opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

       Grand prix de la littérature américaine longlist

       Among the many, many French literary prizes is, unsurprisingly, also one for the best American novel (that's been translated into French, mind you), the Grand prix de la littérature américaine -- and they've now announced this year's eight-title-strong longlist; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
       Four finalists will be announced on 5 October.

       Meanwhile, they've also announced the longlists for the prix Médicis, awarded in two categories: French novel (18 titles are in the running) and translated novel (17 titles -- with only one overlap with the Grand prix de la littérature américaine longlist, Laura Kasischke's The Lifeguard (see also the Red Hen publicity page)); see, for example, the ActuaLitté report.

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       AI-assisted translation

       Yet another look at the use of AI in publishing translations, as Sam Spratford reports that: 'Tech developers think automation will fundamentally reshape the work of literary translators, but not everyone is on board', exploring in Publishers Weekly what is (arguably) Lost in Translation.
       As Spratford explains:

Nuanxed generates the first draft of a translation with an in-house AI tool, then employs human translators, editors, and proofreaders to finalize the text, using additional AI tools to expedite their work. This is the most common model used by the bevy of AI-powered translation companies that have risen to prominence in recent years.

       [Aside: maybe it's just me, but if engaged in any word/language-related activity I could not imagine dealing with a company which goes by such an ... un-nuanced name. Deal-breaker right there. (Though, yes: points for the very appropriate new-Angst-connotation/association.)]
       Much as I sympathize with translators, I'm not sure they are doing themselves (m)any favors by how they (generally) frame/present the issue -- here, for example, invoking Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey and with quotes such as this:

Translator Stefan Tobler is the founder of the U.K.-based small press And Other Stories, which has won two consecutive International Booker Prizes. Tobler tells PW that the AI-assisted translations he’s read “don’t hold a candle to the best literary translation,” adding that there’s “no point assuming progress will be continual.”

       I have the highest regard for Tobler and And Other Stories, trusting their high standards in both the selection of books they publish and the care they put in their translations. But the debate and problem isn't here, at the high(est) end of the 'literary' spectrum.
       There will always be some ... well, basically bespoke, all-human literary translation, of works that are, in various ways, challenging; AI will only ever be of limited assistance in translating classical (and much modern) poetry or epics, or, say, something by Krasznahorkai László or Elfriede Jelinek. But let's face it, most of what is published and most of what sells (really: the overwhelming majority) is schlock -- and, I'm sorry, but AI can already translate most schlock pretty well, probably with minimal editing; I just don't see how 'AI-assisted' translation doesn't completely take over this market (and I wish the discussion would focus more on that, and the implications for translators (as even translators who do great work translating 'literary' stuff often earn much of their bread and butter churning out translations of mysteries and other, more basic, popular fiction)). Similarly, surely AI translation will take over large swathes of the field of non-fiction, where the 'facts' often matter more to the reader than the (writing) style.
       But, of course, this is far from the last we'll hear on the subject .....

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       Prime Minister's Literary Awards

       Writing Australia has announced the winners of this year's Prime Minister's Literary Awards, "the richest literary prize in the nation".
       There are six categories, with the fiction award going to A Piece of Red Cloth, by Leonie Norrington, Djawundil Maymuru, Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, and Djawa Burarrwanga; see also the Allen & Unwin publicity page.

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       Yale Drama Series Prize

       They've announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the winner of this year's Yale Drama Series Prize, and it is AMANDA, by Mo Holmes; it will be published by Yale University Press.
       This award has been handed out since 2006, and: "Over twenty years, the competition has received more than 27,000 submissions from 134 countries".
       All the sadder then that with the awarding of this year's prize they've also announced

Yale University Press has made the difficult decision to conclude the Yale Drama Series Prize after the 2026 award year. The 2026 prize marks the final year of the program.

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       Longlists: Österreichischer Buchpreis

       They've announced the ten-title-strong longlist for this year's Austrian Book Prize (which, unlike the novels-only German Book Prize, is not limited to works of fiction), as well as the six titles longlisted for the debut-prize for a first work.
       The one Austrian title long- (and now also short-)listed for the German Book Prize, Elias Hirschl's Schleifen, did make the cut; I actually got the e-version of this via Netgalley.de (where all the longlisted titles are admirably made available -- as now are the ones for this prize) since it sounds right up my alley, but I just can't stand trying to read in the e-format so I've given up on it for now; I do hope to get to it and several of the other longlisted titles in proper print form eventually.

       The shortlists will be announced 14 October, and the winners on 23 November.

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       Longlists: prix du Meilleur livre étranger

       They've announced the longlists for the prix du Meilleur livre étranger, a French literary prize for works in translation -- nine titles in the fiction category, and the three in non; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
       The only title under review at the complete review is Richard Zenith's excellent and very worthy Pessoa-biography.
       All three non-fiction titles are translation from English; five of the fiction titles are, too, sigh.

       They've also announced the longlists for the prix Femina, awarded in two categories, French novels and novels in translation; sixteen titles are longlisted in the latter category, with some overlap with the prix du Meilleur livre étranger; half the titles are translations from English ...; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.

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       Karl Corino (1942-2026)

       Among the books I don't own but would most like to is Karl Corino's over-two-thousand-page biography, Robert Musil (Rowohlt, 2003; see what's left of their publicity page) (and the supplementary volume of 'Nachträge zur Biographie und zum Werk Robert Musils', »Von der Seele träumen dürfen« -- see the Königshausen & Neumann publicity page --, which falls just short of 800 pages ...); as Tilman Spreckelsen now reports in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung, this Mentor, Biograph, Aufklärer has now passed away.
       I was not aware of his work with and on authors from the German Democratic Republic -- including as mentor to Wolfgang Hilbig (Corino was the one who invited him to participate in the 1989 Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis, which he won) -- and I am very excited to hear there's a forthcoming: "zweibändige Ausgabe von Texten Corinos zur Literaturgeschichte der DDR".

       (Re. Musil-biographies: I am, of course, looking forward to Genese Grill's, forthcoming from Yale University Press, but, yes, Corino's is the holy grail .....)

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       Deutscher Buchpreis shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's German Book Prize, the leading German novel prize.
       The winner will be announced 5 October.

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       Giller Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Giller Prize, a leading Canadian prize for a work of fiction -- "novel, graphic novel or short story collection published in English" -- , with the winner receiving C$100,000 -- fourteen novels, selected from: "more than 140 works of fiction submitted".
       Note that translations are eligible, but none made the cut (and I'd be curious how many were submitted ...).
       The shortlist will be announced 5 October, and the winner on 16 November.

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       Hawthornden Prize

       The Hawthornden Foundation has announced the winner of this year's Hawthornden Prize for Literature, a £25,000 prize "awarded annually to a British, Irish or British-based author for a work of “imaginative literature”", and it is Mr Outside, by Caleb Klaces; see also the Prototype publicity page.

       The Hawthornden Prize was first awarded in 1919; it is an annual prize, but it was dormant for some times over the years (1945-1957, and then 1984-1987, for example), but has been going strong for the past forty years; from near the beginning it has had a very impressive list of winners. (The list of winners -- scroll to the bottom of the prize-page -- unfortunately only gives the names of the authors of the winning works, despite this being a book prize, but see, e.g. the Wikipedia page.)

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       Blanche d'Alpuget (1944-2026)

       Australian author Blanche d'Alpuget has passed away; see, for example, Krishani Dhanji and Tory Shepherd in The Guardian, reporting that Blanche d'Alpuget, writer and wife of Bob Hawke, dies aged 82.

       I came across and read her novel Turtle Beach in the 1980s but never registered the whole Hawke affair (see e.g.), and wasn't aware of her Plantagenet-series of books, which don't seem to have made much of an impression in the US.

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       Tom Stoppard profile

       Via I am pointed to this lengthy Tom Stoppard profile by Benjamin Schwarz in The American Conservative, Tom Stoppard: Conservative, Liberal, Englishman.

       (Certainly of interest, but, *sigh*, also a reminder to always go back to the source material. E.g., Schwarz writes:

More generally, that detachment led to Stoppard’s allergy in his work toward the programmatic and even toward a conception of politics that was more than the expression of a disposition. As Stoppard declared in a 1968 anti-manifesto, “I burn with no causes. I cannot say that I write with any social objective. One writes because one loves writing, really.”

By 1974, exasperated by the critics’ efforts to discern a political message in his play Jumpers, Stoppard declared that “in future I must stop compromising my plays with this whiff of social application. They must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness. I should have the courage of my lack of convictions.”

       It might be helpful to consider the (second) quote in its fuller context, as the original has Stoppard explaining:

One of the impulses in Travesties is to try to sort out what my answer would in the end be if I was given enough time to think every time I'm asked why my plays aren't political, or ought they to be ? Sometimes I have a complete comical reaction, and I think that in the future I must stop compromising my plays with this whiff of social application. They must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness. I should have the courage of my lack of convictions.

       I always like (and try to rely on) quotes (rather than paraphrase, etc.) -- straight from the horse's mouth and hence surely what the person really meant -- but it's good to be reminded how easily these can be (made) selective, too, tailored to fit the quoter's narrative. (But, regardless, 'the courage of my lack of convictions' is a damn good line.))

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       African (non-)whodunits ?

       An interesting piece at Brittle Paper by Temitope Usman, considering The Case of the Missing Whodunit, as Usman notes the African twist on the genre -- murder, yes, but not explored via a "closed world of the suspects, the fair-play clue, and the twist that pays off your concentration rather than your emotions".
       Certainly something worth exploring in greater depth.

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       Passion-inspiring texts ?

       At The Guardian Kate Mosse asked some writers: 'to pick books that will inspire a lifelong love of reading', in ‘Bold, brilliant, thrilling’: leading authors on the novels every school should teach -- an interesting exercise, and interesting to see the authors' different approaches to it, e.g. Geoff Dyer's.

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       Rare books as investments ?

       At the South China Morning Post Divia Harilela explores Why rare books, like Harry Potter first editions, are trending as investments.
       I'm not sure how far that trending goes, but some of the reasoning seems plausible:

“As more of our lives become digital, physical books have become more desirable as objects in their own right. People are increasingly drawn to things that feel tangible, authentic and that endure,” says Pom Harrington, second-generation owner of rare book dealer Peter Harrington

       As I sort and order my own library, and looking at used-book prices, I note that very little is considered 'valuable', though I am mostly okay with that (especially the low used-book prices, facilitating yet more acquisition); the text, and a reasonably sturdy and preferably pocket-sized edition, is all I need/want (rather than, say, a display-copy first edition that I'd be scared to touch). (That said, as I was filling up the US bookshelf here I was pleased to see that my copy of David Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress is a US first edition (Dalkey Archive Press ! 1988), which would fetch a few hundred bucks on the open market.)

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       Octavia Butler's Survivor

       As Rebecca Onion reports at Slate, Octavia Butler Let Survivor Fall Out of Print More Than 40 Years Ago. Now It’s Finally Back. -- see also the Grand Central Publishing publicity page -- and the piece includes a Q & A with Alyssa Collins, who wrote the introduction to the new edition.

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       AI and literary prizes

       At the Taipei Times Fion Khan reports that Literature awards under threat from AI, writer says, as:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is dealing a heavy blow to literature and literary judging, Taiwanese writer Chu Yu-hsun (朱宥勳) said on Saturday, adding that nearly 40 percent of the novel submissions he reviewed this year appeared to be AI-generated.

       In Taiwan, as in Japan and South Korea, literary prizes for new and emerging authors are a particularly important gateway to the literary establishment -- as Chu also makes clear with his statement that:

Once the literary award system collapses, you would not even know where to submit your work or where you can get your writing seen and noticed

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       Rentrée littéraire

       At Euronews they write about the annual French 'rentrée littéraire', considering: France's literary season: a uniquely French phenomenon ?.
       Not sure how helpful the comparisons to other countries are -- surely everywhere there's a surge of publication and activity in the fall ......

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       Belarusian National Literary Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's National Literary Awards in Belarus, with Naum Galperovich's Чырвоны мост winning in the prose category; see, for example, the (Russian) BelTA report.
       (While certainly of some interest, given the current under-Putin's-thumb regime in Belarus the literary scene there -- including such 'national' awards -- is presumably rather ... limited; I suspect the PEN Belarus Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Award-winner makes for more rewarding reading, year in and year out.)

       The awards were announced in conjunction with and as part of the Дзень беларускага пісьменства ('Belarusian Written Language Day') celebrations -- celebrated as a national holiday, which is nice; see also the BelTA report, with lots of photographs.
       (Not sure whether it can be ascribed to Russia dominance over Belarus, but the fact that I can only access the Russian-language pages at BelTA -- the official Belarusian news agency -- and not the Belarusian ones seems ... not good (also: kind of sad, on (and reporting about) Belarusian Written Language Day ....).)

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       Our Life in the Forest review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Marie Darrieussecq's Our Life in the Forest, now also out in a US edition.
       (This translation came out in Australia in 2018 -- for some reason, they've been better at keeping up with her work down under, though Transit has also just brought out another Darrieussecq novel, How to make a Woman, so maybe the Americans are back on the Darrieussecq-bandwagon.)

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       Prix Jean Monnet

       They've announced the winner of this year's prix Jean Monnet de littérature européenne, awarded for a European work written in or translated into French, and it is Death and the Gardener, by Georgi Gospodinov (well, 'Guéorgui Gospodinov' in the French transliteration).

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       Premio Liber

       I missed this earlier this week, but the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España has announced the winner of this year's Premio Liber, an author prize for the most outstanding Latin American author, and it is Heretics-author Leonardo Padura.

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       Hyphen profile

       I've mentioned the promising-looking new Hyphen project previously, and at The Indian Express Paromita Chakrabarti also takes a look and speaks with its founder, in Vivek Shanbhag's Hyphen wants to change how Indian-language literature is read.

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       Aarthi Vadde Q & A

       At the Los Angeles Review of Books People's Choice Literature-author Tom Comitta has a Q & A with We the Platform: How the Internet Changed Twenty-First-Century Literature -author Aarthi Vadde, considering: 'Is it the end of reading or a brand-new era ?' in Literary Web 2.0.
       See also the Columbia University Press publicity page for We the Platform.

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       (American) National Translation Awards longlists

       The American Literary Translators Association has announced the longlists for its National Translation Awards in the two categories, prose and poetry.
       The shortlists will be announced on 6 October, and the winners will be announced on 23 October.

       With moving, etc. I've been even more out of the loop than usual, with a much-reduced inflow of review copies, but I'm still a bit shocked/disappointed that I haven't seen any of these.

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       Angelus Award finalists

       They've announced the seven finalists for this year's Angelus Central European Literature Award, awarded to a work of: "creative prose written by Central European writers and published in Poland" (i.e. translated into or written in Polish), with books from 23 countries eligible for the prize; paying out 150,000 złoty to the winner, it is apparently the most generous Polish literary prize. (It also pays out 40,000 złoty to the translator, if the winning title is a translated work.)
       Among the finalists are: Georgi Gospodinov's Death and the Gardener and Serhiy Zhadan's Arabesques, recently also out in English translation, from Yale University Press; see their publicity page
       The winner will be announced 17 October.

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       Julia Sherwood Q & A

       Comma Press brought out a new anthology in their 'A City in Short Fiction'-series, The Book of Bratislava, earlier this year -- see their publicity page --: ten stories by ten authors, translated by ten translators, and at The Slovak Spectator Nina Kanabová has a Q & A with co-editor Julia Sherwood about it, What can fiction tell us about Bratislava ?

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       Prix Goncourt longlist

       The big French literary prize season now really starts up, as the Académie Goncourt has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the longlist for the biggest of them all, the prix Goncourt.
       Sixteen titles are in the running, including novels by Ananda Devi, Yannick Haenel, Sylvain Prudhomme, and Olivier Rolin.

       Recall, this is a four-round prize, with a shorter longlist (or longer shortlist) to be announced on 6 October, the four finalists on 27 October, and the winner on 3 November.

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       Europese Literatuurprijs

       They've announced the winner of this year's Europese Literatuurprijs, awarded for the best translation of a European novel into Dutch, and it is Josephine Rijnaarts' translation of Cécile Wajsbrot's (translation-themed !) Nevermore.

       Seagull Books brought this out in Tess Lewis' English translation in 2024; see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Cundill Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Cundill History Prize -- "the world's leading award for history writing", paying out (in US dollars, despite being a Canadian-run prize ...) 75,000.

       This, too, is a four-round prize, and this is only the second round, with three finalists to be named (30 September) before they get around to announcing the winner (on 23 October).

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       Baillie Gifford Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction -- thirteen titles.

       The shortlist will be announced 1 October, and the winner on 4 November.

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       Best Japanese fiction ?

       At Metropolis Paul Park offers his list of the All Time Best Japanese Fiction Books. All-time ! Fiction books ! (Limited to ones available in English translation, but still.)
       As he notes (warns?):

The best writing doesn’t just tell you a story. It pulls you under, until you’re not reading about the characters’ lives so much as living alongside them.

By that measure, a teen death-game thriller could beat a Nobel laureate. Murakami, the one name every casual reader can spell, doesn’t necessarily crack my top five. And a few of the “untouchable classics” propping up every other list floating around social media are, frankly, overrated in my book.

       So, yeah, it's ... a list. Still: a lot of books -- thirty -- and the useful division into 'The Top Tier', 'The Overrated-But-Important Middle', and 'Honorable Mentions'.
       And, still: fun to see Battle Royale placed ahead of The Tale of Genji (though the one he really loses me with is Minato Kanae's Confessions). But a lot of solid choices -- Snow Country, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, The Memory Police (and, sure, Dazai's A Shameful Life (his top pick, under the more familiar title of No Longer Human)).
       A lot of the others titles mentioned are also under review at the complete review -- though not the only two that are rated an 'A': Edogawa Rampo's Strange Tale of Panorama Island and Murakami's 1Q84; I realize my credibility takes a (strong) hit with the rating of the latter, but, hey, these are both very much my kind of novels.

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       Newman Prize finalists

       At the MCLC Resource Center Jonathan Stalling reports that the University of Oklahoma Institute for US-China Issues has announced the five finalists for next year's Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, an author prize that they call: "one of the leading international awards devoted exclusively to Chinese-language literature".
       Finalists Fang Fang, Su Tong, Wu Ming-Yi, and Zhang Yueran have all had several works translated into English; Priest apparently has as well, though I am not familiar with her work .....

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       Publishing in ... Poland, 2025

       The Polish National Library has published (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) it's annual overview of Polish publishing for 2025, and at Chytomo they offer a good summary/overview, in Literary fiction is growing in Poland, with thrillers leading the way.
       With 31,595 titles published in 2025 they're up from 2024, but: "below the 2016-2025 annual average of 33,346 titles"
       There were 1020 crime and thriller ('literatura sensacyjno-kryminalna') titles -- up some ten per cent over the previous year, while: "fantasy reached a record 873 titles, up by 112 year over year".
       Among the interesting bits in the official report are tables listing the number of editions for (many) selected authors, Polish (table 23) and in translation (24), also broken down over various periods. (Quick finds: more total editions of Paul Auster (27) than Samuel Beckett (24); Woody Allen (26) than Aeschylus (20); and, yes, Jonathan Carroll (Mr Breakfast, etc.) is popular in Poland -- 121 editions (almost doubling up Paulo Coelho (63)).)

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       Marlon James Q & A

       Marlon James has a new novel out, The Disappearers, which has apparently been getting very good and enthusiastic reviews, and at Electric Literature Shandela Contreras has a wide-ranging Q & A with the author, For Marlon James, Being Incurious Is a Writer's Biggest Sin.

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       'Reviving the spirit of revival'

       An interesting 'The Intellectual Situation'-piece at n + 1 on 'Reviving the spirit of revival', Old Directions, finding that: "The 2010s and this first half of the 2020s have featured a seasonal rotation of the dead and the aging" -- and that:

Old-book reading cycles are, so to speak, nothing new. Certain novelists, like Norman Rush or Charles Portis or Dawn Powell, seem to exist in a perennial state of mid-recuperation. But the old writers most of interest lately share a particular flavor: unknown legends in their time, recently rediscovered. They wrote something great, or at least very good, sometime in the previous century, but for reasons of sexism, or ahead-of-its-time-ism, their work got left behind.

       They point to and discuss many of the publishers -- many local favorites among them -- "joining the rush into the past" -- focusing particularly on NYRB Classics.

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       Premio FIL de Literatura

       They've announced the winner of this year's Premio FIL de Literatura en Lenguas Romances -- a leading Romance-language author prize, paying out US$150,000 -- and it is Gioconda Belli; she'll get to pick up the prize at this year's Guadalajara International Book Fair, which runs 28 November through 6 December.
       Quite a few of her works are available in English.

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       Wendell Berry (1934-2026)

       American poet and author Wendell Berry has passed away; see, for example, obituaries at the AP (by Hillel Italie), The New York Times (by Robert D. McFadden (presumably paywalled)), and the Kentucky Lantern (by Sarah Ladd).

       None of his work is under review at the complete review, but see, for example, the publicity page for his Library of America collections; see also the author page, with links to many of his poems, at the Poetry Foundation.

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       Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature shortlist

       The American University in Cairo Press has announced the shortlist for this year's Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature -- six titles selected from 143 novels submitted from 23 countries.
       The winner will be announced on 11 December.

       Meanwhile, in other Mahfouz-related news, at Cairo Scene they report (in an article datelined today ...) that ‘Naguib Mahfouz Year’ to Launch in Cairo on August 30th, while at ahramonline Dina Ezzat reports Professor of Arabic Literature Khairy Doma talks about the phenology in Mahfouz’s eternal garden.

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       Publishing in ... the Philippines

       At Philstar.com Genory Vanz Alfasain looks Beyond Manila: How small presses are reshaping Philippine literature, as:

In the provinces, however, a quiet literary movement is reshaping the landscape. Independent small presses are emerging across Mindanao and beyond, serving not merely as alternatives to Manila’s established publishing houses, but as vital bridges connecting regional writers directly with readers.

       Sounds good.

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       Translating from ... Korean

       At The Korea Herald Hwang Dong-hee reports how 'Han Kang translator urges a look beyond contemporary trends and domestic hits', in Korean literature is going global. But don't leave its past behind, as Anders Karlsson gave a keynote address at the International Translators' Summit in Seoul on Friday, noting:

While we have seen a broadening of genres and authors being translated, we have also seen a shallowing time horizon when it comes to works selected for translation and a focus on works being successful on the Korean market

       Always good to be reminded that: "There is still so much from Korea's rich literary history that has not been introduced" -- as is also the case with so many other foreign literatures.

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       Otley review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Martin Waddell's 1966 novel, Otley.

       Waddell followed up with three more Otley-novels, before going (much more successfully) in a ... different direction. Still, this was also made into a film -- starring Tom Courtenay and Romy Schneider.

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       Titles submitted for Warwick Prize

       The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation admirably always reveals all the eligible books that have been submitted -- and hence are under consideration -- for the prize, and they've now released the list (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) for this year's prize -- 164 titles from more or less 37 languages (I'd suggest 'Taiwanese Mandarin' might count as 'Chinese', and surely 'Farsi' and 'Persian' are the same ...).
       Translations from French and Spanish predictably lead the way, with 23 each, followed by Japanese (15) and Danish (!) (11). A disappointing only two from Arabic -- and a mere one from, for example, Polish .....

       As I've repeated many, many times: all literary prizes should do this: readers should know what books are actually being considered for the prize -- something that is especially important with, for example, the Booker Prize, where there are limits on how many books a publisher can submit.

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

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       Shanghai Literature Museum

       The Shanghai Literature Museum opened a few days ago; oddly, it does not seem to have its own website (yet ?), but the Xinhua not-quite-an-article at the People's Daily Online, Shanghai Literature Museum showcases the city's literary evolution, achievements, has lots of pictures.
       Apparently (as they repeat constantly on that page ...):

The museum consists of a main building and three historic buildings, featuring five permanent exhibition zones that reveal the history and character of Shanghai literature from different perspectives.

       Certainly looks worth a visit.

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

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       Book-buying 'persuasion'

       In The Guardian John Self looks at everything: 'From cover design to shelf placement and influencer partnerships ... how publishers will persuade you to buy their books this autumn', in How to make a bestseller: insiders reveal the tricks of the book trade.
       He suggests:

And who are the persuaders ? They’re the booksellers, the supermarket stock buyers, the publishing houses and their ranks of marketers and publicists. And, more recently, persuasion often comes from BookTokers and online influencers, social media videos, podcasts and Instagram posts.

       (Conspicuously absent from this list are good old book reviewers, with Self tweeting (at Bluesky): "Three different people I spoke to for this piece said "reviews don't sell books", a comment I omitted for reasons of professional pride." I note that most of my awareness of 'what's out there' and what might be of interest to me does come from review coverage -- not necessarily the reviews/opinions themselves, but in bringing to my attention the existence of these books, and raising my possible interest in them.)
       Depressing, too, to hear that:

“There has been a sense since the mid-2000s that popular fiction readers’ tastes have narrowed,” they continue, “following one or two big trends. That parallels [the rise of] social media. Romantasy and cosy crime are the main areas of current growth.”

       (I am afraid I haven't caught up with these trends yet; apologies to the readers of this site for not being au courant.)

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

       Re-translating The Odyssey

       Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey -- see the W.W.Norton publicity page -- came out nearly a decade ago and got a great deal of attention then, and it has recently been much-discussed again, as apparently a popular movie version of the epic recently came out (see also Wilson's review thereof) but now comes the fascinating news that she's having another go at it; see, for example Hillel Italie's AP report, Emily Wilson’s ‘Odyssey’ became a cultural flashpoint. Now, she’s retranslating the whole thing and Neil Vigdor reporting at The New York Times that The ‘Odyssey’ Scholar Emily Wilson, a Critic of the Movie, Is Redoing Her Translation (presumably paywalled).
       Italie reports:

“It’s a complete retranslation. It’s not a revision of the old version,” Wilson told The Associated Press during a recent Zoom interview from her home in Philadelphia, where she is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. “I’m about halfway through.”

       And at The New York Times she is also quoted:

Wilson said in a statement on Friday that her translation would benefit from not just revisions, but a fresh start.

“I’m now retranslating ‘The Odyssey’ from scratch, with an approach closer to that of my translation of ‘The Iliad,’ using somewhat more lines than the original, enabling more varied word-length and pacing,” she said in the statement. “Also, I’ll have much more extensive end notes.”

       [Personal aside: Yay, more extensive endnotes !]
       A fascinating project -- not entirely unheard of, but certainly very rare. At The New York Times they add:

Katrine Øgaard Jensen, executive director of the American Literary Translators Association, said in an email on Friday that Wilson was venturing into somewhat uncharted territory.

“While it is common to tweak or edit an earlier version of a translation for new editions, it is fairly uncommon to retranslate your own already-published books in translation completely from scratch,” Øgaard Jensen said.

       I am curious how W.W.Norton is going to present/market the translation(s) -- will there be a 'Version 1' and 'Version 2' on the cover to differentiate them ? Or maybe they'll go with a different title altogether for the second version ?
       (The New York Times article also mentions: "Wilson's translation has sold more than a million copies since it was published" -- impressive !)

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

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       Publishing in (and outside) ... Russia

       At Foreign Policy Sarah Chatta and Ksenia Mironova report 'Publishers in exile are supplying contraband books to help Russians evade censorship', in Notes From Russia's Literary Underground (presumably paywalled -- but see e.g. ...).
       As they note:

The Ukraine war has upended the near-total freedom that Russian book publishers enjoyed for the first two decades of President Vladimir Putin’s rule. Not long after the invasion began, Russia’s parliament passed laws outlawing broad categories of information: criticism of the army, texts that challenged “traditional values,” anything deemed “LGBT propaganda.”

The government escalated its efforts in 2024, forming an “expert center” to review published books that it suspects of non-compliance. The review process is intentionally opaque and likely to encourage self-censorship. The center has explicitly outlawed works by Russian and foreign authors alike, including those by Vladimir Sorokin, Hanya Yanagihara, Susan Sontag, and Stephen King. Police have raided bookstores and issued fines to those that display banned titles.

       You'd think they would have learnt some of the lessons from the *success* of the Soviet experiment, but apparently not .....

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

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       AI and translation

       Of course, the subject continues to be endlessly discussed; see now, for example, Aishwarya Khosla reporting in The Indian Express Are literary translators redundant in an age of AI ? Rita Kothari, Arunava Sinha answer while at The Korea Times Lee Hae-rin reports on a recent International Translators' Summit, in AI can translate words, but doesn't bear responsibility, experts say.
       Among the observations in The Indian Express piece:

(W)hile AI firms continue to scan unique books, a major data gap remains in India. “Especially for translations from Indian languages into English or between Indian languages, there are not enough texts for an AI agent to learn from. They need huge, humongous amounts of text… so that their mathematical probabilistic analysis gets sharper and better defined.”

       Sinha also notes: "We do not have enough people who can translate between the non-English Indian languages" -- as/so: "Currently, most translation between Indian languages happens through a bridge language, usually English or Hindi", which is certainly not ideal.

       Meanwhile, in The Korea Times piece, one of the panelists suggests:

“Human translation’s value is not in perfection, but in being able to explain why one translated something in a way and bear the consequences of that choice,” Moon [Ji-hyuk] said. “A good translation is not about producing the correct answer. It is closer to choosing one responsible failure among countless impossible choices.”

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

       Translation Q & A

       Publisher Grove Atlantic has a Q & A with a trio of translators, Found in Translation: A Q&A with Translators Ginny Tapley Takemori, Diane Oatley, and Bruna Dantas Lobato

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

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       Jeanette Winterson in ... China

       Art and Lies-author Jeanette Winterson was among the guests at the recent Shanghai Book Fair, and at China Daily Zhang Kun reports on her apearance there, in Literary icon launches the Chinese edition of her latest work.
       Interesting to see the popularity of her Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit there: published in translation in 2010, it has apparently: "sold more than 1 million copies".

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

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