opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

       The Second Sex translations

       Widely linked-to already, but well worth a look: Toril Moi writes about the new (and the old) translation(s) of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex in the London Review of Books, in The Adulteress Wife.
       Some horrifying stuff about how publishers (oh, how I love and admire them ...) treat translations -- as, for example, with regards to the first translation:

It was the publisher, not Parshley, who insisted on cutting the text; in the end he cut 145 of the original 972 pages, or almost 15 per cent of the original.

       And, of course: "Demand for a new translation gathered force, but the publishers resisted."
       And while they finally were convinced (and bribed -- they even got the French government to kick in a translation subsidy, as if they weren't earning enough off this title ...) to give it another go:

Now we have the new translation. Many will turn to it with high hopes. Is it the definitive translation? Does it convey Beauvoir’s voice and style? Unfortunately not.

       Read on -- pretty shocking stuff (so much for quality-control on the part of publishers ...). What's sad, of course, is that this will reflect badly on all translation-endeavors, and make many publishers even less inclined to have a go at some.

       Pre-order the new translation by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (or don't ...) at Amazon.com,or get your copy at Amazon.co.uk. Or get your copy of the old, radically cut version at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Classroom censorship in Israel

       Following American examples, protests by parents of high school students in Israel have led to Yona Wallach's "sexually explicit poems" being removed from classroom reading lists; see Maya Sela and Or Kashti reporting Israeli author: Censorship turning Israel into mini-Iran in Haaretz. God forbid teenagers should be exposed to mention of ... genitals.
       Among those who disapprove of those actions is author Yoram Kaniuk -- who goes so far as to say:

"We are gradually becoming a mini-Iran," said Kaniuk. "Everyone talks about the threat of Iran's bombs and missiles, but they forget that the worst thing is this lousy religion, which is flourishing nowadays. They're taking over our lives. It's terrible what they've done to the Jewish religion. Yona Wallach is a terrific poet."

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       E-books in ... Estonia

       The Baltic Review summarizes an article claiming that Estonia's literature defies the electronic offensive, as:

The chances that anyone apart from a couple of Estonians living in exile will read an Estonian-language book are next to zero. True lovers of Estonia prefer to put in a personal appearance and visit us here to experience this rare language in its spoken form.

... The market for Estonian authors is and remains Estonian, and it makes no great difference whether the works are in electronic form or in paper form.

       Given how widespread the availability of (illegal) downloads of huge amounts of Scandinavian literature is I don't think the Estonians should get too cocky .....

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       E-books in ... North Korea

       Who would have thought it ? But in The Korea Times Kim Tong-hyung reports that North Korea Has Electronic Books.
       Yes:

North Korea, the planet's deepest information void, appears to be dabbling with electronic books (e-books)

       And:

"North Korea will have less complications surrounding copyright issues compared to the South, and with the government pushing the project directly, the country seems to have acquired a wealth of e-book content over a relatively short period of time," Kim told Yonhap News.

       ('Less complications' means, of course, that they'll simply ignore copyright.)

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       The past hundred reviews ...

       Another century-mark at the complete review -- there are now (over) 2400 reviews -- and so it's time for another (statistical) look at what was reviewed in the last batch of a hundred.

       Once again, I tallied up how many foreign languages the last hundred reviewed titles were written in -- see the now updated list.
       Books originally written in 26 different foreign languages (i.e. not including English) were reviewed, the most languages ever over any 100-book span -- and fifteen of those were represented by two or more titles. Two were first-time languages: Latin and Vietnamese, and there are now a total of 52 languages that books under review have been written in.
       Of the past 100 titles, 24.5 books were originally written in English, 14 each in French and Spanish, 7 in Arabic and 5 in Dutch.

       I also updated the Author-sex breakdown of books under review, with considerably less impressive results: only a ridiculous 15.5 of the past 100 titles were written by women (bringing the total to 349 out of 2400 (14.54 per cent)). Not very impressive at all.

       (Oddly, it was the same title that was responsible for both the "0.5" division (English and German) on the language list, and on the male/female list: "Dearest Georg" The Letters of Elias, Veza, and Georges Canetti 1933-1948 (wherein many of Veza's letters were originally written in English).)

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       First Sheikh Zayed Book Award winners

       As Middle East Online reports, the winners in two of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award categories have been announced -- and I like the way they put it:

The Sheikh Zayed Book Award for "Literature" went this year to Hafnaoui Baali from Algeria for his book Comparative Cultural Criticism- an Introduction (published by Arab Scientific Publishers, Inc 2007)

       Ah, yes, "literature" .....

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       Writing in ... Hawaiian

       The books aren't very literary, but still, it's good to hear that, as Lee Cataluna reports in the Honolulu Advertiser, Books in Hawaiian language fill a void.

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       Solar review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Ian McEwan's forthcoming (and much-anticipated) Solar.

       Interesting to note that both McEwan and Martin Amis (in his just-published (in the UK ...) The Pregnant Widow) mention 'dysmorphia' right at the start of their new novels: the old geezers are apparently really preoccupied with the physical decline that accompanies aging.
       (McEwan: "An early sign of Beard's distress was dysmorphia"; Amis: "Body Dysmorphic Syndrome, or Perceived Ugly Disorder, was what he hoped he'd got".)

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       'In Jail with Nazım Hikmet'

       In Today's Zamaan they report on the new volume, 'In Jail with Nazım Hikmet' by Orhan Kemal and Bengisu Rona

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       Profile: Peter Carey

       Peter Carey's Parrot and Olivier in America is now out (in the UK ...; see the Faber publicity page or get your copy at Amazon.co.uk (or pre-order at Amazon.com)), and in The Telegraph Tom Leonard profiles him.

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       Profile: Dan Rhodes

       Dan Rhodes has some new book out, and in the Independent on Sunday Katy Guest profiles him, in Dan Rhodes: 'Revenge is why I write'.
       I probably should have a look at the new book, but so far Rhodes has done little for me; see also the reviews of Anthropology and The Little White Car (which he published under the name of 'Danuta de Rhodes' -- ha, ha) at the complete review.

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       Skidelsky on the anti-Amis attitude

       There's a reasonable piece to be written about 'Why the literary world has still got it in for Martin Amis' (and why it may have gotten it wrong) but William Skidelsky's take in The Observer is not it.
       Skidelsky's 'reading' of the anti-Amis arguments is so limited as to be pointless. Typically, he dismisses Amis' recent euthanasia comments (see my previous mention) in a parenthetical 'observation': "he jokingly told one interviewer that "booths" should be erected for the purpose on street corners", and suggests (again parenthetically) that "references to his alleged Islamophobia" are solely: "based on his notorious off-the-cuff comment that the Muslim world needs to get its own "house in order"".
       'Jokingly', 'off-the-cuff' -- yeah, right.
       As if that weren't enough, Skidelsky actually suggests stuff like:

Quite apart from being unfortunate for Amis, there is another danger in all this. Younger writers may look at the fate that has befallen him and tell themselves that there is little value in striving to engage with the present, no point in being outspoken.

       Engaging with the present ? I've just started The Pregnant Widow, but after the short introductory section from 2006 isn't it set in 1970 ? Isn't it sub-titled 'Inside History' ? And isn't Amis' problem not that he's outspoken but that he is a super-self-obsessed publicity whore who is so caught up with his ways with words that he doesn't always think through what he's spouting ?
       (Hey, I'll read anything he writes -- even if I often disagree with his reasoning -- but could he just stop with the profiles and interviews ? If there's a lesson for younger writers here, it is: focus on the writing -- and think before you speak (i.e. don't spout half-thought-through opinions) on current events and conditions (better yet: just shut up ...); Amis' problem seems to be that he's so pleased with himself and the way that he can express himself that he largely overlooks the substance (or lack thereof) of his statements.)

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       The Hindu Literary Review

       The February issue of The Hindu's Literary Review is now available online.

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       Ladislaus Löb interview

       At hlo they have an interview with Ladislaus Löb -- who translated Zsolt Béla's Nine Suitcases.

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       Kader Abdolah profile

       In The Guardian Damian Whitworth profiles Novelist Kader Abdolah on attacking the Iranian regime from his Dutch exile.
       (See also the complete review review of My Father's Notebook.)

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       De verstekeling review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Maarten Asscher's De verstekeling.

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       Australia-Asia Literary Award: one-year wonder

       After all the hype about the big-money (A$110,000) Australia-Asia Literary Award it winds up being one-and-done: they've pulled the plug on it, after awarding it only once.
       The official press release conveniently buries the lead: Literary review strengthens Western Australian Premier's Book Awards they emphasize:

Culture and the Arts Minister John Day said he made the decision to strengthen the successful and popular WA Premier's Book Awards (PBA), while the Australia-Asia Literary Award (AALA) would be discontinued.

       See also, for example, the ABC News report, Rich literary prize dumped.

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       Writing and reading in ... Spanish

       In The Believer Daniel Alarcón engages in a roundtable discussion with Eduardo Halfon and Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez. As Alarcón explains, these:

two fluent, native English speakers raised in the United States, have both chosen Spanish as their literary language; something that I'll admit struck me at first as crazy. I mean, isn't writing fiction hard enough already?

       (Which, quite honestly, seems to me like an extraordinarily silly thought to entertain.)
        Among the interesting discussion-points is that of reading certain authors in Spanish versus in English. Alarcón, for example, notes:

Juan Rulfo. Read him in English and was like, What's the big deal? Read him in Spanish and couldn't write for three weeks, you know what I'm saying?

       Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez goes even further:

I tried reading Rulfo in English. This was after I read him in Spanish. The short stories of El llano en llamas were OK in translation. Pedro Páramo was not. I don't think I've ever made it past the second page of that translation.

       (Which translation ? Both ?)

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       Sami Rohr Prize winners

       I missed this when they announced it over a week ago, but they've named the winners of the 2010 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. Yes, winners:

While meeting last month to decide the winner of the $100K Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the judges found themselves unable to eliminate one of the two outstanding final candidates. After much deliberation, an unusual solution was found.

The two contenders would share the top honor, the runner-up category would be eliminated, and the monies allocated for the winner and runner-up prizes would be combined into one award, to be split by the two winners, with each author taking home $62,500.

       The winners are Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce (by Sarah Abrevaya Stein; see the Yale University Press publicity page, or get your copy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) and Jewish Renaissance in the Russian Revolution (by Kenneth B. Moss; see the Harvard University Press publicity page, or get your copy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk).

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       Fawwaz Haddad's The Unfaithful Translator

       There's a lengthy piece on Fawwaz Haddad's International Prize for Arabic Fiction-shortlisted The Unfaithful Translator by Youssef Rakha in this week's Al-Ahram Weekly, The Butterfly Dream.
       (See also the Q & A with the author in The National.)

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       The Union Jack review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Kertész Imre's 1991 story, The Union Jack, just out in English from Melville House.

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       Tom McCarthy on Jean-Philippe Toussaint

       In the London Review of Books Tom McCarthy reviews Jean-Philippe Toussaint's Running Away and La Vérité sur Marie -- but, in fact, looks at all his work, mentioning also that:

All his books are short, and the shortest of all is La Mélancholie de Zidane, a ten-page essay which Minuit, charmingly but quite properly, published in 2006 as a stand-alone book.

       The English-language publishers balked at publishing it separately, but it can be found in Dalkey Archive Press' Best European Fiction 2010 (see their publicity page, or get your copy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk).

       Lots of Toussaint coverage at the complete review, too: see reviews of:

• The Bathroom
• Camera
• Making Love
• Monsieur
• Running Away
• Television

       (And see also the review of McCarthy's Remainder.)

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       Lawrence Venuti profile

       At Temple University they find CLA professor at center of translation renaissance, profiling Lawrence Venuti and his recent translation of Ernest Farrés' Edward Hopper (which I expect to review eventually).
       See also the publicity pages at Graywolf and Carcanet, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Local literature in ... Indonesia

       In The Jakarta Post Oyos Saroso H.N. reports on the 2010 Rancage Literary Awards, 'which recognise outstanding literature written in local languages' (Sundanese, Javanese, Balinese, and Lampung), in Rancage Literary Awards go to local short story writers
       Apparently there's limited support for the Lampung literati:

The director of the Jung Foundation on Lampung heritage, Christian Heru Cahyo, said the provincial administration had yet to play a role in developing Lampung literature and culture or help writers get their work written published.

"The Lampung provincial administration is too busy with the 'Visit Lampung Year program'," he said.

"There has been no real effort to preserve Lampung literature and culture. Moreover, no magazine or newspaper runs Lampung works."

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       Arno Geiger interview

       There's an interesting (German) interview with Arno Geiger in the Falter.
       He won the German Book Prize with Es geht uns gut a couple of years ago, but the interviewer notes that it was not one of the two books his publisher submitted for the prize (like the Man Booker, the German Book Award ridiculously lets publishers decide which books are in the running, and (also like the Man Booker) only allows two submissions per house). The book was one of the 'called in' titles -- and I suppose one could argue that that proves their system (and the Man Booker's ...) works, but I think the system makes it far too easy to overlook worthy texts.
       Interesting also to learn that the book was a big success (20,000 copies sold before the prize) -- and that Hanser did not have nearly such high expectations for it.

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       Translating in ... Germany (and the Netherlands)

       At Publishing Perspectives Siobhan O'Leary looks at the consequences of a recent court ruling on remuneration for German translators (they "are now entitled to claim a percentage of the proceeds of books that sell more than 5,000 copies") -- and takes a glimpse at the Dutch model, too -- in Translators say, "Show Me the Monnaie"

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       Point Omega review-overview

       The most recent addition to the complete review is a review-verview of Don DeLillo's new book, Point Omega.

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       Hans Magnus Enzensberger gets Sonning Prize

       As, for example, Deutsche Welle reports, Hans Magnus Enzensberger has received the Danish Sonning Prize. Worth 134,000 euros ($187,000 -- or DKK 1,000,000), the biennial prize is 'Denmark's most respected literary award' (though in fact the recipients include all sorts of non-literary figures -- it's a weird list).

       Enzensberger's The Silences of Hammerstein was recently translated (by Martin Chalmers) and brought out by Seagull Books; see their publicity page, or that of US distributor the University of Chicago Press, or get your copy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Battle of the Golden Calfs

       Recently Open Letter and Russian Life concurrently brought out new, complete translations of Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov's The Golden Calf (The Little Golden Calf in the case of Russian Life) -- the version under review at the complete review is the Open Letter one -- and in a (now successful) bid to attract attention Russian Life posted a ... provocative piece on One satirical novel, two seriously different versions. It has provoked Chad Post to respond at Three Percent.
       I look forward to a ... healthy debate ensuing.

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       Translation-panel

       Melville House's series on 'Publishing in the age of blah blah blah' continues tonight (at 19:00) with a panel on What does the future hold for translated books? where:

three of America's leading independent publishers speak with Melville House co-publisher Dennis Loy Johnson about their vision for translated books: Barbara Epler of New Directions, Dan Simon of Seven Stories, and Edwin Frank of New York Review of Books Classics.

       Sounds like it should be fairly interesting.

       (Updated - 7 February): Sorry to have missed it (few things could keep me away, but I couldn't pass up the alternative on offer), but see now Arnon Grunberg's report at Words without Borders.

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       Burma/Myanmar review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of David I. Steinberg's Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know.

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       Literary fashion

       Yes, 'Twenty designers from Spain, Belgium and Hungary present dresses inspired by the works of twenty Spanish, Belgian and Hungarian writers' in 20 suits for Europe: a dialogue between fashion and literature.
       As ridiculous as it sounds, the choices of authors are pretty impressive:

María Zambrano, Miguel Delibes, José Ángel Valente, Antonio Gamoneda and Carmen Martín Gaite were some of the Spanish authors included in the show. Hungarian and Belgian literature was also included using recreations of the works of Sándor Márai and Hugo Claus, respectively.

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       February issues

       The February issue of Open Letters Monthly is now available online.
       Among the pieces: Greg Waldmann's review of Joris Luyendijk's way under-reviewed People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East.

       The February issue of Words without Borders is now also out -- '(Worth) Ten Thousand Words, Part IV: International Graphic Novels'.
       Fortunately, there's also some additional content -- including Sony Labou Tansi's play, His Majesty: The Stomach. (There are three works by Tansi under review at the complete review; see, for example, The Antipeople.)

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       German critics' choices

       The February SWR-Bestenliste -- where thirty German literary critics select the best recent releases -- is now out.
       A surprise number one is Leonid Dobychin's (Леонид Иванович Добычин) The Town of N (Город Эн).
       Northwestern University Press came out with an English translation a while back; see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk -- or read it in the original.

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       Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize

       A reminder that the Inaugural Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize is being handed out in New York, at 18:00, tonight:

With the aim of elevating awareness and engendering appreciation of Spanish literature in the United States, this triennial $10,000 prize has been created by the Cultural Committee and Board of Directors of Queen Sofía Spanish Institute to honor the best English-language translation of a work of fiction written in Castilian by a Spanish author and published by an American imprint.

       The first prize goes to Edith Grossman for her translation of Antonio Muñoz de Molina's A Manuscript of Ashes; see also the official press release (warning ! dreaded pdf format !).

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       Tomás Eloy Martínez (1934-2010)

       Tomás Eloy Martínez has passed away; see, for example, the El País obituary.
       Far too little of his work has been translated into English; the only work under review at the complete review is The Tango Singer. (Recall also that he was a (surprise) shortlisted candidate for the 2005 Man Booker International Prize.)

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       Martin Amis coverage

       On and on it goes: Tom Chatfield's interview with Martin Amis (in which he disses J.M.Coetzee) is now available at Prospect, while Stephen Moss also chats with him in a profile in The Guardian.
       Meanwhile, at The First Post Nigel Horne reports that:

There were strong rumours this afternoon that Martin Amis has pulled out of the upcoming Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival following a scathing review of his new novel, The Pregnant Widow, from the Sunday Times itself.

       I find it hard to believe that Amis is that pathetically petty, but who knows .....

       (I was also amused to hear that Amis hasn't seen Ian McEwan's Solar yet, saying: "No, I haven't, no. It’s very heavily embargoed." -- given how many copies are floating around (even I have one -- and I've had the damndest time keeping myself from posting a review already (it'll be up soon)). (Pre-order your copy of Solar from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.) )

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       Filling in the 'missing' Booker

       With time to fill until it's time to announce the longlist for this year's Man Booker, the Man Booker-folk unveil another stunt: The Lost Man Booker Prize announced. The prize switched from being retrospective to one for best novel of the (current) year in 1971, which means that books published in 1970 were never put up for the prize -- a situation which they're now trying to rectify.
       It's a decent longlist -- though what they don't mention is that they don't play by the (Man) Booker rules -- i.e. didn't rely on publishers to nominate the books, and didn't limit publishers to two submissions apiece .....
       The only titles under consideration that is under review at the complete review is the great Patrick White's The Vivisector.
       See also Arifa Akbar's Judges to name winner of 'lost' Booker Prize in The Independent.

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       The Patience Stone review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Atiq Rahimi's Prix Goncourt-winning novel, The Patience Stone, now available in English.

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       Macmillan v. Amazon.com

       As widely reported, Amazon.com has both unilaterally removed all Macmillan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Tor; Picador, etc.) 'Kindle' books from its site, and currently no longer sells any Macmillan print titles directly (the latter, however, are still available via the site, through third-party sellers).
       Disappointingly, neither party has posted information about this dispute at their respective sites -- you'd figure Amazon would have a press release, or mention it on their daily blog, but, no, they'd rather keep their customers in the dark. Unacceptable.
       While the Macmillan site also bafflingly posts no information, Publishers Lunch has made a paid advertisement from Macmillan freely accessible which covers the basics.
       Apparently the dispute has to do with the terms Macmillan offered Amazon for the sale of e-versions of its books, with Macmillan insisting on an 'agency model':

Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers.

       Amazon does not seem to be a fan of the agency model. And while it's certainly their right not to agree to those terms and hence to not offer Macmillan e-books on their Kindle platform, by also de-listing all Macmillan print-books they seem to have overreached. Well, it's a pure power play -- and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.
       What impresses about the whole Amazon-enterprise is that it has made it easy to purchase almost everything that gets published; by not selling Macmillan print titles they would seem to be undermining their own brilliant retailing model. Certainly, they can afford to, but consumers should not be thrilled -- especially since print titles are, in essence being held hostage to an e-books debate that few people (Kindle owners, and no one else) have much vested interest in. Yes, Amazon is looking to the long term, but one has to hope that this turns into the PR disaster for them that it should.
       (It's worth noting that Amazon has done this before: in 2004 they de-listed German publisher Diogenes' books from Amazon.de (in a conflict that at least centered on terms for print titles ...); see, for example, Rüdiger Wischenbart's piece in Publishers Weekly, Battle of the titans: Amazon.de de-lists top German-language publisher from its Web site.)
       My preference is for the market to decide: retailers should be free to price products however they want (well, with some drive-the-competition-out-of-business-underselling prohibitions, etc.). Macmillan's agency model obviously limits retailers' ability to set prices (it looks like a backdoor way for the publisher to regain complete control over pricing), which I'm not thrilled by, but if the pricing is not realistic presumably consumers won't play along; I have no problem with Amazon not being willing to agree to whatever split Macmillan is proposing for e-titles and they're welcome to negotiate about that -- but holding the print books hostage, in effect, is bad, bad form, and they should suffer for it.
       It's tremendously annoying that while this all has to do with just a sliver of the market -- not even the whole e-book market, just Amazon's silly (if apparently fairly popular) proprietary Kindle e-books -- Amazon has made turned this into a bigger brawl than need be. Of course, they probably had to do that, in order to try to force Macmillan's hand.
       Amazon is presumably feeling cocky after their stunning fourth quarter results (which it's hard not to be impressed by), but flexing their muscles in this way looks far too much like abusing a market-dominant position. As an 'Amazon.com associate' (i.e. getting commissions on all sales that result from click-throughs to the Amazon site from this one) I have a strong interest in Amazon's continued success -- but tactics like this do nothing to make them more attractive to consumers, and I am deeply disturbed by them. For now, Amazon is still the most attractive such commercial partner (in no small part because of its international reach); antics like this, however, make me think twice.

       (Updated - 1 February): As widely reported, at the 'Kindle community forum' yesterday The Amazon Kindle team says:

We have expressed our strong disagreement and the seriousness of our disagreement by temporarily ceasing the sale of all Macmillan titles. We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.

       Few, however, have made much of the fact that while Amazon admits: "we will have to capitulate" they did not immediately do so; in fact last I checked, some eight hours after this message was posted, Macmillan titles were still not available from Amazon.com.
       It's no surprise that Amazon 'capitulates', but it begs the question why they went through (and continue to go through, at least for a little while longer) this circus. Some have suggested it's meant to provide cover for them to raise e-book prices generally; we'll see.
       In any case: it's not great victory for consumers: Macmillan's 'agency' model isn't very appealing, either .....

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       There's Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Cao Naiqian's There's Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night.
       (This is one of the longlisted titles for the Best Translated Book Award; see the full list (with links to titles under review).)

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

       Profile: Ruth Padel

       In The Times Ginny Dougary talks with Ruth Padel on Derek Walcott, ‘dirty tricks’, and the worst mistake of her life.

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

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       Profile: Don DeLillo

       Don DeLillo has a new book coming out (Point Omega; get your copy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) and in the Wall Street Journal Alexandra Alter profiles him, in What Don DeLillo's Books Tell Him. (This is billed as: 'a rare in-person interview' -- so expect no fewer than a dozen of these over the next month or two .....)
       Apparently:

His approach to writing borders on obsessive. He fixates on the shapes of letters and words, and judges each phrase for its visual appearance as well as its rhythm and clarity.

       Okay .....

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

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       Richard Powers Q & A

       In her Small Talk-column in the Financial Times Anna Metcalfe talks to Richard Powers.
       Among the questions:

What work do you wish you'd written?
Tom Stoppard's [play] Arcadia. I'd trade my soul for it.

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

       Bolaño's El Tercer Reich

       The Spanish edition of Roberto Bolaño's posthumous El Tercer Reich is due out from Anagrama next week (see their publicity page), and at El mundo Matías Néspolo offers some background and introductory information, in Bolaño salvaje. Usefully, they also have an excerpt (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) -- the first chapter.
       Admirably, Random House's Vintage Español is actually publishing this in an American (Spanish) edition in a timely manner (in early March): see their (useless) publicity page, or pre-order your copy from Amazon.com. No word as to when the English translation will appear. (We shouldn't complain too much: New Directions is publishing new Bolaños at a frenetic pace this year, so there should be enough to tide us over .....)

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

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       Karen Blixen's Nobel near-miss

       Nobel archives are opened up after fifty years, so we now get the story behind the 1959 prize (awarded to Salvatore Quasimodo).
       The Copenhagen Post sums things up, in Scandinavian roots robbed Blixen of Nobel Prize.
       Apparently:

The author best known for her work Out of Africa was in the final four for the 1957 prize, but was the favourite two years later in 1959. However, according to documents from the Nobel Archive in Stockholm, Blixen was not awarded the prize in 1959 -- despite having the committee's majority support.

       Interesting to learn:

In 1959, Blixen was in the running against 55 other authors from around the world, including Graham Greene, André Malraux and John Steinbeck. When the Committee whittled down the list to just four, Blixen's name was the top choice.

       (Greene was in the running ? But who were the final four ?)
       But:

the Committee's final member, Eyvind Johnson, lobbied for Italian candidate and eventual winner Salvatore Quasimodo to take the prize, saying that Scandinavian authors had won the literature award four times as many times as those of other nationalities.

       You'll remember, of course, that in what now turns out to be a remarkable bit of Scandinavian irony, the 1974 prize was shared by ... Eyvind Johnson. (No complaints from him about Scandinavian over-representation that time, curiously enough .....)

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

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       CIBF 2010

       In Al-Ahram Weekly Gamal Nkrumah previews the 2010 Cairo International Book Fair, in Russian razzmatazz (as Russia is this year's guest of honor).
       Apparently:

Novelist and playwright Vladimir Sorokin's works, too, have influenced Arab readers.

       Who knew ?
       Who would have guessed ?

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

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       J.D.Salinger (1919-2010)

       As you've no doubt heard, and can read about everywhere, J.D.Salinger has passed away.
       See, for example, Charles McGrath's obituary in The New York Times -- or, preferably, check out his stories at The New Yorker: find links to all of them here.

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

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       The Cleanest Race review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of B.R.Myers on How North Koreans See Themselves -- and Why It Matters, in The Cleanest Race.

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

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