opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

       Solvej Balle Q & A

       At PEN Transmissions Will Forrester has a Q & A with the On the Calculation of Volume I, II, and III-author, in Dissolving Sugar in Water: A Long Conversation with Solvej Balle.
       Balle notes that she knows how the planned seven-part series ends -- indeed, that:

The ending came with the idea; I haven’t thought about the end as separated from the idea. It was there long before I started writing. There are elements that have come along the way, of course. And let’s see if I’m right about the end. But I think it’s not so likely that it will be very different to what I think it will be. I’ve written several versions of the last pages.

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       Hamid Ismailov profile

       At The Phoenix Zephyr Weinreich reports on a recent Swarthmore event with the author and the translator of We Computers, in Hamid Ismailov and Shelley Fairweather-Vega on the Histories and Futures of Artificial Intelligence in Literature.

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       FT Business Book of the Year

       They've announced the winner of this year's Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award and it is The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip, by Stephen Witt; see also the publicity pages from Bodley Head and Viking.

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       PEN America Grant winners

       PEN America has announced its 2026 grant winners for works-in-progress -- including ten PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants.
       Among the translation projects: nineteenth-century speculative fiction by Polish author Deotyma, and Solitude of a Python in Paris by Romain-Gary-writing-as-Émile-Ajar !

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       Peepal Tree Press at 40

       Peepal Tree Press was founded in 1985, and in The Guardian Nesrine Malik charts 'its journey from an ‘expensive hobby’ to an international household name', in Illustrating the ‘postcolonial experience’: 40 years of Peepal Tree Press
       The only title under review at the complete review from Peepal Tree Press is Cut Guavas by Robert Antoni, but I've long been impressed by their list.

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       Andrei Kurkov Q & A

       At France24 Sonya Ciesnik has a Q & A with the Death and the Penguin-author, in ‘People know so much more about Russian literature’: An author’s invitation to discover Ukraine.

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       Crossword Book Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Crossword Book Awards, a leading Indian book prize -- though not yet at the official site, last I checked, but see, for example, Girish Shukla's TNN report
       The fiction prize went to Great Eastern Hotel by Ruchir Joshi -- see also the HarperCollins India publicity page -- and the translation prize went to J.Devika's translation of Manoj Kuroor's The Day the Earth Bloomed -- see the Bloomsbury India publicity page.

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       The Fire Within review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Touhfat Mouhtare's The Fire Within, just out (tomorrow !) in English, from Dedalus.

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       Wolfson History Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Wolfson History Prize -- "The most valuable history-writing prize in the UK" -- and it is Survivors by Hannah Durkin -- published in the US as The Survivors of the Clotilda (because ... publishers ...); see also the publicity pages from William Collins and Amistad.

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       NYTBR 10 best of 2025

       The New York Times Book Review has released its list of The 10 Best Books of 2025
       One of the titles is under review at the complete review: The Director, by Daniel Kehlmann.

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       Visegrad Literary Awards

       They've announced the new winners of the first Visegrad Literary Awards -- see the announcements by the International Visegrad Fund and the Villa Decius Association, whose initiative it is.
       There are four winners -- from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary --, selected from 81 submissions.

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       Best 2025 literature in translation ?

       Steve Donoghue has started his annual top-ten rundowns at his SteveReads, and he's now posted his The Best Books of 2025: Literature in Translation

       None of these are under review at the complete review, though I do have a couple of them -- including 900 Conclusions, which is an .... interesting text (and impressive edition), but ......
       The list is rather old/re-translation-heavy -- only two of the authors of these books are alive ...

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       Shortlists: Translation Prizes

       The Society of Authors has announced the shortlists for its 2025 Translation Prizes -- nine prizes in all.
       Only a smattering of titles are under review at the complete review -- and I haven't even seen any of those shortlisted for the from-any-language John Calder Translation Prize (admittedly, a very UK-publisher-heavy list).
       The titles under review are:

• Scott Moncrieff Prize (French): Mark Polizzotti's translation of Jean Echenoz's Command Performance
  
  
• Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Translation Prize (Japanese): Stephen Snyder's translation of Ogawa Yoko's Mina's Matchbox
  
  
• Premio Valle Inclán (Spanish): Megan McDowell's translation of Alejandro Zambra's Childish Literature
  
  
• Bernard Shaw Prize (Swedish): Agnes Broomé's translation of Lydia Sandgren's Collected Works

       The winners will be announced in February.

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       Shortlist: Banipal Translation Prize

       They've announced the six-title shortlist for this year's Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, selected from the seventeen entries.
       I haven't seen any of these.
       The winner will be announced 7 January 2026.

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       PEN Heaney Prize

       English PEN has announced the winner of this year's PEN Heaney Prize. recognizing: "a single-author collection of poetry of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships", and it is Namanlagh, by Tom Paulin; see also the Faber publicity page.

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       BRICS Literary Prize

       They've announced the winner of the inaugural BRICS Literary Prize -- though not yet at the official site, last I checked. Egyptian author Salwa Bakr took the million-ruble prize; see, for example, the report at ahramonline, Egypt's Salwa Bakr wins inaugural BRICS Literary Prize in Russia.

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       Krasznahorkai in China

       At China Daily Yang Yang reports that: 'Nobel laureate and Hungarian novelist Laszlo Krasznahorkai's unique narrative fascinates Chinese scholars', in Under the spell of unbroken sentences.

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       Mircea Cărtărescu profile

       In The Guardian Philip Oltermann profiles the author, in ‘I took literary revenge against the people who stole my youth’: Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu.

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       Antigone Prize for Classical Philology

       Antigone Journal has announced a new prize, the Antigone Prize for Classical Philology. A great idea -- and it comes with quite the first prize:

The complete Loeb Classical Library (some 660 volumes) plus £5,000; or (for those without space for more books!) a cash prize of £10,000.

       (Kind of them to offer the all-cash alternative, but who could pass up the complete Loeb collection ? If you don't have space for more books, you make the space .....)
       An interesting concept, too: participants can choose from six near-modern texts, and:

The challenge is to produce a self-standing edition of the work: the text is to be presented with an English translation. It is to be preceded by an introduction (in English or Latin) and followed by a scholarly commentary on the text.

       The texts look intriguing too, and I'm not sure which I'd want to see most in translation and with commentary: one of the two Platonic dialogues (Philip Edwin Raynor's 'Anaximander, or On the Origin of Animals' or Herbert Sidebotham's 'Aristophanes, or On Humour') ? Or the Latin Napoleon-monologue by John Noel Dark ?
       The texts themselves are quite short -- but entrants can present up to 25,000 words of commentary to go with their translation .....
       Should be interesting to see what results (and how many entries they get).
       You have until 31 July 2026 to submit your entry (but should give them a heads-up by 31 January that you're planning on playing, and which text you're tackling).

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       Tom Stoppard (1937-2025)

       Very sad to hear that Tom Stoppard has passed away; as longtime readers know, I was a great admirer of his work. See, for example, the obituaries at the BBC, The Guardian, and The New York Times (presumably paywalled).
       Quite a few of his plays are under review at the complete review:

• Arcadia
• The Coast of Utopia
  • Part I - Voyage
  • Part II - Shipwreck
  • Part III - Salvage
• Enter a Free Man
• Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
• Hapgood
• The Invention of Love
• Jumpers
• Night and Day
• Professional Foul
• The Real Thing
• Rock 'n' Roll

       There are also several works about Stoppard under review:

• Mel Gussow's Conversations with Stoppard
• The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard, ed. K.E.Kelly
• Ira Nadel's Double Act: A Life of Tom Stoppard (also: Tom Stoppard: A Life)
• John Fleming on Stoppard's Theatre

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       Margaret Atwood takes questions

       In The Guardian they have 'famous fans put their questions to the visionary author', in ‘If I was American, I’d be worried about my country’: Margaret Atwood answers questions from Ai Weiwei, Rebecca Solnit and more.
       Other questioning fans include: George Saunders, Jonathan Franzen, Amitav Ghosh, and Ali Smith.

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       Palanca Awards

       In the Philippines they've announced the 54 winners of the 71st Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.

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       Night School review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Lee Child's 2016 Night School, the twenty-first Jack Reacher novel.

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       Prix Jacques Delors

       They've announced the winner of this year's prix Jacques Delors du Livre européen, a best-European-book prize, and it is El loco de Dios en el fin del mundo, by Javier Cercas.
       This isn't out in English yet but will presumably be translated soon; meanwhile, see the Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcell information page.

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       Warwick Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and it is And the Walls Became the World All Around by Johanna Ekström and Sigrid Rausing, in Rausing's translation; see also the Granta publicity page.

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       Jan Michalski Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, rewarding: "works of all literary genres, fiction or non-fiction, irrespective of the language in which it is written" (with CHF 50,000), and it is Still Born, by Guadalupe Nettel; see also the publicity pages from Bloomsbury and Fitzcarraldo Editions.

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       Jenny Erpenbeck Q & A

       At The Observer Ellen Peirson-Hagger has a Q & A with Jenny Erpenbeck: ‘I’ve seen a whole system collapse and fade away’ (registration requiring ?) -- mostly about her new collection, Things That Disappear; see also the publicity pages from New Directions and Granta.
       Among her responses:

Which German author do you think is underappreciated in the anglophone world ?

Heiner Müller.

       (The only Müller-work under review at the complete review is his Heartpiece.)

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       Gordon Burn Prize longlist

       New Writing North has announced the twelve-title-strong longlist for the 2026 Gordon Burn Prize, which: "recognises exceptional writing which has an unconventional perspective, style or subject matter and often defies easy categorisation".
       The winner will be announced 5 March 2026.

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       QSSI Translation Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize, and it is Lisa Dillman for her translation of Yuri Herrera's Season of the Swamp; see also the Graywolf publicity page.

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       South Korean literature abroad

       In The Korea Times Kwon Mee-yoo considers As Korean literature goes global, who chooses what books get read ?
       South Korean literature is doing well abroad -- but:

Industry insiders warn that the boom remains uneven. Despite greater attention, the Korean literature market is still relatively narrow, concentrated on a handful of bestsellers and "marketable" works.

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       NYTBR 100 Notable Books of 2025

       The New York Times Book Review has released its list of what they consider the 100 Notable Books of 2025 (presumably paywalled).
       I ony counted four titles in translation on last year's list, but this year they appear to have an impressive ten -- though they are all in the fiction category. (Impressive that one-fifth of the fiction titles selected are translations; disappointing that no translated non-fiction rates.) Remember also that they restrict their list to books they reviewed or have scheduled to.
       Last year, only two of the 100 notables had been reviewed at the complete review when the list was released; this year, it's a (relatively ...) impressive five. Yes, all works of fiction; yes, all works in translation:

• The Director, by Daniel Kehlmann
• Killing Stella, by Marlen Haushofer
• On the Calculation of Volume (Book III), by Solvej Balle
• Perfection, by Vincenzo Latronico
• The Remembered Soldier, by Anjet Daanje

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       Freudenheim Translation Prize longlist

       The Jewish Literary Foundation has established a new prize, recognizing: "outstanding books that explore Jewish themes, history, identity or culture -- or are of significant interest to Jewish and wider audience", the Freudenheim Translation Prize, and they've announced the longlist for the inaugural 2026 prize.
       Three of the thirteen longlisted titles are under review at the complete review:

• The Hebrew Teacher by Maya Arad, translated by Jessica Cohen
• The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin
• Sons and Daughters by Chaim Grade, translated by Rose Waldman

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       William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award

       They've announced the winner of this year's William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award, and it is The Escape, by Pippa York and David Walsh; see also the Mudlark publicity pages, UK and US.

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       Generative AI and the novel

       A new report by Dr Clementine Collett, The impact of Generative AI on the novel (warning ! dreaded pdf format !), has been getting lots of media attention in recent days -- see the takes on it at the BBC, The Guardian or The Mirror, for example (though of course you should read and rely on the actual report -- that's one of the (last ?) great things about the internet, you can go straight to the source (and, of course, you always should)).
       This is of course a fascinating subject -- though the title of the report is somewhat misleading: as Collett acknowledges: "This report maps and centres the voices of almost 400 literary creatives (published novelists, fiction publishers, literary agents for fiction) in the UK" -- i.e. relies more on impressions (and whatever those surveyed and interviewed had to say) rather than actual facts as to how Generative AI may be affecting 'the novel'.
       (Also: I'm no great fan of and have my doubts about surveys, focus groups, and interviews -- especially when those involved have a vested interest in the report-results ..... Also, for example, of the 332 'literary creatives' responding to the survey here, 78 per cent stated their gender as female; Collett suggests that: "This reflects the homogeneity of the publishing industry in the UK. In 2024, just over two thirds (68%) of publishing professionals in the UK identified as female" but this still seems rather out of proportion .....)
       Fortunately, the report is detailed and far-reaching enough that there is quite a bit that is of interest here. Again, it's more opinion than actual facts -- very soft numbers rather than hard ones --, but a lot rings true, such as that: "GenAI was seen to threaten the displacement of genre fiction more than literary fiction", with majorities of respondents seeing Romance (66 per cent), Thriller/suspense (61 per cent), and Crime (60 per cent) as "extremely threatened".
       And it's amusing to hear that when, for example, Collett had her focus groups do an exercise for which they could use GenAI:

While they did not often consider that GenAI produced original material, they were usually stunned by the ability of GenAI to mimic style.

       As I've noted before, I am much more impressed by GenAi's creative output and potential than its value as information-resource. I haven't found the would-be factual information it provides me anywhere near reliable (to the extent that I actively avoid it when doing any kinds of 'research') -- but, damn, it can do pastiche. (It is also very good at summarizing and to some extent analyzing specific information/texts that it is fed.)
       Somewhat overlooked here seems to me also the fact that GenAI can work (i.e. spit out written work) so much faster than humans. So, for example:

Generally, while AI was thought to be valuable for its ability to speed up repetitive or routine tasks, it was seen to have very little place in creativity

       But it can speed up the 'creative' part as well: if you don't like one version of a novel it has written it can re-write the whole damn thing for you essentially instantly (taking into account and adjusting whatever you objected to, if so prompted) -- and can do so endlessly. A nightmare Borgesian library awaits .....

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       Staatspreis für literarische Übersetzung

       They've announced the winners of the Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation -- awarding €15,000 each to a translator into German (Brigitte Hilzensauer) and a translator from German (Relja Dražić). In addition, they awarded grants to 51 (!) more translators, totaling €84,000.

       Great to see such government support for translation -- but it's a shame so few countries are able and willing to provide it .....

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       The Four Deaths and One Resurrection of Fyodor Mikhailovich review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Zoran Živković doing Dostoevsky, in the collection The Four Deaths and One Resurrection of Fyodor Mikhailovich.

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       Literature in ... South Korea

       In The Chosun Daily Hwang Ji-yoon reports 'Sales surge as 1990s-born authors dominate awards, attract younger demographics', in Young Writers, Readers Propel Korean Literature's Golden Age.
       Impressively:

(N)ovel sales in the domestic publishing market have significantly increased this year. While 5.2 million copies were sold cumulatively from January to September last year, this year saw 6.37 million copies sold in the same period, marking a 22.5% increase.

       Interestingly, the increase seems largely due only to domestic novels, with barely an increased interest in foreign ones:

From January to September this year, Korean novel sales increased by 46.9% compared to last year, while overseas novel sales grew by just 0.8%, remaining stagnant.

       Poetry also seems to be doing well -- though I don't know about those titles:

Cha Jeong-eun’s (19) *Tomato Cup Ramen*, a poetry collection she self-published while in her second year of high school, has sold over 50,000 copies. Ko Sun-kyung (28) rose to become a ‘literary idol’ with her debut collection *Shower Gel and Soda Water*. Yoo Sun-hye’s (27) debut poetry collection *Read Love and Extinction Interchangeably*, published in October of last year, has exceeded 13 printings.

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       The Cavalier review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Nathalie Quintane's The Cavalier, just out in English, from World Editions.

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       Knausgård profile

       Karl Ove Knausgård has a new book out (in the UK; you have to wait until January in the US), The School of Night, -- "Knausgård’s 21st book" -- and in The Guardian Chris Power has a profile of the author, in ‘I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t’: Karl Ove Knausgård on the fallout from My Struggle and the dark side of ambition.
       Among Power's observations:

He says he doesn’t really do research. In the case of a meticulously detailed episode in which Kristian repeatedly boils and attempts to skin a dead cat for a photography project, this comes as something of a relief.

       Despite Power's description of the new novel being: "soaked in death, veined with examples of life's ephemerality" I look forward to seeing it; the first three novels in The Morning Star-series are under review at the complete review, beginning with.

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       Reading in ... Iran

       The Institute for Culture, Art and Communication has released the latest report on فرهنگ کتابخوانی در ایران (warning ! dreaded pdf format !); see also the WANA summary-report, How Much Do Iranians Read Books ?
       Only: "41.1% of respondents said they read books, while 58.9% reported that they do not read books at all" -- while: "Among book readers, the average annual purchase is 11 books" At least: "fiction and novels are the most popular genre, preferred by 21.2% of readers".

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       Ottilie Mulzet Q & A

       At the Hindustan Times Chintan Girish Modi has a Q & A with Ottilie Mulzet: “None of Krasznahorkai’s works is easy to translate”.

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       The Snow Was Dirty review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Georges Simenon's 1948 novel, The Snow Was Dirty (in the most recent -- Howard Curtis' -- translation, available as a Penguin Classics, and coming from Picador in the US in the spring, as part of their Simenon re-issues deluge; it's also been translated as The Snow was Black, The Stain on the Snow, and Dirty Snow).

       When the first UK translation came out The Times reviewed it together with Robert Musil's The Man without Qualities -- as then did the Sunday Times (also throwing in Elizabeth Taylor's The Sleeping Beauty for good (counter ?) measure) -- and the pairing isn't nearly as far-fetched as it might seem. The Snow Was Dirty is one of Simenon's (many, many) durs -- and another impressive piece of work, and reminder of just how amazing his output is, not just in quantity (twenty-one of his books are under review at the complete review and that's not even a tenth of it) but in (sustained over the decades) quality.
       Simenon was nominated for the Nobel Prize at least ten times (we only have the records until 1975 so far; presumably he was nominated a few more times after that as well), and there's a good argument to be made that he would have been a deserving winner.
       (New York Review Books brought out some of these Simenons back in the day; their 2003 edition of this one, as Dirty Snow, came with an Afterword by William T. Vollmann.)

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       The Saltires

       They've announced the winners of this year's The Saltires, Scotland's National Book Awards, with A Woman of Opinion by Sean Lusk taking the Fiction Book of the Year prize.

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       Wingate Prize longlist

       I missed this last week, but they've announced the longlist for the 2026 Wingate Prize -- "awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to convey the idea of Jewishness to the general reader".
       The longlist consists of five novels and seven works of non-fiction.

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       (US) National Book Awards

       The National Book Foundation has announced the winners of its National Book Awards.
       Robin Myers tranlsation of Gabriela Cabezón Cámara's We Are Green and Trembling won the Translated Literature category, while The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine won the Fiction prize.

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       Dublin Literary Award nominations

       They've announced the 69 titles nominated (by 80 libraries from 36 countries) for this year's Dublin Literary Award; see the full list here (warning ! dreaded pdf format !). They falsely claim that this is: "the most valuable prize in the world for a single work of fiction" -- not even close, folks; the Premio Planeta de Novela is just one of the Spanish pirzes paying out a whole lot more (ten times as much, in fact), for example -- but, at €100,000 to the winner (and a €75,000/€25,000 split between author and translator if the winning work is a translation) it certainly pays out a nice amount.
       Admirably, the prize does consider works in translation, and 30 of the nominated titles are translations, from 17 languages.
       Only six of the nominated titles are under review at the complete review -- all of them translations:

• The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Murakami Haruki
• The Empusium by Olga Tokarczuk
• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico
• Perspective(s) by Laurent Binet
• Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Kawakami Hiromi
• Vanishing World by Murata Sayaka

       (I haven't seen any of the other nominated titles.)

       The judges now take over, and will name "a longlist of up to 20 titles" on 17 February, with a shortlist (of six titles) to follow on 7 April; the winner will be announced 21 May.

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       HWA Crown Awards

       The Historical Writers' Association has announced the winners of this year's HWA Crown Awards, "celebrating the best in recent historical writing, fiction and non-fiction", with Gold Crown Award going to The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry.

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       Giller Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Giller Prize -- "Canada's leading and most influential literary prize for fiction" -- and it is Pick a Colour, by Souvankham Thammavongsa; see also the publicity pages from Knopf Canada, Little, Brown and Company, and Bloomsbury.

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       Solvej Balle Q & A

       With the third volume of her On the Calculation of Volume-septology out in English -- appropriately enough -- yesterday, Sophie Monaghan-Coombs has a Q & A with the author at Monocle, How Solvej Balle turned 18 November into one of literature's most arresting time loops.
       Fun to hear:

Originally, the date was 17 October. I thought that for a very long time, even after I began writing the story 25 years ago. Yesterday, I was sitting near the sea and looking up at a cloudless October sky. I have had this feeling many times: October is too crisp, too sharp and too clear. I needed something more blurred. There was too much machinery in October and when I landed on 18 November, I realised that it worked much better. November gives more than it promises.

       See also my reviews of volumes one and two.

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       Jeyamohan Q & A

       At The Indian Express Aishwarya Khosla has a Q & A with the author, in ‘Indian English writing is very inferior…’: Author Jeyamohan on language, Salman Rushdie.
       Among Jeyamohan's comments:

I won’t call Indian English writing as mainstream writing. It is a very, very inferior kind of writing we have in English. Because they are very stylised and they belong to the urban upper class, it has a lot of limitations. Personally, I don’t have any respect for Indian English writing.

I wrote a very severe article against the recent book of Salman Rushdie, Victory City. It has a stylised English. Apart from that style, it is a very shallow, very pretentious, very alien text.

I started writing in English 40 years ago. Then I suddenly stopped because I came to know that my linear language was actually changing. I was losing the rhythm of my natural language. So I stopped writing in English and started talking only in Tamil. After 40 years, I have begun to talk in English again, which is why I am not very comfortable with my words.

       Khosla mentions Jeyamohan's Vennmurasu -- "a modern retelling of the Mahabharata, over 22,000 pages, 26 volumes, taking seven years to write"; see the official site -- while Jeyamohan admits:

But the most tormenting is a novel I started around 2008. I wrote 2,500 pages over three years and then stopped. I have never been able to start it again. The manuscript is still with me. I look at it every day with pain, but I cannot continue.

       Jeyamohan's fat collection of Stories of the True was recently published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux -- see their publicity page -- and the novel The Abyss is coming out from Transit next spring; see their publicity page.

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

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       NIF Book Prize

       The New India Foundation has announced the winner of this year's Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize, a leading Indian non-fiction prize, and it is Engineering a Nation, by Aparajith Ramnath; see also the India Viking publicity page.

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

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       Прэмія імя Ежы Гедройця

       They've announced the winners of this year's Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Award, "the most important independent award for the best Belarusian-language prose", with first prize going to Занзібар: сталеньне маладой душы by Siarhei Dubavets; see also the BelSat report by Raman Shavel, Giedroyc Belarusian Literary Award presented in Gdańsk (as: "Due to political repression, it is presented in Poland").

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

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       Paul Griffiths reviews

       The most recent additions to the complete review are Paul Griffiths' quasi-Oulipian takes on Shakespeare's Ophelia:

• let me tell you
• let me go on

       These are published together in one volume in the US (by New York Review Books), and in separate volumes in the UK (by Henningham Family Press).

       Dipping back into Shakespeare for review-purposes, I was also reminded and struck by just how incredible his work is -- truly on another level; I really should revisit it much more often.

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

       Schweizer Buchpreis

       They've announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the winner of this year's (German-language) Swiss Book Prize -- and it is Die Holländerinnen, by Dorothee Elmiger; see also the swissinfo report.
       With this, Die Holländerinnen manages the rare trifecta, having already won the German Book Prize and the Bavarian Book Prize.
       I imagine we'll see this in English fairly soon; see also the RCW Literary Agency information page.

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

       Emmanuel Carrère Q & A

       At The Observer Anthony Cummins has a Q & A with the author, mainly about his recent V13: Chronicle of a Trial, in Emmanuel Carrère on 10 years since the Paris attacks.
       Among Carrère's observations:

I write journalism as if I’m writing fiction; for me, there’s no difference [in style]. I try to watch and listen and be aware of the complexity of a situation and relate it as honestly as I can.

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

       Michèle Audin (1954-2025)

       Mathematician and Oulipo-author Michèle Audin has passed away; see, for example, Aurélien Soucheyre's report at l'Humanité

       The only one of her books under review at the complete review: One Hundred Twenty-One Days.

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

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       David Bellos

       There's finally something up at the Princeton site, more than two weeks after the death of the translator and scholar: Jamie Saxon writes that David Bellos, renowned scholar of French fiction and ‘totally brilliant translator,’ dies at age 80.
       Good to hear:

His translation of Victor Hugo’s last novel, Quatre-Vingt Treize (Ninety-Three), completed several months before his death, will be published June 5, 2026, by Penguin Classics.

       See also the Penguin Classics publicity page.

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

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       Montevideo review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Enrique Vila-Matas' Montevideo, now in English, in Yale University Press' Margellos World Republic of Letters-series.

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

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