opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

       NEA Creative Writing Fellowship program axed

       The applicants for this year's (American) National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships have been receiving e-mails telling them that: "The NEA has cancelled the FY 2026 Creative Writing Fellowship program. The Creative Writing category has been withdrawn by the Agency and will not be reviewed"; see e.g..
       There's no announcement at the official NEA site -- god forbid the public should be kept properly informed of what a government agency is actually doing (or not doing) -- and the Creative Writing Fellowships-page is still up (promising that the: "program offers up to $50,000 grants in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry to published creative writers") but see, for example, Sophia Stewart's article in Publishers Weekly, NEA's Creative Writing Fellowship Program Canceled.
       The FY26 Creative Writing Fellowship: Prose (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) information pamphlet is also still up -- providing also background such as that:

The National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships program was established in 1966 by National Council on the Arts members John Steinbeck, Ralph Ellison, and Harper Lee, among others, to support and increase the breadth of America’s literary creativity. [...] Since its inception, the fellowships program has supported more than 3,800 writers, often years before their work was acknowledged by other awards and appointments and at critical stages of their careers

       As they explain there, until now:

Through these fellowships the NEA seeks to strengthen the literary arts ecosystem by sustaining and nurturing a wide range of creative writers at various stages of their careers.

       Priorities have changed however, and the e-mail to those who had applied for next year's fellowship explains that the NEA is: "updating its grantmaking policy priorities"; mirroring (verbatim) the language when, in May, they axed the grants to arts organizations, they explain that now:

The NEA will not prioritize projects that elevate the nation’s HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American Independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful and support the economic development of Asian American Communities.

       Admirable though much of this is, I'm unclear how the NEA can do much to, for example, "foster skilled trade jobs". But, hey -- worth a try ?

       Should the government be handing out money to authors like this anyway ? Sure, there are good arguments against it, especially in what is supposed to be a market-economy (ha !) -- but in the larger scheme of things the amounts involved are trivial (except for for the authors, for whom they are (generally) very significant indeed), and I think the United States and its citizens would be far better off throwing 50K at a few writers every year than doling that amount out to wannabe 'ICE'-goons as 'signing bonuses' .....
       Given that under the current administration any support for the arts would likely be perverted anyway -- imagine the kinds of writing this administration would be supportive of ! -- so maybe this is, sadly, for the best for the time being.

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

       Eugen Gomringer (1925-2025)

       Bolivian-born German-language concrete poet Eugen Gomringer has passed away; see, for example, Nico Bleutge's obituary in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

       See also samples of his work at Archivio Conz. His The Book of Hours and Constellations can also be read (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) at UbuWeb.

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

---

       Fall (US) books

       At AP Hillel Italie has an overview article, Fall is books' biggest season. Expect some long-awaited returns, as well as a look at (what he says are) The fall's 10 most anticipated books, from Pynchon to (Priscilla) Presley.
       (I'm afraid only one those ten most-anticipated titles is one I hope to see/read; yes, you can guess which one.)

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

       Dutch head start for McEwan

       I've mentioned this phenomenon before, but it's always interesting to see what authors/books get the treatment: because so many readers in the Netherlands can read English more or less fluently publishers publish the Dutch translation of some prominent titles weeks before they come out in English -- books by John Irving and J.M.Coetzee, for example. The most recent example is Ian McEwan's much-anticipated What We Can Know -- due out 18 September in the UK (pre-order your copy at Amazon.co.uk) and 23 September in the US (pre-order your copy at Amazon.com or Bookshop) -- but coming out already on 25 August in the Netherlands, as Wat we kunnen weten; see also the Uitgeverij De Harmonie publicity page.
       (The Germans have increasingly also had to deal with English-originals cannibalizing domestic sales, but this one is only coming out in German on 24 September; see also the Diogenes publicity page.)

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

---

       From Ted to Tom review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey, From Ted to Tom, which came out earlier this year, from New York Review Books.
       A different kind of epistolary collection !

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

       Prix du livre de la Ville de Lausanne finalists

       The Swiss Book Prize is limited to German-language titles; they'll be announcing the finalists on 11 September -- but the prize for French-language Swiss books, the Prix du livre de la Ville de Lausanne got the jump on them with their finalists-announcemet; see the official press release (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) .
       This one is interesting also because the winner will be decided by public vote, with voting open through 31 December.

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

---

       Reading in ... the US

       A new study, by Jessica K. Bone, Feifei Bu, Jill K. Sonke, and Daisy Fancourt, reports on the The decline in reading for pleasure over 20 years of the American Time Use Survey which depressingly: "found marked declines in the proportion of individuals reading for pleasure daily in the US, with decreases of 3% per year" bertween 2003 and 2023.
       By 2023: "only 16% of participants read for pleasure during the diary day". And while they found: "no changes in reading with children over time" these rates were: "surprisingly low, with only 2% of participants reading with children on the average day". Also troubling: "By 2023, Black participants had a 49% lower prevalence of daily reading than White participants".

       Lots of media coverage of this already; see, e.g. articles in The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times.

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

---

       Ending VAT tax on books in Denmark

       The Danish government plans to abolish the (25 per cent) value added tax (VAT -- which is basically: sales tax) on books; see, for example, the articles at the BBC and The Guardian.
       Apparently, the 25% rate is: "is the highest in the world" on books; a 25% VAT is the norm in the Scandinavian countries (see e.g.) but the others have a lower rate for books -- with Norway already not collecting any VAT on books.
       Apparently some 8,300,000 books were sold in Denmark in 2023; it'll be interesting to see if the numbers go up when the cost to purchasers goes down. (Of course, publishers could also raise their prices .....)

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

       Deutscher Buchpreis longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's German Book Prize, the leading German novel prize -- twenty titles, selected from 229 (unfortunately not revealed) titles.
       Some familiar names here, with quite a few authors that have had previous work translated into English -- but none that have really made a bigger mark in the US/UK yet.
       The shortlist will be announced 16 September.

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

---

       We Computers Q & A

       At the Yale University Press site they have We Computers: A Conversation with Hamid Ismailov and Shelley Fairweather-Vega, a Q & A with the author and translator of We Computers, which came out in English yesterday.
       Among Ismailov's responses:

Sometimes, I revisit early examples of my prose and am amazed at how complex -- how ‘Faulknerian’ -- they were. Lately, in search of balance, I’ve begun mixing up my earlier texts with my current ones in the same piece.

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

       Business Book of the Year Award longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award -- sixteen titles, selected from: "more than 500 entries" (which are unfortunately not revealed).
       For the first time since 2010 and for only the third time in the history of the prize a work of fiction has been longlisted -- Drayton and Mackenzie, by Alexander Starritt ; see also the Swift Press publicity page.
       The shortlist will be announced 24 September.

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

---

       Qudan Rie profile

       At The Guardian John Self profiles the Akutagawa Prize-winning Sympathy Tower Tokyo author, in Author Rie Qudan: Why I used ChatGPT to write my prize-winning novel.

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

---

       Publishing Chinese fiction in the US

       At npr Andrew Limbong reports on how Chinese literature is tough to find in English. One editor hopes to change that, reporting how Women, Seated by Zhang Yueran -- see the Riverhead Books publicity page -- "is the first in a new effort from Riverhead Books, led by editor Han Zhang, to publish more translated Chinese language literature".

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

       Manga history

       At nippon.com Nakano Haruyuki considers Why Do Adults Read Comics in Japan ? How Pioneering Weekly Magazines Transformed the Image of Manga.

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

---

       We Computers review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Ghazal Novel by Hamid Ismailov, We Computers, out tomorrow from Yale University Press in their The Margellos World Republic of Letters-series.

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

       Alphabetical Madame Bovary

       Ambroise Perrin's Madame Bovary dans l'Ordre came out back in 2013 -- see the Éditions Bourg Blanc publicity page -- but at ActuaLitté Louella Boulland writes about it again, in Et si Madame Bovary se lisait ... selon l'ordre alphabétique ? a reminder of this interesting exercise (as Perrin's book simply takes all the words of Flaubert's novel and lists them alphabetically).
       Julian Barnes actually mentioned the book in a London Review of Books piece in 2021, Flaubert at Two Hundred -- summing up that: "It is all vaguely witty, yet mind-numbingly useless".
       As Barnes describes:

Perrin is a member of Oulipo, and his project is very Oulipian: it lists, in alphabetical order, every single word, number and punctuation mark that occurs in the 1873 Charpentier edition of the novel. And by ‘list’, I mean list: the book has six vertical columns to a page, and prints out the word each time it occurs. So the word et, which features 2812 times in the novel, is printed out 2812 times, occupying almost nine full pages. La occurs 3585 times, le 2366 and les 2276, elle 2129 and lui a meagre 806 -- from which you might perhaps deduce the sexual slant of the novel. Or not.

       Among the titbits from Boulland's article: Perrin has a collection of more than 500 editions of Madame Bovary.

       Madame Bovary dans l'Ordre sounds ... fun -- but I think I'll stick to Flaubert's version (under review here).

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

---

       Goodreads enthusiasm

       At Slate Angelina Mazza makes the case that Actually, Goodreads Is Good.
       I'm not sure that her arguments -- e.g.: "that very jankyness makes the Goodreads experience feel more deliberate, and in turn, more meaningful" -- will win anyone over, but hey .....

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

       NIF Book Prize longlist

       The New India Foundation has announced the longlist for this year's NIF Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay Book Prize, awarded: "for the best non-fiction book on modern/contemporary India".

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

---

       Krasznahorkai exhibit

       There's an exhibit about the Satantango-author, Minduntalan. Krasznahorkai László prózavilága running through 26 October, and at Patterns of Translation Andras Kisery and Péter Király offer their impressions, in A whale on the Danube: the Krasznahorkai show in Szentendre.

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

---

       The Emotions review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Jean-Philippe Toussaint's The Emotions, forthcoming in English in December, from Other Press.

       This is the thirteenth Toussaint title under review here.

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

       First Novelist Award

       Virginia Commonwealth University has announced the winner of this year's VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and it is It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over, by Anne de Marcken; see also the New Directions publicity page.

       This is the twenty-fourth year they awarded this American first-novel prize, and I'm embarrassed to note that not only have I not read any of the winning titles, I've never read anything by any of the award winners. I like to think that I read fairly widely, but still ... so many gaps.

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

---

       Paul-Celan-Preis

       The Deutsche Literaturfonds has announced the winner of this year's Paul Celan Prize, a €25,000 prize for a translator into German, and it is translator-from-Norwegian Bernhard Strobel, translator of works by Bjarte Breiteig, Jan Kjærstad, Arve Moen, and Tor Ulven.

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

       Sonallah Ibrahim (1937-2025)

       Egyptian author Sonallah Ibrahim has passed away; see, for example, the report at Daily New Egypt.

       Only two of his novels are under review at the complete review: Zaat and The Committee.

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

---

       Robert Ludlum estate

       As, for example, Katcy Stephens reports at Variety, NBCUniversal Acquires Robert Ludlum’s ‘Bourne’ and ‘Treadstone’ Book Series in Massive Deal.
       Yes, despite Ludlum himself only writing three Bourne-novels (and no Treadstone novels), they've been churning out new volumes in the series since his death in 2001 -- and the estate is now cashing in in what is apparently a nine-figure deal. Impressive.

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

       Shortlists: Prime Minister's Literary Awards

       Creative Australia has announced the shortlists for this year's Prime Minister's Literary Awards -- "the richest literary prize" in Australia.
       There are six categories, with the shortlists selected from 645 (unfortunately not revealed) entries. Among the fiction finalists are books by Tim Winton and Michelle de Kretser.
       The winners will be announced 29 September.

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

---

       Shortlist: Royal Society Science Prize

       The Royal Society has announced the shortlist for this year's Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize -- six titles selected from selected from 254 (unfortunately not revealed) submissions.
       I haven't seen any of these.
       The winner will be announced 1 October.

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

---

       Marc Estrin (1939-2025)

       American author Marc Estrin has passed away; see, for example, Mary Ann Lickteig's report at Seven Days.
       The only one of his works under review at the complete review is Insect Dreams.

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

       The 1984 manuscript

       I didn't know the manuscript -- at least what's left of it, some 44 per cent of it -- is in the John Hay Library at Brown, but as they now remind us, Original manuscript of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ is a highlight of Brown’s literary archives.

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

---

       The Final Girl Support Group review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Grady Hendrix's 2021 thriller, The Final Girl Support Group.

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

       No more AP book reviews

       As, for example, Dan Kennedy reports at his Media Nation, The Associated Press tells its book critics that it's ending weekly reviews.
       The AP note to their book reviewers is printed here -- finding:

Unfortunately, the audience for book reviews is relatively low and we can no longer sustain the time it takes to plan, coordinate, write and edit reviews. AP will continue covering books as stories, but at the moment those will handled exclusively by staffers.

       AP reviews were widely re-published -- but, yes, I can certainly attest to the fact that: "the audience for book reviews is relatively low".
       But, hey: "AP will continue covering books as stories" .....

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

---

       25 best (UK/Irish) novels of the 21st century ?

       The Sunday Times has made up a list of The 25 best novels of the 21st century -- from Kazuo Ishiguro to Hilary Mantel (possibly paywalled ?) -- limiting themselves to British and Irish fiction.
       Only the top five are ranked -- with two of them under review at the complete review: fifth-ranked Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and fourth-ranked Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Two other titles are also under review: The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman and Any Human Heart by William Boyd.

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

---

       Twenty-three years of the Literary Saloon

       The site itself, the complete review, came online way back in the spring of 1999, twenty-six years ago, but it took a few years before I jumped on the 'literary blogging'-bandwagon (well, it took a few years before there was a 'literary blogging'-bandwagon/scene ...) with this Literary Saloon weblog -- but, yes, the first post was posted here twenty-three years ago today.
       Not sure I can say it's still going strong, but there still seems to be a small, dedicated readership out there; I hope you continue to find it of some interest and use.

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

       The Unbound fiasco

       For some fourteen years British publisher Unbound operated under a crowdfunding model -- with, on some level, considerable success. Not, alas, a financial one -- and in The Observer Rachael Healy now explores the Death of a publishing dream: how the Unbound revolution became untethered.

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

---

       Peter Carey on Ned Kelly

       At The Guardian they have a long piece of Peter Carey on Ned Kelly: ‘Did no one see what I saw, that our famous bushranger was a raging poet?’, as he 'revisits' his True History of the Kelly Gang, twenty-five years on.
       Much of this is on exhibit in the Creative Acts: Artists and their inspirations exgibit that runs 15 August through 31 May 2026.

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

---

       Patchwork review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Tom Comitta's patchwork-novel, Patchwork, just about out from Coffee House Press.

       Comitta's similarly intriguing-concept novel(s) People's Choice Literature came out earlier this year; I'm a bit surprised it hasn't gotten more review coverage -- but maybe we'll be getting some two-for-ones now.

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

       Today's contemporary canon ?

       In The Guardian -author Vincenzo Latronico looks at the global literary marketplace, arguing ‘It’s another form of imperialism’: how anglophone literature lost its universal appeal.
       He recounts:

(T)hat was still the way literature was taught and read, in Italy, until a couple of decades ago. We read Gustave Flaubert and Georges Perec. We read Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf. We read Thomas Mann and Ernesto Sábato.

And then we didn’t. The consolidation of the English-language publishing industry in the 1980s and 90s gave its most successful writers a worldwide reach and a critical impact that no authors from other countries could aspire to. The Italian contemporary canon, at the beginning of the millennium, was composed of David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith and Jonathan Franzen

       Maybe this is a generational thing ? I didn't experience such a US-takeover in the 1980s and 90s -- even living in the US. Certainly, the modern nadir of translation-into-English dates to around the turn of the millennium, and in the US (and UK) the anglophone was truly dominant -- but in, for example, the German-language world there was considerable openness to the foreign (not least from Eastern Europe, in those decades). If anything, the situation -- the centrality of the anglophone abroad, whether original writing or especially as intermediary (as Latronico also does mention) -- seems to me to have gotten much worse only in recent years. There's much less regional variation in the big markets now than there ever was, with the next big things pushed nearly simultaneously everywhere.
       Latronico argues:

(T)he primacy of anglophone literature seems to have faded. The authors in today’s contemporary canon -- celebrated by critics worldwide, and imitated by aspiring novelists -- come from much more varied backgrounds and write in many more languages. Roberto Bolaño, Annie Ernaux, Han Kang and Karl Ove Knausgård are the Franzens and Wallaces of two decades ago.

       But surely there were always similar international examples -- beginning or ending with, for example, the Latin American Boom authors. What seems different to me is now that the new majors more or less have to go through English, which just a few decades ago was not necessarily the case: Ernaux is an interesting example: regularly published in English starting in 1990, she remained a minor figure in the US/UK until her Nobel win; it wasn't being translated into/made available in English that really made for the breakthrough on the international stage -- while, as Latronico notes, Han Kang definitely made it internationally via being translated into English, even before her Nobel win.
       How sad the situation is is summed up nicely in Latronico's example:

Years ago, a German publisher declined to translate my second novel -- a story of ambition and financial speculation -- because the Italian backdrop might have confused a German readership used to imagining corporate raiders in New York, or perhaps in Frankfurt. But, he said, the chapters in which the protagonist visited his father in Venice were great, so poetic. Had I considered setting a book in Venice? Italy, for him, had ceased to be seen as a legitimate context for corporate ambition, as it was in Paolo Volponi’s Le Mosche del Capitale, and become a set of exotic backdrops: Naples, Puglia, Rome, the Tuscan hills, or Venice.

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

---

       José Luis Peixoto Q & A

       Agerpres has a Q & A with the Portuguese author, José Luis Peixoto: 'Today, there's a much broader understanding that emotion and intelligence are inseparable'.

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

---

       Bollingen Recollections

       Princeton University Press has announced "the launch of Bollingen Recollections, a major new backlist initiative":

This multiyear project will see the redesign and republication of nearly all titles in the Press’s esteemed Bollingen Series, one of the foremost intellectual publishing ventures of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

       Some 275 books -- and lots of great stuff.
       I have a couple of the original editions, but I'm looking forward to filling out my collection.

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

       Banned in ... Kashmir

       As, for example, Aijaz Hussain's AP report has it, Indian authorities in Kashmir ban books by eminent writers and scholars, as an order issued on Tuesday by the region's Home Department "declared the 25 books 'forfeit' under India's new criminal code of 2023". (I haven't been able to access the Home Department site to see the order.)
       You can see the full list of banned books at the end of Bashaarat Masood's The Indian Express report.
       Among them is, for example, Law and Conflict Resolution in Kashmir -- see the Routledge publicity page -- one of those books: "found to excite secessionism and endangering sovereignty and integrity of India", with material such as: "a detailed survey of relevant legislation and international documents".
       Not good.

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

---

       Tor Åge Bringsværd (1939-2025)

       Norwegian author Tor Åge Bringsværd has passed away; see, for example, the Cappelen Damm mention.
       Best-known -- certainly in English -- as a children's book author, he also wrote science fiction; see, for example, the entry at The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. See also the Cappelen Damm Agency author page.

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

---

       Bad F**king review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Kurt Palm's Bad F**king -- which hasn't been translated nto English yet.

       This won the 2011 Glauser-Preis, one of the leading German-language mystery prizes; the title refers to a place -- and, though fictional, the name isn't unheard of for Austria, where there was a plain old F**king until 2021, when they changed the name to Fugging (see e.g.).

       I read and was very impressed by Palm's Vom Boykott zur Anerkennung: Brecht und Österreich -- a version of his doctoral dissertation -- when it came out some forty years ago. It chronicles the fascinating relationship between Bertolt Brecht and Austria in the post-war years -- with Brecht famously settling in East Berlin (i.e. the German Democratic Republic), but hedging his bets by doing so as an Austrian citizen (not that everyone in Austria was thrilled with him getting an Austrian passport ...).

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

       Korean literature abroad

       As, for example, Park Han-sol reports in The Korea Times More Korean fiction finds its way to global shelves, as: "overseas sales of translated titles more than doubled", as:

Korean literary works published with the help of grants from the state-run agency sold more than 1.2 million copies abroad in 2024, a 130 percent leap from 520,000 the year before.

Both the volume of published books and total sales saw a dramatic rise. The average number of copies sold per title reached an all-time high of 1,271, with 24 books surpassing the 10,000 threshold -- a rare feat for translated literature.

       Nobel laureate Han Kang leads the way, as:

Her works, rendered into 28 languages and released in 77 editions with LTI Korea’s backing, sold over 310,000 copies in a single year.

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

---

       Plagiarism in ... China

       Firstpost reports that: 'A plagiarism scandal is rocking China's literary world, exposing widespread copying and undermining trust in the state-backed publishing establishment', as China probes what China does: Plagiarism scandal shakes Beijing's state-backed literary scene.

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

       Sophie Castille Awards finalists

       The Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation is awarded 'for the best translation of graphic novels into a variety of languages around the world', and they've now announced the nine finalists for translations into English.
       The winner will be announced 27 September.

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

---

       Bára Dočkalová Q & A

       At Radio Prague International Danny Bate has a Q & A with the Magnesia Litera prize winner (in the category for children and young people), in “We need to be willing to play, and to be curious”: Award-winning author Bára Dočkalová on writing Czech and teaching English.

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

       Books under consideration for the Warwick Prize

       The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation admirably reveals all the titles in the running for the prize every year and has now released the List of eligible titles entered for the prize (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) for this year's prize -- 145 titles, translated from 34 languages.
       As I repeat ever year: every literary prize should do this. Readers deserve to know what's actually in the potential running for a prize !
       As you can see, it's also a great resource.

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

---

       Blancpain-Imaginist longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Blancpain-Imaginist Literary Prize, a Chinese prize which: "aims to create a literary accolade that is impartial, authoritative, professional and enduring while honoring the outstanding writers under 45 years old each year"; see also Andrew Rule's reader's guide at Paper Republic.

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

---

       Sympathy Tower Tokyo review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Qudan Rie's Akutagawa Prize-winning novel, Sympathy Tower Tokyo, due out shortly in English (from Summit Books in the US and Penguin in the UK).

       This got some attention/coverage when it won the Akutagawa Prize, because of Qudan's mention that she had used AI for parts of it, but that's more a distraction than anything else. More interesting are the discussions of language in the novel, including how foreign languages and usage are creeping into Japanese; in her Exophony Tawada Yoko similarly complains about the katakanaization of Japanese -- and, of course, there's Mizumura Minae's The Fall of Language in the Age of English.

       Yet another Akutagawa Prize-winner under review; these are really piling up.

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

       Sunday Times Literary Awards longlists

       They've announced the longlists for this year's (South African) Sunday Times Literary Awards in its two categories, fiction and non.

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

---

       Junot Díaz Q & A

       Junot Díaz is apparently still ... around, and at Frontline Majid Maqbool has a Q & A with him, in Eagerness to be near books still drives my love of reading: Junot Díaz.

       (Gotta love the appearances page at Díaz's official site .....)

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

       Jan Michalski Prize semi-finalists

       They actually announced this a couple of weeks ago, but apparently not very loudly -- I haven't seen mention of it anywhere, but the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature has announced its second selection -- five titles left in the running,
       Titles still up for the prize include On the Calculation of Volume (I) by Solvej Balle and books by Pierre Bayard, Lydia Davis, and Guadalupe Nettel.
       They'll presumably announce three finalists before they get around to declaring a winner.

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

---

       Death and the Gardener review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Georgi Gospodinov's latest novel, Death and the Gardener -- already out in the UK, and coming to the US in early October.

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

       Jantar Publishing Q & A

       At Radio Prague International Ian Willoughby has a Q & A with Michael Tate on Czech roots, Prague -- and the serendipitous birth of Jantar Publishing.

       Several Jantar titles are under review at the complete review -- e.g. Jan Křesadlo's GraveLarks -- and I certainly expect to get to more.

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

       Nicholas Clapp (1936-2025)

       As Mike Barnes reports in The Hollywood Reporter, Nicholas Clapp, Documentarian and Author Known as a “Modern-Day Indiana Jones,” Dies at 89.

       One of his works is under review at the complete review -- Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen.

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

---

       Butter review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Novel of Food and Murder by Yuzuki Asako, Butter.

       I finally got my hands on a (library) copy of this, and, as I mention in the review, it's a welcome change from the usual contemporary Japanese fare found in translation (mysteries; fiction with quirky/fantastical elements; slim Akutagawa Prize-winners).
       (Among the rare other recent offerings in this category is Matsuie Masashi's The Summer House (published in the UK as Summer at Mount Asama, because ... *sigh*), but, if not quite as polished, Yuzuki's novels offers considerably more to chew on, as it were.)

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

       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 -

---

       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 -

---

       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.

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

---

       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.

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

go to archive

- return to top of the page -

© 2025 the complete review


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