner, Johns Hopkins University Press will license its authors' books to train AI models.
       Authors do: "have until the end of August to opt out of the licensing agreement" -- and: "Hopkins Press did not share which large language model company it will sign the contract with, and did not detail how much money it will receive from the deal"
       And:

Though there won't be a large financial gain for individual books -- authors are expected to earn "modest" returns of less than $100 per title per license -- the cumulative revenue would be "meaningful" for the university press and its mission, Pope wrote in the message.

       Given the ... modesty of the *gain*, I'm curious why any author would sign away these rights; I hope we learn what percentage of the press' authors (and then those at other presses considering similar arrangements) go along with this sort of thing.

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

       საბა awards shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for this year's Saba literary awards, the leading Georgian literary awards -- not yet at the official site, alas, but the Georgia Today report has .. the names of the authors, if not the works .....
       However, the longlists (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) are online, from which we can figure out that, for example, the finalists for the novel-prize are:

• ბედნიერება by Shota Iatashvili
• ელი! ელი! by Nodar Ladaria (publicity page)
• ნებადართული ჯადოქრობა by Irakli Metreveli (publicity page)
• ლეთარგია by Nino Ortega Chincharauli (publicity page)
• ტანჟერული სიზმარი by Mikheil Tsikhelashvili (publicity page)

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       New Asymptote

       The July issue of Asymptote is now up -- including a section on: 'What AI Can't Do'.
       Enough reading material to keep you covered for the weekend.

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

       Miles Franklin Literary Award

       They've announced the winner of this year's Miles Franklin Literary Award, the leading Australian novel prize, and it is Ghost Cities, by Siang Lu; see also the University of Queensland Press publicity page.

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       PEN Translates grants

       English PEN has announced its latest batch of PEN Translates grants -- 14 titles translated from 13 languages -- as well as two PEN Translates x SALT grants.
       A good-looking though European-language-heavy list -- there are two translations from Arabic and an anthology that includes texts translated from Mapuche and Quechua, but still ..... (The two PEN Translates x SALT works -- awarded for South Asian Literature in Translation -- are at least from Urdu and Hindi.)

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

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       cake & prostheses review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of a collection of mini dramas and short prose by Gerhard Rühm, cake & prostheses, out from Twisted Spoon Press.

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

       Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist

       The Nigeria Prize for Literature rotates through four categories, and this year it's the turn of novels again and they've now announced the longlist for this year's prize -- not yet at the official site, because god forbid that would be up-to-date, but see, for example, the report in The Guardian (Nigeria).
       Eleven titles are in the running, including novels by Uwem Akpan and Chika Unigwe, selected from a record 252 entries.

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       'African literature ecosystem'

       At okayafrica Nelson C.J. finds: 'The late 2000s to late 2010s were an era of vibrant publications, literary prizes, and the emergence of incredible literary talents. All that has been replaced with a loss of community and dwindling literary spaces' in considering: The African Literature Ecosystem Used to Be Unstoppable. What Went Wrong ?

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

       First Novel Prize longlist

       The Center for Fiction has announced the longlist for their First Novel Prize, awarded for a debut work of fiction by a US author -- 29 titles selected from 185 submitted titles.

       Granted, many of these titles apparently haven't been released yet, but I haven't seen, much less read a one of these .....

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

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       'Books by the metre'

       In The Guardian Lucy Knight reports on how: ‘Look how well-read I am!’ How ‘books by the metre’ add the final touch to your home – or your image.
       Yes:

In an age of constant scrolling, there is social capital to be gained by simply looking as if you are a cultured person who listens to music on vinyl and reads lots of books. And creating an aesthetically pleasing bookshelf is now easier than ever, thanks to an increase in booksellers who trade in “books by the metre”.

       Not a new story/subject, but ... *sigh*.

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

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       The Pearlsong review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of The Pearlsong -- a short hymn found in (very few of the manuscripts of) the apocryphal Acts of Thomas, presented in a trilingual edition (Syriac, ancient Greek, and English) with a great deal of supporting material.

       This is the first volume in the new Texts and Translations of Transcendence and Transformation-series from the Center for the Study of World Religions / Harvard University Press (forthcoming volume four will cover: Cannabis in Arabic Verse and Prose). Admirably, too, the book is freely available (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) in an open-access digital format.

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

       Vladimir Sorokin Q & A

       At The Paris Review blog The Netanyahus-author Joshua Cohen talks with Blue Lard-author Vladimir Sorokin, in The Guts of the Russian Brontosaurus-Cow: A Conversation with Vladimir Sorokin -- specifically about his The Sugar Kremlin, forthcoming in English from Dalkey Archive Press; see their publicity page.

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       Ten years of 'Literary Activism'

       At Scroll.in they have: 'Writers Charles Bernstein, Jonathan Cook, Laetitia Zecchini, and Saikat Majumdar on what ‘Literary Activism’ means to them', in ‘A new route for thinking’: Four writers on ten years of Amit Chaudhuri’s ‘Literary Activism’.

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

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       Ingvar Ambjørnsen (1956-2025)

       Norwegian author Ingvar Ambjørnsen, best known for his novel Elling (or, in Norwegian, his series of four novels around the character Elling; only the first volume appears to have been translated into English), has passed away; see, for example, the AP report and publisher Cappelen Damm's note.
       See also the Cappelen Damm Agency author page for English-language information about him and his many works.

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

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       One Shot review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Lee Child's One Shot -- the ninth Jack Reacher novel (and the thirteenth under review here).

       And, yes, this was the basis for the 2012 film, Jack Reacher -- featuring the ludicrously miscast Tom Cruise in the title role, but also ... Werner Herzog.

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

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