opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 30 June 2024

21 June: Fixed book pricing | Filter Vertaalprijs finalists | Australian espionage fiction
22 June: Society of Authors Awards | New Vikram Seth | Scientific articles as modernist stories ?
23 June: Humor in classical Arabic literature | The Bright Sword review
24 June: Alain Mabanckou profile
25 June: Literary bars in Tokyo | Human Sadness review
26 June: Peace Prize of the German Book Trade | Jaroslav Rudiš Q & A
27 June: Prémio Camões | Europese Literatuurprijs shortlist | New World Literature Today | Ukrainian literature
28 June: Kinky Friedman (1944-2024) | PEN Pinter Prize | Orwell Prizes | The Misadventures of Master Mugwort review
29 June: Ovide moralisé | Frederick Crews (1933-2024)
30 June: Translation in ... India | Megan McDowell Q & A | Translation and AI

go to weblog

return to main archive

       Translation in ... India

       In the Free Press Journal Sapna Sarfare looks at how Translations Are Transforming India’s Reading Landscape -- translations from Indian regional languages into English and vice versa.
       Sounds good -- though. as I often note, it would be great if more of these were readily available beyond India as well.

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

---

       Megan McDowell Q & A

       In The Los Angeles Times Jim Ruland has a Q & A with Megan McDowell, in Meet the translator turning American readers on to Latin American superstars.

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

---

       Translation and AI

       Frank Wynne was recently awarded the French-American Foundation Translation Prize for fiction, for his translation of Mathias Énard's The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild, and at Scroll.in they now have part of his acceptance speech, Translator Frank Wynn on AI: ‘The kernel of all art is the sound of human voice seeking to be heard’.

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

       Ovide moralisé

       Harvard University Press recently published a translation of The Moralized Ovid by Pierre Bersuire in their Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series -- see their publicity page; I have a copy, and I'm looking forward to getting to it -- but there's also a translation of The Medieval French Ovide moralisé out, in three volumes; see the Boydell & Brewer publicity page, and at the publisher's weblog they have a Q & A with editors and translators K.Sarah-Jane Murray and Matthieu Boyd.
       Both books sound fascinating -- and I really want to see Ovide moralisé as well .....

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

---

       Frederick Crews (1933-2024)

       Scholar Frederick Crews has passed away; see, for example, Scott Veale's obituary (presumably paywalled) in The New York Times
       I enjoyed his The Pooh Perplex, back in the day; the only work by him under review at the complete review is his Postmodern Pooh.

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

       Kinky Friedman (1944-2024)

       American musician and author Kinky Friedman has passed away; see, for example, Richard 'Kinky' Friedman, Texas musician, humorist, political candidate, dead at 79 by Matthew Odam in the Austin American-Statesman, Kinky Friedman, Musician and Humorist Who Slew Sacred Cows, Dies at 79 by Clay Risen in The New York Times, and Kinky Friedman's Wit Turned the Jewish Cowboy Into a Texas Icon by Dan Solomon in the Texas Monthly; see also “Texas Is My Family”: Kinky Friedman in His Own Words also in the Texas Monthly.
       I read most of his mysteries, way back in the day, and enjoyed them.

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

---

       PEN Pinter Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's PEN Pinter Prize, and it is Arundhati Roy; she gets to pick up the prize on 10 October.

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

---

       Orwell Prizes

       They've announced the winners of this year's Orwell Prizes -- though not yet at the official site, last I checked -- and My Friends by Hisham Matar won the prize for political fiction.

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

---

       The Misadventures of Master Mugwort review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Joke Book Trilogy from Imperial China by Su Shi, Lu Cai, and Tu Benjun, The Misadventures of Master Mugwort, recently out from Oxford University Press in their Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature.

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

       Prémio Camões

       They've announced the winner of this year's Prémio Camões, the leading Lusophone author prize, and it is Adélia Prado
       Several collections of her work have been translated into English; see, for example, The Mystical Rose (see the Bloodaxe publicity page), The Alphabet in the Park (see the Wesleyan University Press publicity page), and Ex-Voto (see the Tupelo Press publicity page).

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

---

       Europese Literatuurprijs shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist -- the four titles remaining in the running -- for this year's Europese Literatuurprijs, the leading Dutch literay prize for a European work in translation.
       The winner will be announced on 4 September.

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

---

       New World Literature Today

       The July/August issue of World Literature Today is now out, with a focus on International Horror in Translation.
       And, of course, there's the always interesting book review section.

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

---

       Ukrainian literature

       At RAAM Uilleam Blacker offers an overview of Discovering Ukrainian literature: what to read ?

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

       Peace Prize of the German Book Trade

       They've announced the winner of this year's Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, and it is Anne Applebaum; she gets to pick up the prize at the end of the Frankfurt Book Fair this fall, on 20 October.

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

---

       Jaroslav Rudiš Q & A

       Czech author Jaroslav Rudiš' Winterberg's Last Journey is now available in English -- see the Jantar publicity page -- and at Radio Prague International Ian Willoughby has a Q & A with Jaroslav Rudiš: Everything is connected in Central Europe.

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

       Literary bars in Tokyo

       At The Japan News Takafumi Masaki writes on Tokyo's Literary Bars: A Place Famous Writers Grabbed Drinks, Gained Inspiration; Many Artists Still Gather to Discuss Their Crafts
       But: "in recent years, many of the bars have gone out of business" .....

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

---

       Human Sadness review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Goderdzi Chokheli's Human Sadness, a Soviet-era Georgian novel coming out from Dedalus.

       This is also of particular translation-interest because five translators were involved -- one for each of the distinct voices in the novel.
       This was translated as part of the Oxford Georgian Translation Project. Always great to see more translations from the Georgian -- and hopefully this project will lead to many more.

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

       Alain Mabanckou profile

       In Businessday Obinna Emelike profiles the African Psycho-author, in At home with Alain Mabanckou: Prolific Francophone Congolese poet, novelist.

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

       Humor in classical Arabic literature

       At New Lines Magazine Ahmed Mahjoub writes on Recovering the Bawdy Humor of Classical Arabic Literature.

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

---

       The Bright Sword review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Novel of King Arthur by Lev Grossman, The Bright Sword, due out shortly.

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

       Society of Authors Awards

       The Society of Authors has announced the winners of its 2024 awards -- thirty-one of them.

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

---

       New Vikram Seth

       There's a new book by Vikram Seth coming out -- but, no, it's not the long anticipated and much-delayed A Suitable Girl ("A Suitable Girl will now be published in the autumn of 2016", Claire Armitstead wrote in 2013 ...). Speaking Tiger is publishing a bilingual edition of The Hanuman Chalisa, with Seth's translation.
       Anything to put off finishing A Suitable Girl ? But apparently this isn't entirely new either -- Giridhar Jha reported on Seth reciting his translation at the Patna Lit Fest over a decade ago ......
       As to A Suitable Girl -- well Hachette Australia lists a 13 November 2025 publication date for it, so maybe .....

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

---

       Scientific articles as modernist stories ?

       There's a preprint at the PhilSci Archive of Anatolii Kozlov and Michael T. Stuart's paper suggesting that Scientific Experimental Articles are Modernist Stories. (The paper itself is docx file, so it has to be downloaded, sigh .....).
       As they sum up in the abstract:

We argue that scientific experimental articles are best understood as a particular kind of narrative: i.e., modernist narratives (think: Woolf, Joyce), at least in the sense that they employ many of the same techniques, including colligation and the juxtaposition of multiple perspectives. We suggest that this way of writing is necessary given the nature of modern science, but it also has specific epistemic benefits: it provides readers with an effective way to grasp the content of scientific articles which increases their understanding. On the other hand, modernist writing is vulnerable to certain kinds of epistemic abuses, which can be found instantiated in modern scientific writing as well.

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

       Fixed book pricing

       Via M.C.'s NB column (paywalled) in this week's TLS I am pointed to the interesting recent paper by Rhys J. Williams in the Journal of Competition Law & Economics considering Empirical Effects of Resale Price Maintenance: Evidence from Fixed Book Price Policies in Europe, which finds, as they sum up in the Abstract:

that countries which have Fixed Book Prices policies witness higher book sales, relative to countries without such a policy, with no noticeable effect on the average price of books.

       It'll be interesting to see whether this leads to any policy changes -- specifically in the UK, which abandoned fixed book pricing in the mid-1990s.

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

---

       Filter Vertaalprijs finalists

       They've announced the finalists for this year's Filter Vertaalprijs, a leading Dutch translation prize.
       Only one of the translations is from the English -- Paul Harding's This Other Eden -- but interestingly the Dutch translation of one of the other titles, of Pauline Peyrade's L'âge de détruire, is ... The age of destroying.
       The winner will be announced 1 October.

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

---

       Australian espionage fiction

       At The Conversation David Rymer explores Why have Australia's espionage authors been renditioned to a literary black site ? as even the: "high water mark in 2018 saw only nine espionage novels appear in print".

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

previous entries (11 - 20 June 2024)

archive index

- search the site -

- return to top of the page -

© 2024 the complete review


Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links