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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 .....
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.)
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).
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.
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 !
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 .....
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.”
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 Mailreviewed it ! -- but seems to have gotten no significant review coverage beyond the trades in the US.
What gives ?
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.
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.
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.
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 .....
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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':
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.
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:
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).)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.