opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

       Booker Prize longlist

       They've announced the thirteen-title longlist for this year's de-manned Booker Prize, chosen from 151 (regrettably unrevealed) novels
       One of the titles is actually under review at the complete review -- My Sister, The Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite -- and while I haven't seen any of the others, there are several I do hope to get to, notably Ducks, Newburyport and Frankissstein.
       Quite a few big names on this popular-leaning-but-with-a-few-outliers list, including Margaret Atwood, John Lanchester, Deborah Levy, Elif Shafak -- and Salman Rushdie.
       The shortlist will be announced 3 September; the winner on 14 October.

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       Asian literature abroad

       In the Taipei Times Sherry Hsiao reports that Interest in Asian literature grows (though the focus here is very much on the English-language market(s)).

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       Good Enough review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Daniel S. Milo's Darwinian study on The Tolerance for Mediocrity in Nature and Society, in Good Enough, recently out from Harvard University Press.

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       Neustadt Prize finalists

       They've announced the finalists for the 2020 Neustadt International Prize for Literature -- the biannual $50,000 prize with nine jurors, each of which got to select one of the finalists.
       The finalists are:

• Emmanuel Carrère (The Adversary; Class Trip; I am Alive and You are Dead; The Kingdom; Limonov; Lives Other Than My Own; The Mustache; My Life as a Russian Novel)
• Jorie Graham
• Jessica Hagedorn
• Eduardo Halfón (The Polish Boxer)
• Ismail Kadare (The Accident; The Fall of the Stone City; A Girl in Exile; The Successor; The Traitor's Niche; Twilight of the Eastern Gods)
• Sahar Khalifeh
• Abdellatif Laâbi
• Lee Maracle
• Hoa Nguyen

       Carrère was also a finalist in 2018 .....
       The nine jurors will get together next fall to decide who gets the prize; the winner will be announced 16 October 2020.

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       Holbrooke Award

       The Dayton Literary Peace Prize announced that N. Scott Momaday will receive the 2019 Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award; John Irving got it last year. Momaday gets to pick it up at the awards ceremony on 3 November.
       The finalists for the 2019 Dayton Literary Peace Prize itself will be announced on 13 August.

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       Sunday Times Literary Awards shortlists

       The shortlists for the (South African) Sunday Times Literary Awards have been announced -- five books each for the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize and the (non-fiction) Alan Paton Award.

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       The Untranslated Q & A

       At The Collidescope George Salis has a Q & A, Towers of Babel: An Interview with The Founder of The Untranslated -- as in The Untranslated, which you should certainly be familiar with.

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       Empty Hearts review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Juli Zeh's thriller, Empty Hearts, coming next month from Nan A. Talese.

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       Philip Roth estate auction

       They auctioned off a bunch of stuff from The Plot Against America (etc.)-author Philip Roth's estate yesterday.
       A lot of furniture and household stuff went under the hammer -- down to the patio furniture -- and fairly little that's literature-related. At least most of the stuff went for more than the estimates (the television stand -- despite being in: "good condition used, sturdy" and: "From the Roth Living Room" ! -- was one of the few real bargain items).
       There were three typewriters up for auction: an Olivetti Lettera 32 with Case (estimate: US$300-500; sold for $17,500), and two IBM Selectric IIs, the first of which had an estimate of US$100-150 (seriously, what were they thinking ?) and sold for $5,000, the second of which had an estimate of US$150-250 and sold for $4,800
       I remind you that nearly a decade ago Cormac McCarthy's Olivetti went for US$254,500 .....

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       Translation from ... Thai

       In the Nikkei Asian Review Max Crosbie-Jones reports on Found in translation: Thai literature reaches West. ("West" here means "English", sigh .....)
       Finally, a trickle of Thai works is appearing in the US/UK -- notably two by Duanwad Pimwana (I have both, and should be getting to them) -- but there's still a long way to go.
       Among the interesting observations:

Prabda [Yoon] said the fact that all but one of the recent releases were translated by Mui [Poopoksakul] is as worrying as it is impressive.

       And good to see a (small) nod to Marcel Barang and his efforts with Thai Fiction in Translation.

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       Translating from ... Russian to Pashto

       Amie Ferris-Rotman reports in The Washington Post how This Afghan ambassador in Moscow mixes diplomacy and Dostoevsky as admirably: "When [Latif] Bahand is not navigating his country's changing relationship with Moscow, he is translating".
       He's working on Crime and Punishment, and has already translated And Quiet Flows the Don, War and Peace, and Anna Karenina.
       Interesting too that:

There was also a shortage of words to work with. Russian has around 150,000 words in current usage; Pashto has around 100,000. "It's like taking a vase of water and trying to fit it into a teacup."

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       Bathroom literature

       In the Taiwan News Lyla Liu reports that a Bathroom literature exhibition in Taipei aims to promote gender equality, as there are: "36 compositions displayed in restrooms of National Museum of Taiwan Literature".
       I'm not sure about some of this:

In the first-floor lobby, visitors can view an art installation, "Flowers in the Toilet." It symbolizes literature's irrigation of the human mind, which, like plants, need to be watered to grow stronger, said the museum.

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       Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes

       They've announced the latest winners of the biannual Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes; see, for example, the Kyodo News report, Two women named for Japan's Akutagawa, Naoki literary awards.
       Imamura Natsuko (今村 夏子) won the Akutagawa Prize for むらさきのスカートの女; see also the Asahi publicity page.
       Oshima Masumi (大島真寿美) won the Naoki Prize for 渦 妹背山婦女庭訓 魂結び; see also the Bunshun publicity page.

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       Luciano De Crescenzo (1928-2019)

       Italian author Luciano De Crescenzo has passed away; see, for example, the ANSA report.
       His Thus Spake Bellavista attracted some attention when it came out in English; get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       New Asymptote

       The July issue of Asymptote is now out -- as always, loads of material of interest, including a Q & A with Edith Grossman.

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       Adrift in the Middle Kingdom review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Jan Jacob Slauerhoff's 1934 novel, Adrift in the Middle Kingdom, coming out from Handheld Press.

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       Andrea Camilleri (1925-2019)

       Italian author Andrea Camilleri, best known for his Inspector Montalbano mystery series, has passed away; see, for example, the obituaries in The Guardian and The New York Times and Mark Lawson on how Andrea Camilleri had a late but great career in crime writing.
       The only book by Camilleri under review at the complete review is his Hunting Season; I do have a pile of the Montalbano books and should get to some eventually.

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       Neal Stephenson conversation

       Tyler Cowen's latest conversation is with Fall-author Neal Stephenson on Depictions of Reality (and a lot more).

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       Translation ... from Russian into Chinese

       In the Global Times Chen Xi reports New 22-volume collection gathers the complete works of China's most famous Russian-to-Chinese translator as, impressively, translator Cao Ying (Sheng Junfeng) is apparently well-known enough that they published The Complete Translations of Cao Ying (草婴译著全集; see a picture).
       In how many other languages would a translator get billing and a collection like that published ?
       The collection includes twelve volumes of Tolstoy and seven of Sholokhov and Lermontov.

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       Hong Kong Book Fair

       The Hong Kong Book Fair opens today and runs through the 23rd; with ongoing protests in town that should be ... interesting.
       See also Erica Fong's preview in the Hong Kong Tatler, Hong Kong Book Fair 2019: Everything You Need To Know.

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       'World's top thinkers' ?

       Prospect has made their list of The world's top 50 thinkers 2019.

       Books by three of those on the list are under review at the complete review: Svetlana Alexievich (Voices from Chernobyl), Robert Alter (The Art of Bible Translation), and Adam Tooze (Crashed and The Wages of Destruction).

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       Georges Perec

       At The New Yorker's Page-Turner Paul Grimstad writes on The Absolute Originality of Georges Perec.

       With thirteen titles by Perec under review at the complete review -- along with David Bellos' wonderful biography I am obviously a big fan .....

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       'Second-Half 2019 Book Preview'

       The Millions has their Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2019 Book Preview, with more than a hundred (mainly pretty mainstream) US titles.
       Only two of these are already under review at the complete review -- The Memory Police by Ogawa Yoko and Doppelgänger by Daša Drndić --, and I only have one more of them (Empty Hearts by Juli Zeh, which I should be getting to soon); I do suspect/hope there are a lot more other interesting titles out there beyond these.

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       A Double Life review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Karolina Pavlova's A Double Life, out in a new edition in Columbia University Press' Russian Library.
       This is Pavlova's only novel, but she has an interesting biography, from being tutored in Polish by Adam Mickiewicz ("she already knew Russian, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, and Dutch, as well as Russian" translator Barbara Heldt notes (slightly overenthusiastically ...) in her Introduction) to the literary circles she moved in -- though she had a hard time in the very male and sexist Russian literary world of the time.

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       Children's literature in ... India

       In the Firstpost Ruth Dsouza Prabhu reports on how Children's literature in India undergoes revolution as publishers experiment with regional languages, genres, which certainly sounds good.

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       Human Matter review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Rodrigo Rey Rosa's Human Matter: A Fiction, recently out from the University of Texas Press.

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       9mobile Prize for Literature ?

       The Etisalat Prize for Literature was a promising-looking prize for a best work of first fiction by an African author; winners include We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (the first winner, in 2013) and Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila (2015). When Etisalat was taken over by 9mobile they continued the prize under their name -- now the 9mobile Prize for Literature -- until, apparently, they didn't .....
       Yes, there's still an official site, but it seems ... stuck on last year's shortlist, with the last news update dated 29 January 2018. Jennifer Malec reported on this a month ago in The Johannesburg Review of Books, in The mysterious demise of the 9mobile/Etisalat Prize for Literature -- the world's biggest Pan-African book award while Olayinka Oyegbile now wonders What happened to Etisalat literature prize ? in The Nation (Nigeria).
       What indeed.

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       Publishing in ... Iraq

       In The Arab Weekly Khulud al-Fallah reports that Iraqi publishing industry faces challenges in fast-moving landscape.
       Publisher and bookseller Safa Diab is quoted:

He said novels were "currently losing a bit of their lustre" because of declining quality.

"Some books just carry the phrase 'A Novel' on the cover. The best proof of the loss of popularity of the novel is its dwindling sales at book fairs in the Arab world during the past two years," he said.

       Well, that is disappointing.

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       Fidelity & Constraint review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Lawrence Lessig on How the Supreme Court Has Read the American Constitution, in Fidelity & Constraint, recently out from Oxford University Press.

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       Alasdair Gray profile

       In Prospect Stephanie Boland profiles the Poor Things (etc.) author, in Alasdair Gray’s literary socialism
       His essay collection, Of Me and Others, is recently out from Canongate; see their publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       German 'Hotlist'

       The German 'Hotlist' invites all German-language independent publishing houses to submit one book to compete in a three-phase competition that begins with the Hotlist board of trustees selecting a longlist of thirty titles, which the public can then vote on (though only the top three vote-getters make the final ten; the remaining seven titles are chosen by the Hotlist jury); the jury then picks the winning publisher (it is the publisher, rather than the book/author that gets the cash).
       They've now announced the thirty-title longlist -- and opened the voting. (Admirably, they also reveal all 160 submitted titles, as every literary prize should .....)
       This gives a good overview of what independent German publishers are publishing -- even if the one-book-per-publisher limit is rather ... limiting. They do include some big names: among authors in translation with books in the final thirty are Anthony Burgess, Patrick Deville, Helen Oyeyemi, and Boualem Sansal.

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       Man International Booker Prize judges

       They've announced the judges for the 2020 [no-longer-'Man'] International Booker Prize, and they are: Ted Hodgkinson (chair), Lucie Campos, Jennifer Croft, Valeria Luiselli, and Jeet Thayil.
       The longlist will be announced in March 2020.

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       FLIP

       The Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty runs through Sunday.
       In The Rio Times Richard Mann has a thorough overview, in Paraty Hosts 17th Edition of its International Literary Festival Through Sunday.

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       Prix littéraire « Le Monde » longlist

       With the start of the French 'rentrée littéraire' -- the fall book-flood, this year with 524 titles (down from 567 last year (and 727 in 2007 ...)) -- the longlists for the fall book prizes start appearing -- a good overview of some of the interesting new titles coming up.
       The Prix du Roman Fnac -- which considers both French fiction (there are 366 in this year's rentrée) and translated fiction (188) -- has announced its huge, thirty-title selection, which includes titles by Nathacha Appanah, Laurent Binet, Marie Darrieussecq, Edna O'Brien, and Juli Zeh.
       The prix littéraire « Le Monde » has also announced its (considerably shorter) longlist; it also includes new books by Leonora Miano and Jean-Philippe Toussaint (La Clé USB; see the Les Éditions de Minuit publicity page).

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       Studio Créole

       Among the events at this year's Manchester International Festival is Studio Créole: "an intimate laboratory for stories where we can hear writers read in their original language and simultaneously listen to a live translation, channeled through a lone performer", which runs from 12 to 14 July.
       The seven writers involved are: Patrick Chamoiseau, Sayaka Murata, Adania Shibli, Sjón, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Dubravka Ugrešić, and Alejandro Zambra -- quite the line-up ! -- while the project was conceived and is curated by Adam Thirlwell, is co-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, and was designed by Rem Koolhaas and Cookies.
       At the Times Literary Supplement Thirlwell has an introductory overview as he "considers the history of créolité and literature transcending a single language" in World literature: lightness, multiplicity, transformation.

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       Iris Murdoch

       Lots of Iris Murdoch material in this week's Times Literary Supplement -- it's her centenary; she would have turned 100 on the fifteenth -- including them having their "contributors reflect on the novelist's impact" in What does Iris Murdoch mean to you now ?
       I'm a huge fan -- and pleased that there are still a few of her works I haven't gotten to; I only got around to An Accidental Man last year, and it was the best book I read all year.

       (Updated): Iris Murdoch coverage abounds -- see now also Leo Robson on Iris the insoluble in the New Statesman -- though obviously I move in the wrong circles (at least on the internet) and can find no evidence that: "Iris Murdoch's work has fallen out of fashion", as everyone (properly) gushes about her work. Even before the current centenary-interest, I don't think any title has popped up on the weblogs and Twitter-feeds I read, going back many, many years as often as a favorite read as The Sea, the Sea (though obviously that's influenced by what weblogs/Twitter-feeds I follow -- my kind of readers ...).

       (Updated - 14 July): See now also Alex Clark in The Guardian on Iris Murdoch at 100: 'Her books are full of passion and disaster'.

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       Somehow, Crystal review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Tanaka Yasuo's 1981 novel, Somehow, Crystal, just out from Kurodahan Press.

       I review far too few books that I read before I started the site but I actually have read this one before -- the German translation, some twenty-five years ago. It's not a great book, but of enough interest that it was certainly worth covering (if not necessarily revisiting ...) -- and I fear it won't get all that much coverage otherwise (though surely The Japan Times will at least get to it). Indeed, it's notable enough -- for several reasons -- that if the English translation had been available I would have mentioned it in my The Complete Review Guide to Contemporary World Fiction.
       If you need further convincing/tempting: Sayonara, Gangsters-author Takahashi Gen'ichirō wrote the Introduction to this -- and he concludes it by suggesting:

There has never been anther novel like this, nor is there likely to be on in the future. I can think of no other novel that so deeply and thoroughly confronts capitalist society. If Marx were still alive, his follow-up to Das Kapital would surely have been a novel like Somehow, Crystal.

       That last sentence is some tag-line; I hope some booksellers use it .....

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       Georg-Büchner-Preis

       They've announced the winner of this year's Georg-Büchner-Preis, the leading German author prize, and it is Lukas Bärfuss, who will pick up the €50,000 prize on 2 November; see also the Deutsche Welle report, Swiss writer Lukas Bärfuss wins prestigious Georg Büchner Prize.
       His Rwanda-novel One Hundred Days has been published in English; see the Granta publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Publishing in ... Iran

       In the Tehran Times they report on Mahmud Barabadi's comments that Translated books easier to publish in Iran (than domestically-written books).
       Among the reasons he gives: "due to the lack of copyright legalities in Iran, the publication of translated books are easier for the publishers in Iran", while also noting that:

Iranian writers write books inspired by the local and cultural atmosphere and need to attract Iranian readers. Unfortunately, the great number of restrictions on Iranian writers in choosing topics, characters, and even the descriptions of events lead to failure in this field

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       Three Summers review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Margarita Liberaki's Three Summers, just out from New York Review Books.

       This translation actually came out almost a quarter of a century ago -- but locally, in Greece, and until now it hasn't been readily available in the US/UK, so it's good to see this edition.

       Liberaki is the mother of well-known (and more translated) author Margarita Karapanou (Kassandra and the Wolf, etc.) -- but they are not the first parent-child duo with books under review at the complete review.

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       Caine Prize for African Writing

       They've announced the winner of this year's Caine Prize for African Writing -- the leading African short story prize -- and it is Skinned (warning ! dreaded pdf format !), by Lesley Nneka Arimah, originally published in McSweeney's.

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       Translating from ... Tibetan

       At the Asymptote blog Max Berwald has a Q & A Translating Contemporary Tibet: In Conversation with Christopher Peacock -- the translator of The Handsome Monk by Tsering Döndrup.

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       Babel review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Babel: Adventures in Translation -- the book to go with the recent Bodleian Library exhibit.

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       'New Dutch Writing'

       Campaign launched in the UK promoting Dutch literature in translation to UK readers, the Dutch Foundation for Literature recently announced; it is set to include: "over 70 author events at a range of festivals and literature venues nationwide, featuring Dutch writers in conversation with their British counterparts".
       There's already an official site -- New Dutch Writing -- which: "aims to engage UK readers with stimulating, cross-cultural debate", but there's ... not much content available yet.

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       The last 100 reviews

       I recently reached 4400 books under review at the complete review, so it's time for another overview of the past 100 reviewed titles (4301 through 4400).

       - The last 100 reviews were posted over 162 days -- slightly longer than the previous 100 (145 days), but totaling considerably more words: 138,605 (last 100: 127,620 words), by far the highest average review length for any 100-review period to date. The longest review was 6501 words, and eleven reviews were over 2000 words long.
       Reviewed books had a total of 25,858 pages, slightly above the previous 25,405 but with a considerably lower pages-per-day rate (156.8, down from 175.2).

       - Reviewed books were originally written in 27 different languages (including English), one down from the previous hundred; English led the way, with 23 titles, followed by French (16), German (12.5), and Japanese (7). One new language was added -- Tibetan -- bringing the total number of languages covered to 78. (See also the updated full breakdown of all the languages books under review were originally written in.)

       - Reviewed books were by authors from 36 countries (previous 100: 36), France and the UK tied for the most (12), followed by Germany and Japan (7).

       - Male-written books were overwhelmingly dominant -- but slightly less so than usual, with 73 of the reviewed books written by men (improving the horribly sexist average of written-by-women titles under review to ... 16.81 per cent).

       - No books were rated A+ or A, but 10 were rated A-; B was the most common grade (56), while one title each got a B- and a C.

       - Fiction dominated, as it always does, with 83 titles that were novels/novellas/stories.

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       Sjón's ecological template for literature

       At Eurozine they have Moonstone-author Sjón's Wespennest article On the organic diversity of literature where he considers 'How can a writer possibly contribute to averting catastrophic climate change ?'

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       US support for Taiwanese literature

       In the Taipei Times Han Cheung reports on how 'The US Information Services supported and translated works by young Taiwanese modernist writers during the 1960s, as part of efforts in a 'Cultural Cold War' against communism', in Taiwan in Time: Waging war with pen and paper, as:

Under [Richard] McCarthy, the USIS sponsored and translated a significant number of works by young Taiwanese writers, and also published books featuring local avant-garde artists

       Ah, the good old days .... (?)

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       The Song of Kiều review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Timothy Allen's new translation of Nguyễn Du's Vietnamese classic, The Song of Kiều: A New Lament, just out in the Penguin Classics series.

       This is apparently the first Vietnamese title in the Penguin Classics series -- long overdue, one would think. But this is certainly the obvious choice for the series, and while there have been several previous translations this one certainly has the potential of reaching a broader audience.

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       Premio Strega

       They've announced the winner of this year's Premio Strega, the leading Italian literary prize, and it is M. Il figlio del secolo, getting 228 votes, more than a hundred more than the runner-up among the five finalists.
       The massive, largely documentary novel is forthcoming from HarperCollins in the US and Fourth Estate in the UK -- and already got some US coverage in The New York Times, where Emma Johanningsmeier wrote about how A New Book About Mussolini Is Provoking a Debate Over His Legacy.
       See also the Bompiani publicity page.

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       Teju Cole keynote

       Teju Cole gave the keynote speech at the awarding of the Internationaler Literaturpreis a few weeks ago, and the NYRDaily they now have a transcript, Carrying a Single Life: On Literature and Translation -- but you can also watch the whole speech on video.

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       Leïla Slimani Q & A

       At Qantara.de Schayan Riaz has a Q & A with The Perfect Nanny-author Leïla Slimani.
       Among her responses:

As a child, I was an inveterate liar, always living in a fantasy world. I dreamt about having an extraordinary life, a passionate life, the life of a great author. I wrote poems and wanted to kill myself.

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       Prix Émile-Guimet

       They've announced the winner of this year's prix Émile-Guimet de Littérature asiatique, a leading French prize for an Asian work of fiction -- and it is The Forest of Wool and Steel, by Miyashita Natsu -- selected from a rather disappointing mere seventeen submissions.
       See also the Doubleday publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

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       De man zonder ziekte review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Arnon Grunberg's 2012 novel, De man zonder ziekte.

       As you may recall, Open Letter was interested in publishing this, but .....
       Sigh.
       It's not the best not-yet-translated Grunberg work, but it definitely is among those that should be available in English.

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       Deep Vellum expands

       At Publishers Weekly Ed Nawotka reports that Deep Vellum Acquires Two Publishers, Adds Imprints, as:

Dallas-based translation publisher Deep Vellum acquired the backlist of two separate independent publishing house -- Phoneme Media of Los Angeles and A Strange Object of Austin, Tex. -- and is expanding into publishing works originally written in English.

       Also good to hear:

Recent translation acquisitions include internationally-renowned Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu's most recent novel, Solenoid

       Definitely something to look forward to.

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

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       Water management fiction

       There's recently been news of water shortages in India, so it's good to see that among the reactions is a look at the ... literature, as Kavitha Muralidharan writes about From Sangam era to Silappadhikaram, what Tamil literature tells us about harvesting water, as:

Ancient Tamil literature speaks eloquently about Tamils' knowledge in judicious use of water.

       Whatever works .....

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

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       Leo-Perutz-Preis shortlist

       Austrian crime fiction hasn't exactly broken through internationally but has certainly blossomed domestically over the past decade -- and for the past decade they've been awarding the Leo-Perutz-Preis für Wiener Kriminalliteratur -- the Leo Perutz Prize for Viennese Crime Fiction, paying out a decent €5,000. Yes, more books by Leo Perutz have been translated into English -- several now available from Pushkin Press -- than winners of this prize have, but still .....
       They've now announced the five finalists for this year's prize -- which include an Alex Beer title (Beer has actually been translated into English ...); the winner will be announced 5 November.

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

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