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The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 June 2007

1 June: Weiss' Aesthetics of Resistance as radio-play | Hungarian Book Week | Russian 'Blooker'
5 June: Classic revival in Japan ? | Summer The Quarterly Conversation | Thessaloniki book fair | Orange Broadband build-up | Zu große Fragen review | BEA notes, site news, etc.
6 June: Polish school reading list ... proposal ? | Ransom Center profile | Meanjin concern | Three Bags Full in the US | Hans Mayer's Die Schiffbrüchigen | Publishing accounts | New Bookforum
7 June: Ukrainian headway ? | Orange Broadbands
8 June: Translation news: Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize - E-Panel - Kafka enthusiasm | Georg-Büchner-Preis | European Word Cup | Moscow International Open Book Festival | Blackmailer review
9 June: New -- and new look for -- Words without Borders | Man Asian Literary Prize interview | Dedication issues | Soap review
10 June: Madame Bovary-variation | Hillary Clinton x 2 | The Swedish book market

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       Madame Bovary-variation

        Who would mess with Flaubert's Madame Bovary ?
       An author looking for attention, of course -- but at least Philippe Doumenc's Contre-enquête sur la mort d'Emma Bovary -- a polar which posits that Emma was murdered -- has a creative premise.
       Get your copy at Amazon.fr, and see (French) reviews in:

• L'Express
• Le Figaro
• Nouvel Observateur
• Le Temps

       It'll be interesting to see whether anyone considers translating it .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Hillary Clinton x 2

       Time performs a useful service with a side-by-side comparison of the two recent Hillary Rodham Clinton biographies, Her Way by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. and A Woman in Charge by Carl Bernstein. (It's still more than we want to know about either book .....)
       Meanwhile, Christopher Hitchens reviews them in the Sunday Times.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       The Swedish book market

       The Swiss are concerned about the lifting of fixed book-pricing, and so at the NZZ they look at the Swedish model, where prices were cut loose way back in 1970, in Buchhändler müssen Geschäftsleute sein. All sorts of state subsidies (especially to get books into smaller regional bookshops) would seem to skew things quite a bit, but overall the picture doesn't look disastrous. At least total sales are doing well -- though the big jump there came a few years back when the VAT on books was drastically cut.
       The Swedish Publishers’ Association also provides a lot of data in the useful Book Market Statistics 2005 (warning ! dreaded pdf format !). They offer all sorts of tables, including totals in terms of revenue and units sold -- fascinating stuff. For example:

The average print-run of a new title was 7,800 copies, while the average number of copies sold was 5,000

       And total sales volume was 40 million copies -- not bad per capita, but still ..... (Total fiction sales were 15,846,000.)
       And as far as original titles (not reprints, which about double the total), there were:

• Poetry and Drama: 41
• Swedish Fiction: 269
• Other Fiction in translation 339

       Hard to imagine, but in Sweden it is still possible to read every single work of new Swedish fiction published in a single year, i.e. keep up with absolutely everything going on ! How many people do that (there must be some) -- and how does that affect the local literary culture ?

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       New -- and new look for -- Words without Borders

       The June issue of Words without Borders (featuring literature from Scandinavia) is now available online, and the site has also undergone quite a redesign.
       Among the bigger changes:

we will now be rolling out pieces throughout the week rather than all in a monthly lump.

       Sounds like a good move !

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Man Asian Literary Prize interview

       At Tehelka Lakshmi Indrasimhan interviewed Peter Gordon, administrator of the Man Asian Literary Prize, in The Babel Question.
       Good to see that she also asked about -- and wasn't satisfied with the answer -- one of our major complaints: that, for something called an 'Asian Literary Prize', an awful lot of Asia doesn't qualify .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Dedication issues

       Writers have the darnedest problems: in the Telegraph Edward Docx offers yet another examination of their terrible struggles with writing ... the dedications to their books, in To whom it may concern . But at least he offers some fun examples.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Soap review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Francis Ponge's odd little book on Soap -- which Stanford University Press re-issued not too long ago.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Translation news: Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize

       They've announced the winner of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2007 -- and it goes to Michael Hofmann for his translation of Durs Grünbein's Ashes for Breakfast. We're pleased to see the attention for Grünbein and his poetry, but it probably wouldn't have been our pick; as we note in our review, we had some issues with, specifically, the translation. We're curious how much the judges relied on comparing Hofmann's work to the originals (recall that, while the US edition (admirably) came with the original German text facing the English, the UK edition from Faber (which the judges presumably relied upon) shockingly didn't.)
       Lamentably (but unsurprisingly) no newspaper etc. coverage yet -- but look for judge Robert McCrum to have a piece on it in The Observer this weekend .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Translation news: E-Panel

       In honour of Reading the World (which we should be devoting some space to ... eventually as well), Emerging Writers Network offers a variety of coverage -- notably now an E-Panel of 4 literary translators -- Howard Curtis, Katherine Silver, Paul Olchvary, and Richard Jeffrey Newman -- moderated by Dan Wickett.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Translation news: Kafka enthusiasm

       More praise for translator Michael Hofmann, as Lee Rourke uses his Kafka-translations as an example in a piece at The Guardian-weblog considering What goes into a great translation ?
       (And yet again we disagree with Hofmann's approach: "cockroach" ? No, no, no .....)

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Georg-Büchner-Preis

       The very prestigious Georg-Büchner-Preis -- the biggest German author-award -- will go to ... Martin Mosebach this year, in what has to be considered a major surprise.
       The only title of his available in English appears to be The Heresy of Formlessness (get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), which appears to be fairly representative (if, at least, not entirely typical) .....
       No real English-language coverage yet, but see, for example, Brillanz, die aus der Fülle kommt at the FAZ (though note that Mosebach also frequently writes for the FAZ).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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        European Word Cup

       ESPN isn't broadcasting the games, and there doesn't appear to be any real English-language coverage -- indeed there's been very little coverage outside of Sweden, where they're holding the European Word Cup (in Malmö, 7-9 June). National teams of writers playing football (soccer) -- with some pretty decent names among them. Sounds like fun; we'll try to keep you posted.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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        Moscow International Open Book Festival

       It's time for the Moscow International Open Book Festival (see also the programme in English), which looks to be fairly interesting. Victor Sonkin previews it in his Salon-column in The Moscow Times this week.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Blackmailer review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of another 1950s title resurrected by Hard Case Crime, George Axelrod's Blackmailer.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Ukrainian headway ?

       In the Kyiv Post Maria Aksyonova reports that Ukrainian authors make headway into lucrative European book market -- though it sure sounds like the inroads have been fairly limited so far. Aksyonova writes:

Ukrainian book publishers have been eyeing Poland as a gateway to the European book market, as Polish readers and book publishers show a growing interest in Ukraine’s national literature and writers.

        When Poland is your gateway you know you've still got a long way to go -- after all: how many Polish books make it into English every year ?
       Still, we try to do our part, and have books by several of the mentioned and successful authors. Russian-writing Andrey Kurkov is, of course, something of an exception -- the one real break-out popular writer, but one who writes in Russian (see, for example, our review of his Death and the Penguin), but Yuri Andrukhovych has had a couple of books translated into English as well (see, for example, our review of Perverzion).
       And:

According to experts, the future of modern Ukrainian literature lies with the keyboard flourishes of the nation’s rising literary stars, such as Irena Karpa, a popular youth fiction author, and Lviv-born Lyubko Deresh, considered among the brightest of Ukraine’s younger generation writers.

       We have two Deresh-titles under review (see, for example, our review of Культ), but we're not so sure how they'll take to him in English.

       Interesting also:

Krasovitskiy said the problem with the Ukrainian book publishing market’s growth is the absence of popular fiction for the masses, since it is impossible to make a profit on "high" literature.

According to Krasovitskiy, popular literature, which normally occupies about 90 percent of the market in Ukraine, comes largely from Russia.

"The book market in Ukraine is an inverted pyramid. Instead of being at the top, the so-called high literature forms the base. It is a vicious circle. The authors do not write mass products because publishers don’t invest in and publish them. As a result there is nothing to publish, which is not going to change in the nearest future," he said.

       From our vantage point the status quo doesn't look so bad, so we're not rooting for too much change yet .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Orange Broadbands

       The winners of the two Orange Broadbands (the OB Prize for Fiction and the OB Award for New Writers) have been announced; the winning titles were:Half of a Yellow Sun (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie) and The Lizard Cage (Karen Connelly).
       For early media coverage, see, for example: Testament to youth as war epic wins Orange prize by John Ezard in The Guardian and Nigerian author wins top literary prize by Nigel Reynolds in the Daily Telegraph.
       We like how Ezard tosses around the big numbers: Adichie's book is a "230,000-word domestic epic" that has sold "187,000 copies since the paperback".
       And we do expect to get around to reviewing the Adichie one of these days.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Polish school reading list ... proposal ?

        Lots of fuss in Poland about Education Secretary Roman Giertych's recently proposed school reading lists -- so much so that he's now backed off some and said that it was nothing more than a proposal. Why the fuss ? Well, his 'proposal' axed Goethe, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Gombrowicz, and the like -- and sees room for the works of literary lights like John Paul II.
       The list is available -- in Polish, and in the dreaded pdf format -- here (and is well worth a look if only for the fun of trying to figure out some of the names: Wiliam Szekspir, Karol Dickens, etc. (someone has to explain to us why some names get Polonised (?) and others don't)). (Note that the list isn't exactly catastrophic: there's lots of good stuff here, though they've obviously gone completely overboard with the Catholic focus.)
       Not much English-language coverage so far, but Gerhard Gnauck has a fun overview in Die Welt, Wer braucht noch Goethe oder Kafka ?, where he notes that the heirs of Nobel laureate Sienkiewicz asked that his works be removed from the new list, feeling that he was in better company among those who had been struck from the curriculum .....
       Some English-language coverage can be found at the beatroot (Education Minister Giertych’s new school reading list) or a Pravda-reprint (Polish student to read religious, patriotic books), and see now also the backtracking story at the news, School reading list changes proposals, not decisions.

       (Updated - 7 June): See now also Der Spiegel's report that Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has stepped in and so Goethe and Dostoyevsky Escape Poland's Literary Cull.

       (Updated - 9 June): See now also James Hopkin's thorough report about Writers facing expulsion from Poland’s schools in The Times.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Ransom Center profile

       Books, Inq. points us to D.T.Max's article in this week's issue of The New Yorker, Final Destination, where he wonders 'Why do the archives of so many great writers end up in Texas ?' in a profile of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center -- best known for its Manuscript collection (though those personal effects also sound fun ...).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Meanjin concern

       The headline of Peter Craven's piece in The Age -- Meanjin may die if Melbourne Uni gets its way -- certainly sounds ominous, but fortunately it's not quite so bad. Still, cause for some concern, as:

The future of Meanjin, Australia's most famous literary magazine, is imperilled. The board of the magazine has ratified a decision to have the magazine taken over by Melbourne University Publishing, and there is every indication that it may well end up as merely an online publication with no public presence to speak of.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Three Bags Full in the US

       We mentioned Leonie Swann's Glennkill when it came out in Germany almost two years ago, and after a UK edition last summer it's now set to come out in the US (as, as in the UK, Three Bags Full -- god knows why they had to change the title). DeutscheWelle report on it, and we're curious to see how the American media take to it.
       It didn't seem to get much British coverage, but in The Guardian Ian Sansom did judge:

Three Bags Full is ponderous, slow, involved and pedestrian, but it is also genuinely odd and affecting, and without a doubt the best sheep detective novel you're going to read this year.

       Get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Hans Mayer's Die Schiffbrüchigen

       It presumably won't have a Nemirovsky-like impact, but this is a pretty interesting literary discovery: Jean Améry is certainly among the most notable German-writing witnesses to the crimes of the Nazi regime, and now Klett-Cotta has come out with a novel he wrote in about 1935, Die Schiffbrüchigen (see their publicity page or get your copy at Amazon.de). He still called himself 'Hans Mayer' back then ('Jean' is the French version of 'Hans', 'Amery' just a re-ordering of the letters of his last name), and it was never published -- but, though a work by a very young writer, is apparently of some literary interest (and already warns of some of what was to come).
       There's been extensive review-coverage in German -- now also in the NZZ (Franz Haas' review) , or see, for example, the review at literaturkritik.de.
       For more on Améry, see, for example, Jean Améry: A Biographical Introduction by D.G.Myers.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Publishing accounts

       New York looks at how different businesses make money (or don't), and Arianne Cohen offers an example from publishing: Random House.
       A potentially interesting exercise, there's just way too little here for much of this to be meaningful -- or rather: what there is is incomplete.
       Fiction makes up 55 per cent of the revenue ? But what percentage of titles are fiction ... ?
        "Two thirds of Random House’s income comes from paperbacks". But what percentage of Random House's books are paperbacks ?
       No surprise, however, that: "it’s the 33,000-book backlist that supplies 80 percent of its profit."
       And interesting, of course, to hear that:

Best Ways to Make Money: Underpay writers. "The most-profitable books are highly successful authors early in their career with a contract that doesn’t reflect their success," says Olson.

       We certainly don't pretend to understand the publishing 'business', but surely this is an over-simplification. Isn't the idea that all writers get paid a certain royalty -- say, 15 per cent -- and that the more you selll, the more everyone makes ? What messes things up is, of course, that publishers pay often ridiculous advances to authors -- in contracts that reflect their supposed success ? -- which are never earned back.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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        New Bookforum

        The June/July issue of Bookforum is now available online -- almost all of the very worthwhile content !

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Classic revival in Japan ?

       In the Asahi Shimbun Shin Osanai reports that New Japanese translations of world's classics are hitting bookshelves, as: "Classics of world literature are making a big comeback" in Japan:

Collections of classics were popular from the 1950s through the 1970s. Many literary publishing houses brought out their own limited editions, but the trend ended with those published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha and Shueisha Inc. in 1989.

Shigeo Wakamori, president of Kawade, commented: "Young writers who won literary awards (sponsored by us) lament that they can't read masterpieces from the past. Nowadays, it's hard to get hold of copies."

       By 'classics' they do also mean some pretty recent stuff, but it still sounds good -- and there are quite a few bits of interest in the piece, including:

In 2003, Haruki Murakami sparked the interest in new takes on old tales by translating J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, rendering its English title in katakana rather than translating it into kanji.

       (Kanji are the Chinese-characters that dominate most Japanese writing; katakana one of the two phonetic/alphabet-like alternative ways of writing out words.) Despite all the attention Murakami gets in the US, one hears almost nothing about his translation-work (beyond lists of the authors he's had a go at ...); we'd love to hear more.
       And it's also always good to hear some hard sales numbers:

The three volumes of Dostoevski's The Brothers Karamazov have sold 78,000 copies.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Summer The Quarterly Conversation

       A very impressive-looking Summer issue of The Quarterly Conversation is now available. Lots of Roberto Bolaño coverage, among much else; we'll certainly be spending some time going through all this.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Thessaloniki book fair

       In It's all Greek to me in The Guardian 'Maya Jaggi visits Thessaloniki's thriving international book fair and first art biennale'. Of some interest -- and worth noting that:

Yet the dialogue opened with foreign publishers by the National Book Centre of Greece (Ekebi) has undeniably borne fruit.

       Still not enough is available in translation, but the situation does seem to have improved in recent years .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Orange Broadband build-up

       So they're handing out the Orange Broadbands tomorrow (see the shortlists), and so there are the obligatory prep-articles such as the Reuters-piece by Paul Majendie reporting that Adichie hot favourite for Orange prize.
       Meanwhile, in The Telegraph Naomi Alderman reports on being a judge -- offering 'insights' such as:

And there’s nothing that tests one’s passion for books like having to read more than 60 of them on a tight deadline. For four months, the books on the longlist went everywhere with me.

       We're looking forward to one day reading one of these pieces by some literary-prize judge who doesn't moan about having to read so many books .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Zu große Fragen review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of the new collection of Gespräche und Interviews 2005-1970 by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Zu große Fragen.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       BEA notes, site news, etc.

       I spent Friday moving house, a wearying exercise that prevented me from attending the BookExpo America fun that day (and the parties that night); fortunately there are reports all over from the many other literary webloggers in attendance (and on panels, etc., etc.).
       I did the rounds as best I could -- on very sore feet -- on Saturday. It's an odd exercise, but it was good to meet-and-greet a handful of publishers and publicists -- but I imagine there was a lot more action on the floor on Friday.

       Meanwhile, the move has slowed things down at the complete review (among other problems: no DSL connexion yet, so we're relying on wireless where we can find it -- which is only very rarely in my new domicile ...). It'll be a few more days before everything is back on track, with regular updates at the weblog and the usual average of four or five new reviews a week. But there are also a few changes in store hereabouts, so there's more (I hope) for you to look forward to .....
       Thanks for your patience !

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

       Weiss' Aesthetics of Resistance as radio-play

       Apparently more than just an audio version, there's now a twelve-CD, 630-minute (German) radio play of Peter Weiss' monumental The Aesthetics of Resistance. It sounds ... unlikely, but got a very good write-up in the NZZ.
       See also the literaturkritik.de review, or get your copy from Amazon.de.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Hungarian Book Week

       There are all sorts of literary get-togethers going on, from the Sydney Writers' Festival to BookExpo America -- but don't forget Hungarian Book Week, being held for the 78th time; see the report at hlo.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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       Russian 'Blooker'

       Yes, the Russians have decided they want their own version of the 'Blooker' -- and they're calling it the 'Blogbuster'. See Victor Sonkin's Salon-column for more.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

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