opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

       Paul Durcan (1944-2025)

       Irish poet Paul Durcan has passed away; see, for example, the obituaries in the Irish Times and at RTÉ.

       Several of his books are under review at the complete review:

• Christmas Day
• Greetings to our Friends in Brazil
• A Snail in my Prime

       Greetings to our Friends in Brazil was one of the first books I requested when I started the site, and it was the third review copy I ever received, back in the summer of 1999.

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       Sophie Kerr Prize

       Washington College has announced the winner of this year's Sophie Kerr Prize -- "the nation's largest undergraduate literary prize", paying out over US$74,000 this year -- and it is Sky Abruzzo; see, for example, the Washington College News Service report Manassas Native Wins $74k Sophie Kerr Prize from Washington College, here at The Chestertown Spy.

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       RSL Ondaatje Prize

       The Royal Society of Literature has announced the winner of this year's RSL Ondaatje Prize, awarded for: "a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place", and it is Clear, by Carys Davies; see also the publicity pages from Granta and Scribner.

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       Unbound in administration

       As Dominic Bernard reports in Printweek, Pre-pack publisher Unbound leaves £2.4m hole in creditors.
       The Unbound saga is an unfortunate one, as:

238 authors and agents were collectively owed £657,000 by the failed business and are also unlikely to receive a dividend, along with the nearly 8,000 website customers owed £391,000.

       Apparently:

Unbound had operated at a loss since its foundation in 2012, relying on investors to sustain operations. While it eventually reached profitability in 2023, it failed to secure the further capital necessary to stabilise its position, and ongoing trading losses and cash flow demands forced it to failure.

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       The Summer House review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Matsuie Masashi's Yomiuri Prize-winning novel The Summer House -- coming out in the UK as Summer at Mount Asama.
       Yes, this is yet another of these books where the US and UK publishers went with different titles -- still one of the things that baffles me most about contemporary publishing, where online-discovery knows no borders and is much relied on.

       Still -- a decent summer read, if you really want something nicely leisurely-paced.

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       Dylan Thomas Prize

       They'e announced the winner of 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," -- and it is The Coin, by Yasmin Zaher; see also the publicity pages from Footnote and Catapult.

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       Nahid Rachlin (1939-2025)

       Iranian-born author Nahid Rachlin has passed away; see, for example, Rebecca Chao's obituary (presumably paywalled) in The New York Times.

       None of her work is under review at the complete review, but I read and enjoyed her first few books.

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       Miles Franklin longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Miles Franklin Literary Award, which: "celebrates novels of the highest literary merit that tell stories about Australian life".
       Among the longlisted titles is Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser, and books by Brian Castro and Tim Winton.

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       Salome in Graz anniversary

       Yes, it was 119 years ago today, on16 May 1906, that Richard Strauss conducted the Austrian premiere of his opera Salome in Graz -- the event from which my novel, Salome in Graz, takes its title (though, in fact, many more Salome-versions and performances are also covered in the novel).

       With the new Metropolitan Opera production -- see my previous mention -- coming to venues all over the world tomorrow, in the Met's Live in HD-series -- check it out ! -- it's surely a good time to check out my novel; as well .....

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       Ockham NZ Book Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, the leading New Zealand book prize(s).
       Delirious, by Damien Wilkins, was awarded the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction; see also the Te Herenga Waka University Press publicity page.

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       Princess of Asturias Awards

       They've started announcing the winners of this year's Princess of Asturias Awards, which are: "Aimed at rewarding the scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanitarian work carried out at an international level by individuals, institutions or groups of individuals or institutions" and pay out €50,000 each.
       Categories such as 'Concord' and 'Sports' are still to be announced, but The Crisis of Narration-author Byung-Chul Han will pick up the Award for Communication and Humanities, "recognizing the work of fostering and advancing the sciences and disciplines considered humanistic activities or any activity related to social communication in any of its forms" -- while the Award for Literature -- "recognizing the work of fostering and advancing literary creation in all its genres" -- goes to Eduardo Mendoza.
       Several of Mendoza's work are under review at the complete review:

• An Englishman in Madrid
• The Mystery of the Enchanted Crypt
• No Word From Gurb

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       Orwell Prize finalists

       The Orwell Foundation has announced the finalists for its prizes, including for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

       One of the fiction-category finalists is under review at the complete review -- Robert Harris' Precipice.

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       Climate Fiction Prize

       They've announcedthe winner of the inaugural Climate Fiction Prize -- paying out a tidy £10,000 -- and it is And so I Roar, by Abi Daré.

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       Onitsha Market Literature exhibit

       At Yale University's Sterling Memorial Library they have a Onitsha Market Literature-exhibit, Street Talk: Pamphlet Literature of the Nigerian Marketplace, running through 7 September.
       At YaleNews Mike Cummings offers an overview, in Street talk: Exhibition explores the literary pulse of early post-colonial Nigeria.
       Sounds like a must-see, if you're in the neighborhood.

       Quite a bit of Onitsha Market Literature is under review at the complete review; Kurt Thometz's anthology Life Turns Man Up and Down remains the obvious place to start.

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       Baifang Schell Book Prize

       They've announced the winners of the inaugural Baifang Schell Book Prize, celebrating: "exceptional book-length works on or from China and the greater Sinophone world, published in English".
       The winner of the Award for Outstanding Translated Literature from Chinese Language is Taiwan Travelogue, by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, in Lin King's translation.

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       Wortmeldungen Literaturpreis

       They've announced the winner of this year's Wortmeldungen Ulrike Crespo Literaturpreis für kritische Kurztexte, a German prize for a shorter critical text, and it is Klick Klack, der Bergfrau erwacht.
       The prize pays out a generous €35,000; this year's text is 6381 words long, so it pays out almost €5.50 per word -- a stunning amount for a prose prize. (Some poetry prizes are in the same league, but few prose prizes come anywhere close.)

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       Encore Award shortlist

       The Royal Society of Literature has announced the shortlist for its Encore Award, a prize for the best second book by an author.
       This prize has a pretty solid list of previous winners, including Iain Sinclair's Downriver (1991), Ali Smith's Hotel World (2002), and Sally Rooney's Normal People (2019).

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       Small-format paperbacks

       At Publishers Weekly Sam Spratford reports that HarperVia Launches Small-Format Paperback Line. It's to be called 'Nomad Editions', and:

The Nomad format, inspired by Japanese pocket novels, aims to balance portability and aesthetics in mass market paperbacks, according to the publisher.

       As longtime readers know, I am a big fan of the mass-market-paperback format -- and the Japanese pocket-sized-format is of course even better; I do love me a pocket-sized book .....
       HarperVia will be publishing three titles in the new imprint in November; see, for example, the publicity page for Morimi Tomihiko's The Tatami Galaxy.

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       The Holy Innocents review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Miguel Delibes' 1981 novel The Holy Innocents, now out in English in Yale University Press' The Margellos World Republic of Letters-series.

       Always good to see more Delibes available in English !

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       'Elif Shafak on why we still need novels'

       At The Guardian they have: Given up on reading ? Elif Shafak on why we still need novels.
       She admits:

I am not claiming that novelists are wise. If anything, quite the opposite: we are a walking mess. But the long form contains insight, empathy, emotional intelligence and compassion.

       I certainly still need novels; couldn't live without them .....

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       Rebecca Solnit profile

       At The Independent Hannah Ewens profiles Rebecca Solnit: ‘Fiction was always treated as the most important, literary, aspirational goal – f*** that’.
       As the headline suggests, regarding fiction Solnit thinks it doesn't really deserve: "its elevated centrality"; I beg to differ.

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       Translation today

       In The Age Nell Geraets reports Google translate ? No thanks, these writers prove their human worth.
       Author Mariana Enríquez is quoted, noting:

Throughout her career, during which she has been translated into over 20 languages, she has never read a poor translation, though some are more surprising than others.

“For example, Spanish from Argentina can sound very commanding. To us, it sounds gentle, but not to others,” she says. “So, when I read a text in French, it sounds too ornamented sometimes. It’s not that the translation is bad; it just doesn’t sound like me.”

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       Oromay review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Baalu Girma's 1983 novel Oromay -- a rare translation from the Amharic (apparently the first published by major publishers in the UK and US) that came out earlier this year.

       It's interesting to note that this was widely reviewed in the UK -- even the Daily Mail reviewed it ! -- but seems to have gotten no significant review coverage beyond the trades in the US. What gives ?

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       PEN America Literary Awards

       PEN America has announced the winners of its Literary Awards -- though for the second year in a row the top prize -- the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award -- was not conferred.
       The Tuner of Silences-author Mia Couto won the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, while Brian Robert Moore's translation of Michele Mari's Verdigris won the PEN Translation Prize.

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       'On Ismail Kadare'

       At n+1 Daniel Petrick writes at length on the Twilight of the Eastern Gods-author Ismail Kadare, in What a Terrible Name !

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       Joseph-Breitbach-Preis

       The Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur | Mainz has announced the winner of this year's Joseph Breitbach Prize, a leading German-language author award, paying out €50,000, and it is Frank Witzel (whose Die Erfindung der Roten Armee Fraktion durch einen manisch-depressiven Teenager im Sommer 1969 won the German Book Prize in 2015).

       Hard to top their 2000 selections -- Ilse Aichinger, W.G.Sebald, and Markus Werner were all homored -- but the prize has consistently had a fairly good record.

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       Age Book of the Year Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Age Book of the Year Awards; see, for example, Kylie Northover's report in The Age, A late-career marvel and an enriching memoir: The Age Book of the Year winners.
       Rodney Hall's Vortex won in the fiction category; see also, for example, the Picador Australia publicity page.

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       Neustadt International Prize jurors

       The Neustadt International Prize for Literature has announced the jurors for the 2026 prize -- more significant than for most prizes, because this is a prize where each juror gets to select one of the finalists for the prize.
       The finalists they choose will be announced next month, and the winner will be annound in October.

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       Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, awarded: "for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language".
       Only one of the titles is under review at the complete review -- Megan McDowell's translation of Alejandro Zambra's Childish Literature -- and I have only seen one more of these .....

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       Prix Jan Michalski longlist

       The prix Jan Michalski -- rewarding: "works of all literary genres, fiction or non-fiction, irrespective of the language in which it is written" -- has announced its first selection.
       The only title under review at the complete review is Barbara J. Haveland's translation of Solvej Balle's On the Calculation of Volume (I); other finalists include Percival Everett's James and the new Pierre Bayard.

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       Goncourt de printemps

       The Académie Goncourt has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the winners of its spring prizes, including Anca Visdei's Cioran-biography -- see the L'Archipel publicity age --, the biography-prize winner

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       Valeriy Shevchuk (1939-2025)

       Ukrainian author Valeriy Shevchuk has passed away; see, for example, the Babel report; see also the A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA author page.
       His The Meek Shall Inherit ... has been translated into English; print copies are hard to come by, but you can find a pdf copy online.

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       The last bookshop in Greenland

       I missed this a couple of weeks ago, but apparently tha last and only real bookshop in Greenland closed at the beginning of the year; see Malthe Pedersen's report at nordiskpost, Greenland without a bookstore: the end of Atuagkat marks a cultural turning point.

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       Pulitzer Prizes

       They've announced this year's Pulitzer Prizes.
       James, by Percival Everett, won the Fiction category, over three other finalists: The Unicorn Woman, by Gayl Jones; Mice 1961, by Stacey Levine; and Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel.
       (Updated - 7 May): Apparently, as Alexandra Alter reports in The New York Times, ‘James’ Won the Pulitzer, but Not Without Complications (presumably paywalled), as "James was not the top pick among the Pulitzer's five fiction jury members. It wasn't even in the top three" ..... Ah, literary prizes ....

       The Criticism award went to Alexandra Lange, with none of the three finalists a literary critic.

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       Conclaves

       It's Conclave-time in the Vatican !
       They're voting for a new pope !

       To get in the mood, check out the two novels under review at the complete review titled ... Conclave: Robert Harris' (which the recently-released movie is based on) and Roberto Pazzi's.

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       NEA grants

       As widely reported, the (American) National Endowment for the Arts started rescinding and terminating already-awarded grants on Friday, including many to publishers. See also, for example, Sophia Stewart's report in Publishers Weekly, NEA Literary Grants, Staff Cut as Trump Proposes Eliminating the Agency.
       This follows this administration's similar actions regarding grants in other areas. Regardless of whether or not one thinks what the NEA does is something the federal government should be doing, it is, at the very least, very bad form to pull these grants after they have been awarded. With many of the organizations receiving funds planning ahead with the expectation of being able to rely on these funds, this sudden pulling-of-the-plug is devastating. (It also doesn't save a great amount of money.)

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       OCM Bocas Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and it is Village Weavers, by Myriam J.A. Chancy.

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       People's Choice Literature review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the two-in-one of The Most Wanted and Unwanted Novels by Tom Comitta, People's Choice Literature, forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

       I am curious to see how much attention this one gets; certainly an interesting exercise.

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       Q & A: Margaret Drabble

       This week's 'The books of my life'-column in The Guardian features Margaret Drabble: ‘Our family had a passion for Georgette Heyer’.
       She was won over by the works of Georges Perec -- and admits:

My comfort read
Anything by Lee Child. I love Jack Reacher.

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       Q & A: Amitav Ghosh

       At Scroll.in Ashutosh Kumar Thakur has a Q & A with the author, in ‘It would be a mistake to think that hyper-technological people don’t live by stories’: Amitav Ghosh -- mainly about his latest book, Wild Fictions.
       He notes: "Kalidasa's Meghaduta [The Cloud-Messenger] is not just a poem; it is a conversation between the cloud and the earth"

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       'Redefining Arabic literature'

       In The National Saeed Saeed reports on how: 'Authors are blurring genres and experimenting with narrative techniques', in From blogs to book prizes: How a new generation is redefining Arabic literature.

       They apparently also have a new list of the 50 Most Important Arabic Novels of the 21st Century, but it's behind the paywall.

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       Carol Shields Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, a US$150,000 prize which celebrates: "creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States", and it is Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin.
       See also the publicity pages from Vintage Canada and Soft Skull Press, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Edgar Allan Poe Awards

       The Mystery Writers of America have announced the winners of this year's Edgar Allan Poe Awards.

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       Reading in ... Germany

       In Die Zeit Anant Agarwala and Martin Spiewak apparently report (paywalled) on German university students' diminishing reading skills and interest; at Börsenblatt they sum it up, noting also the shocking statistic that the percentage of students who read books daily declined from 43 per cent in 2003 to 17 per cent in 2024.
       That is .... not good.

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       New World Literature Today

       The May/June issue of World Literature Today is now out -- 'The City Issue: Delhi | In the Anthroposcene'.
       Lots to keep you covered for the weekend -- including the extensive book review section.

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       Joyce Carol Oates Prizes

       The New Literary Project has announced the winners of this year's Joyce Carol Oates Prize, which: "honors mid-career authors of fiction who advance the vision and mission of NewLit -- to drive social change and unleash artistic power across the generations and the nation" -- two winners this year, Jennine Capó Crucet and Willy Vlautin.

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       V.Y.Mudimbe (1941-2025)

       African author and scholar V.Y.Mudimbe has passed away; see, for example, the obituary (presumably paywalled) in The New York Times.

       Several of his novels have been translated into English, though it's mainly the non-fiction that seems to be in print (e.g. The Invention of Africa (Indiana University Press), The Mudimbe Reader (University of Virginia Press), Africa and the Disciplines ( University of Chicago Press)).

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       EBRD Literature Prize finalists

       The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has announced the three finalists for this year's EBRD Literature Prize, awarded for a: 'book of translated literary fiction translated into English and written originally in any language of a country where the EBRD currently invests by an author who is (or has been) a citizen of one of these countries':

• The Empusium, by Olga Tokarczuk
• Forgottenness, by Tanja Maljartschuk
• Sons, Daughters, by Ivana Bodrožić

       The winner will be announced 24 June.

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       Bonjour Tristesse movie

       Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse was made into a film in 1958, directed by Otto Preminger and starring Jean Seberg, David Niven, and Deborah Kerr -- and now there's a new version out, directed by Durga Chew-Bose and starring Chloë Sevigny, Lily McInerny, and Claes Bang, which is coming to US cinemas tomorrow; see, for example, the Greenwich Entertainment publicity page.

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       Jane Gardam (1928-2025)

       English author Jane Gardam has passed away; see, for example, the obituaries in The Guardian (by Lucy Knight) and The New York Times (presumably paywalled) (by Helen T. Verongos).

       She was a wonderful author, and several of her books are under review at the complete review:

• God on the Rocks
• Last Friends
• A Long Way From Verona
• The Man in the Wooden Hat
• Old Filth

       She's one of those authors where I try to hold some unread titles in reserve, for times when I got bogged down in or frustrated by what I'm reading, knowing that I can rely on whatever I pick of hers to satisfy me. (Other authors in this category are the very different Iris Murdoch, as well as Georges Simenon (though of course he published so much that there seems no danger of ever running out of works to fall back on).)

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       René Char conference

       At Princeton they're holding a two-day conference, Resistance and its Futures: Translating the (Untranslatable) Wartime Poetry of René Char starting tomorrow.
       An impressive-looking programme.

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       Deutscher Sachbuchpreis finalists

       They've announced the eight finalists for this year's German Non-Fiction Prize, selected from 234 titles.
       The winner will be announced 17 June.

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       NSW Literary Awards shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for this year's NSW Literary Awards, "the richest and longest running state-based literary awards in Australia" -- unfortunately not in one single, simple, convenient list; ridiculously, you have to click on each category to see the finalists.
       The winners will be announced 19 May.

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       The Innocent Libertine review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of a new translation of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette's The Innocent Libertine -- a 1909 'melding' of two of her earlier novellas --, just out from Dedalus.

       This is the third translation of this work -- suggesting also its continuing appeal. I've generally had trouble with Colette -- and this is the first of her works under review here -- but found this one quite winning.

       See also the manuscript of the first part, Minne; more here.

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       RSL Ondaatje Prize shortlist

       The Royal Society of Literature has announced the shortlist for this year's RSL Ondaatje Prize, awarded: "for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place".
       The winner will be announced 15 May.

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       Salome at the Met

       A new production of Richard Strauss' opera, Salome, premieres at the Metropolitan Opera in New York tonight, with additional performances throughout May -- noteworthy also because it will receive a much larger audience than most recent Salome-productions, as there will also be a: 'Met Live in HD'-broadcast on 17 May, at thousands of venues.
       As always, if you're preparing for anything Salome (Strauss, Willde, or any of the many others ...), I'd suggest my novel, Salome in Graz has a lot to offer .....
       My protagonists would certainly be interested in this production, and I'm sure they'll be catching it at their local Met Opera in HD venue ....
       The Met production is directed by Claus Guth. Apparently, they've: "updated the action to the Victorian era" -- and this preview profile (presumably paywalled) by Javier C. Hernández in The New York Times suggests:

Inspired partly by Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut, Guth has infused the opera, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s decadent retelling of the biblical story, with elements of a psychological thriller.

       And:

For his Salome, Guth said, he wanted to give the title character a sense of agency — to show that she’s “not just the puppet and product of her education.”

“It’s the biography of Salome — the development of a young person,” he said. “I was looking for something that everybody could connect to.”

       As to the take on the most problematic bit (so the main disputant in my novel) in the opera:

The Dance of the Seven Veils, one of the opera’s defining scenes, is often portrayed as a striptease. But in Guth’s version, the dance is a moment of reckoning, as seven versions of Salome, including van den Heever, portray the horrors of her upbringing.

       There's also a short but rather unrevealing video preview:



        Jay Goodwin's preview-article at the Met site, Gone Girl, has a few more photographs, and offers additional background, including the explanation that:

“This girl was raised like a puppet, completely in terror of the moods of her stepfather,” Guth says. “There are many indications that she was sexually abused by him, and when Herod says, ‘Dance for me,’ we sense that it is something he has said to her many times before.”

       So also then, regarding the Dance of the Seven Veils:

Using a sequence of progressively older Salome doubles that enter in turn, each veil becomes Salome at a different stage of childhood, being taught—or groomed—by Herod as she dances for him. It is an accusation of terrible force, made in front of her mother (sung by mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung), which makes clear that Herodias has enabled this all along by willfully looking away.

       (My novel's Marguerite would strongly disagree with much of this, holding that, in the Wilde and Strauss versions (and quite a few others), mom has been the guiding, controlling manipulator all along. Still, while she probably means it very differently, she'd probably go along with Guth's conclusion:

“Ultimately, Salome is a story of finding your own values,” he says. “It’s a proposal to be radical in the way you discover who you are, and this is only possible if you communicate with your dreams, with your fears, with the things underneath the rational daytime world. So this is something we should all be interested in.”

       Yannick Nézet-Séguin will be conducting, and Elza van den Heever plays the title role; see also the official programme (warning ! dreaded pdf format !), with additional notes.
       And at Vulture Jason P. Frank has the behind-the-scenes story of how they made the prop-head, in The Metropolitan Opera Brings Salome a New Head.

       (Updated - 1 May): Helpfully, Playbill collects links to the reviews, at What Did Reviews Say About Salome at The Met ?

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

       Hsu-Tang Library

       I've mentioned the Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature -- and four titles from it are under review at the complete review -- and it's good to see more coverage of it, as Maddalena Poli profiles it, in: Premodern Chinese Literature Can Be Trendy Too at the Los Angeles Review of Books -- noting that:

the biggest conundrum that the series faces, I would say, is not one of editing but one of marketing and participation. Having “smartly scholarly and eminently readable” editions is a good start, but it remains just that if the work is not forcefully advertised.

       I'm not sure about advertising -- in whatever sense -- but, as I've mentioned, I am surprised this series hasn't gotten more attention and coverage (yet). But Poli is on the right track suggesting:

To the same end, the Hsu-Tang Library should invest into turning these hardcover editions into affordable paperbacks with running translations for those not acquainted with classical Chinese language and flood public libraries (and maybe even bookstores) with them to increase the chances that readers come across these texts serendipitously.

       Though I note that the hardcover editions are not outrageously expensive -- US$34.95, which is in the same range as the Loeb editions ($30.00 apiece). Still, these volumes certainly should be more readily ... discoverable. (And, yes, more bookstores should be stocking some of these as well -- surely some readers would pick them up and take a chance on them.)

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

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       The Ways of Paradise review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Notes from a Lost Manuscript, Peter Cornell's 1987 work, The Ways of Paradise, recently out in English from Fitzcarraldo Editions.

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

       LA Times Book Prizes

       They've announced the winners of this year's Los Angeles Times Book Prizes -- with winners in thirteen catgories.
       Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capó Crucet won the Fiction category.

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

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