opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

       Nigerian writers abroad

       AP has an article on how Nigerian authors, both home and abroad, need international fame to sell back home, as:

While Nigeria serves as a muse, many of these new authors must live abroad or tap into Western networks to earn a living from their writing. The international attention helps them secure a reputation in Nigeria and allows their books to be published here too.

       Also worth noting:

Western publishing also overlooks a vast body of non-English writing in a country where more than 150 languages are spoken. Hausa-language literature that is self-published, for instance, has thrived in Nigeria’s north, but is unheard of by non-Hausa speakers

       I hope someone looks into that .....

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       New Review of Contemporary Fiction

       A new issue of the Review of Contemporary Fiction is out, and while the Flann O'Brien-content is not freely accessible online, the reviews are; scroll down to the review section and click away !

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       Dalrymple on the Rushdie-fiasco

       William Dalrymple tries to explain Why Salman Rushdie's voice was silenced in Jaipur, as he gives a run-down of what unfolded at the Jaipur Literature Festival; see also my previous mention, etc.

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       Armenian literature

       At ArmeniaNow Gohar Abrahamyan reports on Granish: Spreading Armenian literary word, as:

Armenian literature enthusiasts on Wednesday unveiled an upgraded version of their literary website that appears popular among reading aficionados and authors.

       Check out the ԳՐԱՆԻՇ-site -- but, yes, the content is practically all in Armenian.

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       Publishing in ... Finland

       Helsingin Sanomat report that WSOY regains number one spot in publishers’ quality comparison -- for what that's worth.
       More interesting, the note that:

The sales of fiction even went up a little bit, despite the fact that the total sales edged down by a couple of percentage points.

       (They report that overall book sales declined 6.7 per cent, so the fiction-plus is significant.)

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       'Europe's narrative bias' ?

       At Eurozine Erik Hammar complains about Europe's narrative bias -- and he may have a point, given that:

Grants for literary translation showed a similar bias. Half of the nearly 500 projects were for translations of texts originally written in English, French or German; Estonian was the source language in 2.

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       Stig Sæterbakken (1966-2012)

       Norwegian author Stig Sæterbakken has passed away; see, for example, (Norwegian) reports in Aftenposten and Dagbladet. (His US publisher, Dalkey Archive Press, report it as a suicide; the Scandinavian press has been more circumspect.)
       See also the complete review review of his Siamese, as well as the information page at Norwegian publisher Cappelen Damm.

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       Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature finalists

       They've announced the finalists for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.
       They alternate between non and fiction, and this year it is, regrettably, again a non year. The prize is also noteworthy for being one of the richest in the US, the $100,000 prize putting the 'big' literary prizes -- Pulitzer, National Book Award, NBCC, etc. -- to (remunerative) shame.

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       E-books in: Africa

       In the Business Daily Wangui Maina reports that African publishers lag in shift to electronic books, as:

Electronic readers are transforming the way people enjoy their books. However, there is very little African published content on the online stores.

       Look for that to change fast.

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       E-books in: Arabic

       In The National Neil Parmar finds that slowly E-books put the accent on Arabic -- another as yet under-developed market that is showing signs of growth.

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       The Cyclist Conspiracy review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Svetislav Basara's novel, The Cyclist Conspiracy.

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       'A World of International Literature'

       A reminder that I will be speaking on 'A World of International Literature: Bringing Foreign Fiction Home' at the Bushnell-Sage Library in Sheffield, Massachusetts at 19:00 tomorrow !

       (Updated): See now also Kate Abbott's profile, One site finds the wide world's tales, in the Berkshire Eagle.

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       Salman Rushdie Q & A

       The Salman-Rushdie-(not-)in-Jaipur (as in: (not) at the Jaipur Literature Festival) continues, as even just a video-appearance by the author was deemed as too provocative; see, for example, Salman Rushdie video cancellation: How the events unfolded at IBN Live.
       Fortunately, NDTV had a lengthy Q & A with him -- and the transcript is available. Highly recommended !

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       Pure takes Whitbread Costa Book of the Year

       They've announced that Pure, by Andrew Miller, has been named the Whitbread Costa Book of the Year.
       Europa Editions will be bringing this out in the US this fall; meanwhile, see the Sceptre publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.co.uk.
       See also reports such as Nick Clark's Literary feud lies behind novel choice for Costa book of the year in The Independent, or Andrew Miller novel Pure wins Costa Book of the Year 2012 in The Telegraph.

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       Cairo International Book Fair

       Good to see that the Cairo International Book Fair is back again (after not being held last year); Tunisia is the guest of honour, and it runs through 7 February.
       Mary Mourad reports on the fair at ahramonline, in Finally here: Cairo International Book Fair opens with cautious optimism -- and notes that the fact that: "make-shift tents were used instead of the traditional display halls" seems to be posing a bit of a problem:

Terrible weather in one of the windiest spots in the city invaded the tents: sand and dust flooded the halls and affected books. Some shelves looked like they've been standing there for ages when it's only this morning they were set up and the books put on display. This was the most disturbing to visitors, who had to handle battered books and survive the unpaved roads piled with sand on their way to the halls.

       So maybe not the ideal conditions this year, but at least the fair is on !

       (Updated - 27 January): See now also Nevine El-Aref's report in Al-Ahram Weekly, Cairo Book Fair breezes in.

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       Chetan Bhagat profile

       The Economist's Prospero thinks: "Chetan Bhagat is a sensation", and profiles the author in Pile 'em high.
       He suggests:

So far his fiction writing has not travelled much beyond India. Yet he believes foreign readers, who are increasingly eager to get a glimpse of ordinary Indian society, are turning to his stories as an easy-to-digest introduction to a bewildering place. He makes reference to other writers with mass appeal ("a little bit Dickens, a little bit Orwell") who inspired him by raising contemporary social concerns through simple, popular writing, with the suggestion that outsiders may warm to such themes in his writing too.

       Well, there are three of his titles under review at the complete review -- Five Point Someone, One night @ the call center, and The Three Mistakes of my Life -- and while he has a certain ... flair ... well, still, most of this is pretty godawful stuff. But, yes, there's nothing like it coming out of India, and one does wish there was. Well, better stuff, but along these more popular and accessible lines.

       Bhagat was also at the Jaipur Literature Festival, and apparently got in a bit of hot water for his take on the Rushdie-mess (see my previous mention); now in the Times of India they report that Bhagat vexed at being misrepresented for his comment.
       However, I'm not sure he's really helping his cause when:

Clarifying his stand, Bhagat said, "I have a balanced viewpoint on the issue. I think sentiments of the author as well as those who were opposing his visit should be taken into consideration."

       A 'balanced viewpoint' may be the way to go when the two sides are both reasonable and rational; that was not the case here. Bhagat's 'balanced' position seems simply evasive (and not exactly daring ...).

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       Editing poetry

       In The Telegraph Sameer Rahim 'investigates the unseen hands behind that most personal and mysterious of literary forms', in The mystery of poetry editing: from TS Eliot to John Burnside.

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       Angela Carter in postcards

       The Observer has an extract from Susannah Clapp's forthcoming A Card From Angela Carter, Angela Carter: a portrait in postcards, which sounds pretty interesting.
       See also the Bloomsbury publicity page, or get your copy from Amazon.co.uk.

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       Nigerian thrillers

       In Vanguard Toni Kan offers part one of his look at The Thriller Tradition in Nigerian Literature.
       How I'd love to get my hands on some of this stuff !

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       The Australian canon

       In the Sydney Morning Herald Michael Heyward finds Australian Classics going to waste, as he thinks local academia is not paying proper attention to Australian literature -- as, for example:

If I tell you that Patrick White's The Tree of Man was prescribed on two courses last year, or The Man Who Loved Children, which MUP recently put back into print, on just one, you start to see the extent of the problem.

       Indeed.

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       The Flowers of War review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Yan Geling's novel of the Nanjing Massacre, The Flowers of War.
       The movie version is also just out -- which also means that readers have to endure Christian Bale on the cover of the US paperback tie-in .....

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       'A World of International Literature'

       If you're in the western Massachusetts neighborhood on Friday you can find me giving a talk on: 'A World of International Literature: Bringing Foreign Fiction Home' at the illustrious Bushnell-Sage Library in Sheffield, at 19:00

       (Yes, I'm known as Mitja in that neighborhood. Come, and maybe I'll tell you why.)

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       National Book Critics Circle Awards finalists

       They've announced the finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards -- and surprisingly many (well, a handful) are under review at the complete review:

• Fiction: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Nonfiction: The Information by James Gleick
• Criticism:
  • Is That a Fish in Your Ear ? by David Bellos
  • Karaoke Culture by Dubravka Ugrešić

       Members can write-in suggestions, and books hitting the 20% threshold get nominated too; it's unclear (to me, at this time) whether any of this year's finalists made the list via that route [updated - 24 January: the NBCC confirms no titles made the 20% threshold this year], but I was pleased to see that two of my write-in votes -- the Bellos and the Ugrešić -- were named finalists. I am a bit disappointed that no translated fiction titles -- which the NBCC is willing to consider, unlike the other major US literary prizes -- made it -- especially since the disappointing Eugenides did.

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       DSC prize for South Asian Literature

       They've announced that Shehan Karunatilaka awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2012 -- i.e. his Chinaman (to be published in the politically apparently hopelessly correct US as The Legend of Pradeep Mathew in May ...) did. Or, as Archana Khare Ghose puts it nicely in the Times of India about this cricket-focused novel: 'Chinaman' hits a sixer.
       See also the Graywolf publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.co.uk, or pre-order your copy from Amazon.com.
       I've been enjoying this; a review should be up eventually.

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       The Rushdie-(not-)in-India mess

       Last week I mentioned how it looked like Salman Rushdie would not be attending the Jaipur Literature Festival because some locals were stirring The Satanic Verses-pot yet again and toadying local politicians did everything they could to help them make their case. There was some back and forth -- will he/won't he come, will he skip the opening and just attend one of the sessions, etc. -- but with apparently to-be-taken-seriously murderous threats conveyed to Rushdie he decided it wasn't worth the risk.
       Outrageously, it now turns out that, as Praveen Swami now reports in The Hindu, 'Rajasthan police invented plot to keep away Rushdie', as:

Local intelligence officials in Rajasthan invented information that hit men were preparing to assassinate eminent author Salman Rushdie in a successful plot to deter him from attending the Jaipur Literature Festival, highly placed police sources have told The Hindu.

       And:

Intelligence sources in New Delhi said no threat to Mr. Rushdie's life had been reported to the Multi-Agency Centre, the Intelligence Bureau's hub at which all terrorism-related threats are discussed at high-level afternoon meetings.

       This is a pretty shocking development -- and the black eyes all around that India and these local governments have suffered have gotten blacker still.
       Meanwhile, several authors read from The Satanic Verses at the festival in protest -- and quickly found themsleves in both legal trouble and, even more outrageously, shooed from the stages and silenced by the festival organizers. As, for example, Vaiju Naravane reports in The Hindu, Four writers who read from The Satanic Verses leave Jaipur to avoid arrest, as:

The four writers who read extracts from Salman Rushdie's banned novel The Satanic Verses -- Hari Kunzru, Ruchir Joshi, Amitava Kumar and Jeet Thayil have all left the Rajasthan capital on the advice of a lawyer, William Dalrymple, the co-Director of the Jaipur Literature Festival told The Hindu here. They would otherwise have risked arrest in the State.

       Disappointing, too, the reaction, by the festival organizers:

Defending himself against charges of weakness and failing to adequately defend Mr. Rushdie, Mr. Dalrymple said: "We stand for the freedom of expression. We support Salman and we will protest, send a petition around, hold a video-conference with him but all that has to be done within the law.

       Oooh, a petition ! A video conference ! But god forbid anyone reads from a banned book (as The Satanic Verses still is in India) -- they can't have that .....
       I understand that Dalrymple & Co. have a strong interest in preserving their cash-cow fiefdom and staying on the good side of the authorities -- regardless of how nutty they are -- but sometimes you have to take a stand; not letting those four continue to read -- indeed, not encouraging them to do so -- is a poor, poor show. (And surely there will be consequences: what author is going to accept an invitation to a 'literary' festival that tramples on ideals of free speech (even where they are 'illegal', as here) like this ? Of course, with the presence of the Oprah at the festival this year one has to wonder whether it hasn't already jumped the shark, completing the transition from literary festival to celeb-fest.)
       (I note also that I can't find any official sort of statement at the official site -- god forbid they'd keep folks informed -- and that the press page is entirely blank .....)

       Meanwhile, in a further show of local nutcase-pandering NDTV reports that Police demand tapes of reading from Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses'; some authors leave LitFest, as:

"We asked organisers today to provide us details and video footage of a session in which the book was allegedly read," Jaipur Police Additional Commissioner Biju George Joseph said.

"We will examine whether the alleged reading from the banned book was done. It is a suo motu action. After examining the matter, appropriate action would be taken against those who were found guilty," he said.

       Suo moto, indeed -- meaning that the police are acting on their own (i.e. they haven't been instructed to investigate), simply because they think this is apparently a good idea .....

       There is, of course, a lot more to all this -- and it continues to unfold; there are press reports galore, too, if you're interested .....

       (Updated): The flood of articles -- especially in the Indian press -- continues; much is of interest and worthwhile, and I direct you in particular to:

• Hari Kunzru's detailed post on Reading from the Satanic Verses in Jaipur (2012) and what exactly happened; among the amusing notes: to get the (very short) passages from The Satanic Verses they read they turned to a pirated text on the Internet. Kunzru also notes: "I believed (and continue to believe) that I was not breaking the law" and also that he: "had no interest in causing gratuitous offense". (Unfortunately, the ones making the fuss about all this seem to be able to find offense very, very easily .....)
  
  
• Sandip Roy's Q & A with William Dalrymple, I had no idea reading from The Satanic Verses is a crime: Dalrymple (from which some of the quotes in my post above are taken)
  
  
• Praveen Swami's leader in The Hindu, Salman Rushdie & India's new theocracy -- who suggests: "India cannot undo this harm until god and god's will are ejected from our public life" (amen to that !) and concludes: "The time has come for Indian secular-democrats to assert the case for a better universe: a universe built around citizenship and rights, not the pernicious identity politics the state and its holy allies encourage."

       Well, if there's some proper discussion of all these issues, maybe some good can come of all this; on the other hand the cowering claims: "We cannot read the text of a banned book. If we read the text of a banned book, we are the mercy of the law" are not a great start: there's no need to apologize for being unaware and then also breaking certain laws, and any law that makes it a crime to read from a work of fiction like The Satanic Verses is certainly one that should be undermined at every turn and in every possible way -- and doing so at a high-profile literary festival is a great place to start. Let's hope they're soon reading it aloud on streetcorners !

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       National Literature Awards - Cyprus

       They've taken their time, but, hey, there's no need for rush in recognizing literary excellence, and now, as the Famagusta Gazette reports:

The results of the competition for the 2010 Literature State Awards were announced today by the Cultural Services of the Ministry of Education and Culture.

       Among the winners: the National Fiction Award went to Δέκα χιλιάδες μέλισσες ('Ten thousand bees') by Antis Rodites (Άντης Ροδίτης):

which according to the announcement recreates memories from Cyprus' recent history, having as its main basis the betrayal of the national visions through ideological clashes that have injured the island's Hellenism.

       (And, yes, as that description may also suggest, these awards, while 'national' are surely a bit ... how shall one put it ? one-sided.)

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       Yasmina Reza profile

       In The Observer Elizabeth Day profiles Yasmina Reza, about her recently made-into-a-film (by Roman Polanski !) The God of Carnage and more.

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       Le prix Mémorable

       They've announced the winner of Le prix Mémorable Initiales -- "un prix qui salue la réédition d’un auteur malheureusement oublié, d’un auteur étranger décédé encore jamais traduit en français, ou d’un inédit ou d’une traduction révisée, complète d’un auteur" (i.e. basically for an overlooked book) -- and it goes to the French translation of John Williams' Stoner (which New York Review Books reissued a few years back; see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com).
       What's particularly noteworthy: the prize-winning French translation is by Anna Gavalda -- yet another instance of a foreign author who also dabbles in translation. While it's true she wasn't one of the top ten bestselling French authors last year -- see my previous mention -- she remains (rather inexplicably, to my mind ...) among the most successful French authors, and -- by American standards -- it's astonishing that someone of her stature would spend her time doing something like this. (No comparable American author would.)

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       Pharmaceutical prize

       Everybody wants a literary prize ! Now also the French Académie nationale de Pharmacie, who have set up Le Grand prix littéraire de l’Académie nationale de Pharmacie (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) -- "destiné à écompenser une œuvre littéraire de type «nouvelles» ou «roman» évoquant le médicament, la pharmacie ou d’autres aspects du domaine de la santé". Okay .....
       Oh, yes: Clément Caliari's Retrait de marché took the prize.

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       We Always Treat Women Too Well review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Raymond Queneau's 1947 novel, We Always Treat Women Too Well.

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       Akutagawa and Naoki awards

       It's that time of year again, when the Japanese Akutagawa and Naoki awards are announced, and, as reported, for example, in The Japan Times:

Novelists Shinya Tanaka [田中慎弥] and To Enjo [円城塔] are sharing the semiannual Akutagawa Award, while the Naoki Prize for popular literature has gone to Rin Hamuro [葉室麟] for his "Higurashi no Ki" [蜩ノ記] ("Chronicle of Cicada"), the selection committees for the two prestigious awards for Japanese literature said.

       Fortunately, things have also been livened up by yet another case of a literary prize judge leaving in a huff (recall Carmen Callil recently quitting the Man Booker International Prize -- post-announcement -- in a similar huff), as Tokyo Gov. Ishihara calls Akutagawa Prize winners 'parade of rubbish,' quits as judge -- so the Mainichi Daily News. All good fun !

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       I-Lit

       In The Jakarta Post Talia Shadwell reports that Lontar working on more literary projects, as:

A Jakarta-based translation organization wants bookworms worldwide to tap into Indonesia's rich literary reserves, and is turning to cyber technology to spread the word.

       That would be the launch of I-Lit: Indonesia Literature in Translation -- with issue one devoted to 'Not Chick-Lit! Writing by Younger Indonesian Women Writers'. (Indonesian pop fiction is notoriously dominated by 'chick-lit' (of a particular, local sort) -- personally I wouldn't mind seeing more of that in translation as well .....)
       Shadwell also reports that:

The journal's launch comes ahead of the Lontar Foundation's February launch of its online digital library.

       I'm a big fan of what the Lontar Foundation does -- but worryingly a Google search currently warns away from the site (hence no link; URL is: http://www.lontar.org) with the warning 'This site may harm your computer'. I hope they get any and all security concerns (real or Google-imagined) fixed soon.

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       Another Humphrey Davies profile

       Just a few days ago I pointed to David Tresilian's Humphrey Davies profile in Al-Ahram Weekly, and now Iman Sherif profiles him too in Gulf News, in Never at a loss for words.

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       Best-selling French novelists, 2011

       Time again for one my favorite annual features: Le Figaro presents Les dix romanciers français qui vendent le plus -- i.e. the ten French-writing novelists whose books (entire output, not a specific title) sold the most copies in 2011. (See and compare to my mention last year.)
       Guillaume Musso surprisingly -- if barely -- displaced perennial best-selling-man Marc Levy (though he didn't quite reach Levy's sales-total from last year), while the biggest surprise is perennial top-tenner -- and last year's fourth-bestselling author -- Anna Gavalda having fallen completely out of the ranks. (I'd say it's not surprising, given what she writes -- see, for example, my review of her French Leave (UK title: Breaking Away) --, but given some of the others who do make the list ... well, she at least can actually pass as a writer.)

       In 2011, the top five were:

1. Guillaume Musso, 1,567,500 copies sold (a nice increase from his third-place, 1,116,000-copy finish last year)
2. Marc Levy, 1,509,000 copies sold
3. Katherine Pancol, 1,213,000 copies sold (down slightly from her 1,357,000-copy second place finish last year -- not that her continuing success seems to have helped get her a translation deal yet) [Updated: A reader kindly alerts me that Pancol reported on her own weblog that her The Yellow Eyes of the Crocodiles will be published by Penguin in 2012; while good to know, this is perhaps the single least interesting piece of literary news you'll find at this site all month ..... (I'm also amused to note that the most extensive official English-language information about this title on the Internet seems to be ... at her Bulgarian publisher's site.)]
4. David Foenkinos -- coming out of nowhere (well, that film version of Delicacy is what did the trick), with an astonishing 967,000 copies sold
5. Fred Vargas, 790,500 copies sold

       Amélie Nothomb scraped in at number nine -- one position better than in 2010, but with only 429,500 copies of her books sold in 2011, compared to 492,000 in 2010. Le Figaro note the inexorable downward trend -- despite the additional title added to her stock every year, which should help pad her total -- suggesting that: "Le public montre des signes de lassitude".
       Also somewhat of a surprise: Delphine de Vigan came in seventh, with 519,500 copies sold. Her Underground Time appeared in English last year, but I couldn't stomach it.

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       Carlo Fruttero (1926-2012)

       The other half of the writing team of Fruttero and Lucentini has now also passed away; see, for example, the note at AGI. (Ridiculously, the only US/UK mass media mention I find so far is in The Guardian, in a letter to the editor (!).)
       Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini remain very popular in most of Europe, but have fared very poorly in English translation, with only three titles published, and despite some critical and popular success -- The Sunday Woman (get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk) went through several editions, including a mass-market paperback one -- never really broke through. They are probably best known for their The D. Case, in which they complete Charles Dickens' The Mystery Of Edwin Drood (get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk); there was also a UK edition of An Enigma by the Sea; get your copy at Amazon.co.uk.
       See also, for example, Glenn Harper's brief discussion of their work from a couple of years ago, as well as some more of Fruttero's (Italian) titles at Mondadori.

       (While I do think Fruttero and Lucentini worthy of more/revived translation attention, I'll also take this opportunity to plug my favorite criminally under-translated Italian crime-writer, Giorgio Scerbanenco -- specifically his Duca Lamberti novels.)

       (Updated): Howard Curtis alerts me to the exciting news that his translation of Scerbanenco's A Private Venus is due out (in the UK) from Hersilia Press in July -- pre-order your copy from Amazon.co.uk ! With more translations likely to follow !

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       E-books in ... India

       Publishing houses like Penguin, HarperCollins' plan to release a slew of e-books -- as Indu Nandakumar and Srividya Iyer write in The Economic Times -- doesn't sound like much of a headline -- except that the publishers they are talking about are the Indian branches, and the fact that e-books have barely registered in the Indian market to date.
       So, for example:

Sayoni Basu, publisher at ACK Media -- which brings out the Amar Chitra Katha titles - says: "The e-book market in India is in the nascent stages. But once the cost of devices reduce, it will be a big market. Also, the mobile market in India is huge, and publishers look for ways to tap that." But HarperCollins feels the devices will probably have to be remodeled and designed keeping the Indian demographics in mind.

       Still, one has to wonder whether they'll be prepared for what is likely, sooner or later, to hit them:

Penguin says entry of e-books will contribute to wider availability of content, but wouldn't affect sales of standard books. "We want the readers to be comfortable with digital content and want it to be available in every possible format. Both physical and e-book markets will flourish. One will not cannibalise the other," Padmanabhan said.

       'One will not cannibalise the other' ..... Famous last words, no ?

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       How to Fix Copyright review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of William Patry's How to Fix Copyright.
       (Note that Patry offers a Disclaimer at the beginning of the book, noting that: "Although I serve as Senior Copyright Counsel to Google Inc., the views in this book are entirely mine, and should not be attributed to Google", etc. etc.)

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       Günter Grass' Christa Wolf eulogy

       The New York Review blog has the first English translation (by David Dollenmayer) of Günter Grass' Christa Wolf eulogy, On Christa Wolf.

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       Akunin-Navalny interviews

       openDemocracy prints mystery writer and translator Boris Akunin's conversation with Alexei Navalny -- in three parts: one, two, and three --, which is "arguably the fullest profile of Russia’s leading opposition politician and covers many of the more uncomfortable aspects of Navalny's politics"

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

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       Бернардијева соба takes NIN Prize

       As, for example, Nemanja Cabric reports at Balkan Insight, Slobodan Tisma Wins Serbia's NIN Literary Prize, as Бернардијева соба ('Bernardi's Room') by Slobodan Tisma (Слободан Тишма) has won the leading Serbian fiction prize (out of 106 entries).

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

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       Translation Prizes/Sebald Lecture

       The Sebald Lecture 2012 -- 'Making The Crossing: the Poet as Translator', by Sean O'Brien will be held on 6 February 2012, and that's also when they will be handing out the Society of Authors-administered 'Translation Prizes' -- six prizes for translations from various languages.

       Only two of the Translation Prize winners have been revealed so far, as best as I can tell:

        - The Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, which goes to Khaled Mattawa for his translation of Adonis: Selected Poems; see the Yale University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

        - the Vondel Translation Prize (for translation from the Dutch/Flemish), which goes to Paul Vincent for his translation of Louis Paul Boon's My Little War; see the Dalkey Archive Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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

       Rushdie to stay away from Jaipur festival

       A week ago I mentioned that some pressure was being exerted to keep Salman Rushdie away from his scheduled appearance at the Jaipur Literary Festival, which starts in a few days; now, in a shocking development, Akhilesh Kumar Singh reports in the Times of India that, shamefully, Salman Rushdie persuaded to stay away from Jaipur Literature Festival.
       A black day for India, and for the festival -- and the 'Times View' at the end of the article sums it up well enough:

Salman Rushdie's decision to not attend the Jaipur Literary Festival sends out all the wrong signals.

       Meanwhile, see also Nilanjana S. Roy's fine piece in the Business Standard, Listening to Rushdie, in which she notes:

The argument for welcoming Rushdie to Jaipur is a simple one. His early works, which include Midnight's Children, Shame and The Satanic Verses, are unsettling and uncomfortable, and we need that discomfort much more in 2012 than we need the safe formulas of the new bestsellers.

       Indeed.

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

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       דרוש לחשן takes Sapir Prize

       As, for example, Maya Sela reports in Haaretz, Sapir literary prize for 2011 awarded to Haggai Linik.
       That's one of the major Israeli literary prizes -- worth NIS 150,000 (almost US $40,000), and with the winning book to be translated into "Arabic and one other language of his choice".
       The winning title was דרוש לחשן ('Prompter Needed'), the author Haggai Linik (חגי ליניק); see also the publisher's publicity page.

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

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       Roberto Bolaño story, and more

       In this week's issue of The New Yorker, there's a nice piece by Roberto Bolaño, Labyrinth -- and an interesting Q & A at their weblog, The Book Bench, as Willing Davidson asks Bolaño's "first American publisher, Barbara Epler of New Directions" about publishing Bolaño.

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

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       Purgatory review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Tomás Eloy Martínez's last novel, Purgatory.
       Martínez, who died in 2010, is woefully underappreciated (and under-translated) in the United States -- despite having taught at Rutgers for ages -- and it's great to see this available in English. (Interestingly, while the UK edition is a hardcover, in the US they only dared to go the paperback-original route (despite Bloomsbury publishing both here and there).)

       Just how much we're missing is suggested by Martínez's mention of one of his earlier works, La mano del amo, in the novel (Martínez is a narrator-character in Purgatory):

I wrote a novel twenty years ago in which cats were stealing my character's senses; by the time he died, he had none left. Now it feels like he's come back for revenge.

       How could you not want to read an author like this ?

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

       Jaipur Literary Festival

       In The Hindu Pragya Tiwari writes about The making of the Festival -- meaning, of course, the Jaipur Literary Festival, which starts up in a few days.
       And at The New York Times' India Ink weblog, Sruthi Gottipati introduces the Jaipur Literature Festival: Crowds, Celebrities and the Written Word.

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

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       Reading in ... Kolkata

       In the Times of India Priyanka Dasgupta finds that in Kolkata (Calcutta) We read books but don't buy them, as:

Kolkata loves books, talks books, but doesn't buy enough. That's the irony that most publishers and even authors have had to come to terms with today.

       I'm not sure what 'enough' means ... and this also seems a problem largely limited to English-language books, which in turn means it is largely an issue of (over-)pricing:

Bengali literature sells well here. But when it comes to leisure reading where books are priced above Rs 400, people think twice before buying. In contrast, the easy availability of Bengali literature at much cheaper prices makes Kolkata a big patron in that sector

       Obviously, English-language books are sold at premium prices -- with the general English-speaking readership in India more likely to have the available disposable income and thus willing/eager to accept these premium prices. Good for the Bengalis for not playing along.

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

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       Controversial book art

       At the Berlin Biennale Czech artist Martin Zet has issued a call to collect a lot of books so that he can make art out of them.
       The book in question is a controversial one:

With over 1.3 million copies sold Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany gets rid of itself) by Thilo Sarrazin is the most successful political non-fiction publication of a German author of the post-war period. The Czech artist Martin Zet now starts the campaign "Deutschland schafft es ab" (Germany gets rid of it) in the framework of the 7th Berlin Biennale.

       What's the plan ?

The artist calls to collect at least 60,000 copies, which is in fact less than 5 percent of the total edition. The books will be shown in an installation at the 7th Berlin Biennale; after the exhibition they will be recycled for a good purpose.

       Apparently that 'recycling'-idea has some people worried -- as, for example, JTA puts it: German artist's plans to collect books likened to Nazi book burnings. (Funny how someone they refer to in the piece itself as "Czech artist Martin Zet" is turned into a 'German artist' for the Nazi-invoking headline .....)

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

       Đội gạo lên chùa is Viet Nam Writers Association Book of the Year

       As Vietnam Net reports in Veteran author wins Book of the Year prize, Đội gạo lên chùa by Nguyễn Xuân Khánh has been named the Viet Nam Writers Association Book of the Year; see also, for example the (Vietnamese) report in Tuổi Trẻ.

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

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       Humphrey Davies profile

       In Al-Ahram Weekly David Tresilian profiles Humphrey Davies: translator of Arabic literature.
       Interestingly, he says:

However, for the time being I think I am the only translator who makes his living exclusively from literary translation. Fortunately, there is enough demand for that to keep me very busy.

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

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       Writing in ... Pakistan

       In The Globe and Mail, Stephanie Nolen writes that In Pakistan, a national literature struggles to be born

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

       Literature and the revolution, one year on

       In The Guardian they had several Arabic writers react to the Arab uprisings, and now, a year later, 'they return to reflect on an extraordinary year', in Revolution in the Arab world.

       Meanwhile, at Qantara.de Stephan Milich considers 'Literature and the Arab Spring' -- and questions such as: 'What subversive role did literature play in the run-up to the uprisings in the Arab world ? And should prose, poetry and other literary genres devote themselves entirely to the "revolution" or maintain a critical distance ?' -- in An Uprising of Words.

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

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       Birdbrain review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Johanna Sinisalo's Birdbrain.

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

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