opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 April 2025

1 April: Barbara Frischmuth (1941-2025) | Tadeusz Bradecki Prize shortlist | Prix Émile Guimet finalists
2 April: Prix Jean d'Ormesson shortlist | Manga's beginnings | Tim Mohr
3 April: Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist
4 April: Ondaatje Prize longlist | New Simenon editions in the US | Semishigure review
5 April: Závada Pál Q & A | HURI unsupported by the NEH | The books removed from the Naval Academy library
6 April: Shashi Deshpande on Jane Austen | Narrative lesson of 1925 | 26 years of the Complete Review
7 April: OCM Bocas Prize category winners | Vanishing World review
8 April: Reading in ... the US | A new Salome !
9 April: International Booker Prize shortlist | Spring Académie Goncourt prize shortlists | Sheikh Zayed Book Awards
10 April: Stella Prize shortlist | Deepa Bhasthi Q & A | New Pynchon novel coming

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       Stella Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Stella Prize -- "celebrating Australian women's writing" --, though not ideally at the official site -- but see, for example, the report at Books + Publishing.
       The winner will be announced 23 May.

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

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       Deepa Bhasthi Q & A

       At Scroll.in Sayari Debnath has a Q & A with the translator of Banu Mushtaq's novel, in ‘With an accent’: How Deepa Bhasthi translated International Booker Prize-shortlisted ‘Heart Lamp’.

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

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       New Pynchon novel coming

       As widely noted, a new novel by Thomas Pynchon is due out 7 October; see the Penguin Press publicity page, or pre-order your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

       Only two Pynchon novels are under review at the complete review -- Against the Day and Inherent Vice -- but I've read them all and am looking forward to this one.

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

       International Booker Prize shortlist

       They've announced the six-title shortlist for this year's International Booker Prize:

• Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, tr. Deepa Bhasthi
• A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, tr. Mark Hutchinson
• On the Calculation of Volume (I) by Solvej Balle, tr. Barbara J. Haveland
• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, tr. Sophie Hughes
• Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, tr. Helen Stevenson
• Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Kawakami Hiromi, tr. Asa Yoneda

       (I have a copy of Heart Lamp (and an e- (i.e. basically unreadable) copy of A Leopard-Skin Hat), and should get to that Banu Mushtaq collection.)
       The winner will be announced on 20 May.

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

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       Spring Académie Goncourt prize shortlists

       The Académie Goncourt has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the shortlists for its three spring-prizes -- for first novel, stories, and biography.
       The winner will be announced 6 May.

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

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       Sheikh Zayed Book Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Sheikh Zayed Book Awards -- "One of the Arab World's most prestigious and well-funded prizes".
       'Well-funded' is right -- category winners such as هند أو أجمل امرأة في العالم by Hoda Barakat (see the Dar Al Adab publicity page) in the literature category -- take home AED 750,000 (over US$200,000) -- and 'Cultural Personality of the Year'-winner Murakami Haruki gets an AED 1 million payday.

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

       Reading in ... the US

       The good news is that Americans ... want to read ?
       Yes, at npr Andrew Limbong reports that Most Americans want to read more books. We just don't. Which is ... one way of looking at things ?
       The ipsos page on the same poll puts it more bluntly: Most Americans read, but it's not our priority leisure activity.
       Only 51 per cent of respondents reported having read a book in the past month .....
       Among their other findings: "women's tastes tend to vary more than men, who 'coalesce around nonfiction or historical nonfiction'".

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

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       A new Salome !

       My recent novel, Salome in Graz, covers and considers many, many Salome-stories and variations, with much of the attention inevitably on the Oscar Wilde play -- especially in its various translations -- and then the Richard Strauss opera (with, of course, some mention of Strauss' own second variation on it, as well as Antoine Mariotte's opera-version, both libretti hewing to the original French version of the play) -- but now there's a new version out which my protagonists would surely have been very intrigued by: Gerald Barry -- surely one of the most interesting (opera-)composers currently working -- has composed a new Salome-opera, with his libretto also closely based on the Wilde play -- in three languages, no less (parts are sung in English, German, and French).
       Barry's Salome has now premiered, at the Theater Magdeburg -- see their publicity page --, with Alison Scherzer in the title role and Jérôme Kuhn conducting. It sounds ... interesting.
       At Opera Now Hugo Shirley has a review, reporting that:

Barry’s Salome approaches the subject matter from a radically new angle – so radical that any comparison with a certain other famous Salome opera is rendered all but superfluous. Out of Wilde’s words, luxuriating in tantalizing language and imagery, Barry creates his own libretto in English, French and German, into which he throws other additional text from Wilde, Beethoven and elsewhere.

       And he finds:

Voices are pushed to their extremes, the delivery bordering on the mechanic. Instead of dancing, Salome takes dictation, tapping away on a typewriter before breaking out into repeated “dee-dee-dees”. Her demand for the “the head” is almost an afterthought, after which matters generally descend into a precipitous, dizzying ride towards an abrupt close.

       Typing instead of dancing ! And apparently no seven veils (the protagonist of my novel's least favorite part of the Strauss opera ...):



       See also a (German) review, by Lena Schubert from Tag24, as well as the trailer on YouTube.
       You can catch the remaining performances in Magdeburg -- on Monday, 21 April, as well as 4 and 10 May -- or then the American premiere in Los Angeles, 24 March 2026; see the LA Phil publicity page.

       Schott has the score -- see their publicity page -- and, wonderfully, you can peruse it in its entirety here; my Salome in Graz's main disputant, Marguerite, is no doubt reading it closely already, curious as to what Barry has made of Wilde's Salome and what words he chose .....

       [I feel rather self-serving/silly *recommending* my novel, but if you're interested: in the Salome-story (or rather: the many different variations on it) -- in particular the Wilde play and the Strauss opera --; in questions/issues of translation (in the broadest (and narrowest ...) senses); and in story-telling you might (dare I say: should) find it worth your while .....]

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

       OCM Bocas Prize category winners

       They've announced the three category winners -- in fiction, non, and poetry -- of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. These three now compete for the overall prize that will be announced 3 May.
       The fiction category winner is Village Weavers by Miriam J.A. Chancy; see also the Tin House publicity page.

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

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       Vanishing World review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Murata Sayaka's 2015 novel Vanishing World, now out in English, from Grove Press in the US and Granta Books in the UK.

       Murata's 世界99 -- serialized over the past few years -- just came out in Japan, in two volumes, a much bigger work; see, for example, the Shueisha publicity page; I hope that makes into translation at some point as well, I'm curious to see what she does with (so much) more space at her disposal.

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

       Shashi Deshpande on Jane Austen

       At Scroll.in they have Jane Austen at 250: Shashi Deshpande on the ‘perfect artist’ who reinvented the novel.

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

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       Narrative lesson of 1925

       At El País Eduardo Lago considers The American cultural boom a century on: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos and Louis Armstrong -- finding that:

It is extremely interesting that three of the supposedly four “great American novels” of 1925 are of archeological interest today.

       Lago finds e.g. re. Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy:

Contemporary critics affirmed that it was the worst written American novel of all time, but the strength with which Dreiser narrates the nuances of the tragedy compensates for the stylistic defects, otherwise undeniable. The novel is unreadable today.

Even more unreadable, if possible, is The Making of Americans

       And, for good measure:

Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos, who Jean Paul Sartre once said was the best American novelist of his time, has not aged well either

       Oh, Eduardo, Eduardo .....

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

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       26 years of the Complete Review

       With all the *excitement* this week, of the announcement of the American president's ridiculous new policy of ill-conceived so-called reciprocal tariffs and the world economies' and markets' reactions to it (on top of the seemingly endless litany of other nonsense this guy is 'executive ordering'), it completely slipped my mind that yesterday was the twenty-sixth anniversary of this site: yes, the first reviews were posted at the complete review on 5 April 1999.
       Not much to celebrate -- except, I guess, that the site does not and has never received or relied on any form of American federal support, and so should be able to limp on in some (well, basically: this) form regardless of whatever the American government does next.
       With near-omnipresent artificial intelligence programs now readily offering readers *reviews* and summaries of pretty much any book out there, I'm not sure the site serves much of a purpose any longer, either -- as suggested also by the fact that interest in (and discoverability of) it continues a long and no longer so slow decline; maybe I should just automate everything as well.
       Still, for now my intentions are to continue, pretty much the same as always; we'll see how it goes.

       Thanks, in any case, for reading -- or, for you AI bots, scraping -- and I hope you continue to get something out of my efforts.

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

       Závada Pál Q & A

       At hlo Gabriella Nagy has a Q & A with Hungarian author Pál Závada: I have to turn to fiction.

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

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       HURI unsupported by the NEH

       As Kate Tsurkan reports in The Kyiv Independent Publishing house of Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute latest target of Trump's federal budget cuts, as the American National Endowment for the Humanities has terminated its support for the excellent HURI publication program.
       Several HURI titles are under review at the complete review -- Cassandra and The Length of Days -- and I had hoped to be able to cover more .....

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

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       The books removed from the Naval Academy library

       I recently mentioned that American Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the Naval Academy to remove "books featuring 'gender ideology'" and the like from the Nimitz Library to protect impressionable young midship(wo)men from indoctrination .....
       They've now released the list (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) of the 381 books they wound up removing. Einstein stays on the shelves, but Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Mohsin Hamid's The Last White Man, and, for example, Everybody's America: Thomas Pynchon, Race, and the Cultures of Postmodernism (see the Routledge publicity page) made ... the cut.
       And obviously titles such as Managing Diversity in the Military: The value of inclusion in a culture of uniformity -- see the Routledge publicity page -- had to go.

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

       Ondaatje Prize longlist

       The Royal Society of Literature has announced the longlist for its Ondaatje Prize, awarded: "for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place".
       The shortlist will be announced 28 April.

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

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       New Simenon editions in the US

       Between 2013 and 2020 Penguin (UK) published new translations of the 75 Maigret-novels by Georges Simenon, as well as some of the romans durs; as The Bookseller reported in 2019 Nielsen BookScan reported that these Simenons sold 433,157 books. Many were also made available in the US market -- with a number of them under review at the complete review, starting with the first Maigret, Pietr the Latvian.
       Now Picador is bringing out the whole Maigret-set out in US editions -- see the first batch -- as, as Sophia Stewart reports at Publishers Weekly, Picador to Reissue More than 100 Novels by Georges Simenon (sort of paywalled ?).
       Apparently: "Picador will largely use the translations published by Penguin, though some titles will receive new translations" -- it'll be interesting to see which ones .....
       Also of interest: "All titles in the series have announced print runs of 30,000".
       Much as I enjoy the Maigrets, the more exciting news is that:

Reissues of 30 of his standalone psychological noirs -- which Simenon himself called romans durs, or “hard novels” -- will follow beginning in winter 2026.

       Those are the ones I am really eager to see -- though several are already under review at the site.

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

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       Semishigure review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Fujisawa Shuhei's 1988 novel Semishigure, finally available in English, from Honford Star.
       This has apparently sold more than a million copies in Japan.

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

       Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist

       They've announced the six-title shortlist for this year's Women's Prize for Fiction.
       The winner will be announced 12 June.

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

       Prix Jean d'Ormesson shortlist

       They've announced the finalists for this year's prix Jean d'Ormesson -- an anything-goes prize for which the judges can nominate any books they want, old or new (though most of these are new); see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
       The winner will be announced 26 May.

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

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       Manga's beginnings

       At nippon.com Nakano Haruyuki takes: 'A look at how Japan's western urban center informed and inspired the world of manga in the twentieth century', in Osaka: Where Japanese Manga Began Its Meteoric Rise.

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

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       Tim Mohr

       Translator-from-the-German Tim Mohr has passed away; see, for example, Europa Editions' Executive Publisher Michael Reynolds' note In Memory of Tim Mohr.
       Quite a few of his translations are under review at the complete review, including Charlotte Roche's Wetlands, Wolfgang Herrndorf's Sand, and several works by Alina Bronsky, including Baba Dunja's Last Love.

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

       Barbara Frischmuth (1941-2025)

       Sad to hear that Austrian author Barbara Frischmuth has passed away; see, for example, the Residenz Verlag notice or the ORF report.
       Several of her works were published in translation by Ariadne Press -- and apparently are still in print; they look to be out of stock at Amazon (and Bookshop apparently can't be bothered to carry them), but should be available from the publisher directly; see, for example, the publicity page for her best-known work, The Convent School.

       (I only knew her slightly, but she had been a friend of the family since the earliest days of the Forum Stadtpark; apparently the first reading of her works -- some poems by the then-still teenager at a 'studio abend' at Forum Stadtpark -- were by my father and aunt in 1960 (see this Q & A); my dad and her (and Günter Peter Straschek) also founded and published the (hectographed) literary magazine reflexe in 1959/60.)

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

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       Tadeusz Bradecki Prize shortlist

       The new Tadeusz Bradecki Prize, awarded: "for an imaginative work published in English in the UK or in Europe, that crosses the borders between artistic disciplines, genres, subject matter and cultures", has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) its six-title-strong shortlist
       Two of the titles are under review at the complete review: Tanja Maljartschuk's Forgottenness and Alejandro Zambra's Childish Literature.
       The winner will be announced 21 May.

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

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       Prix Émile Guimet finalists

       They've announced the finalists for this year's prix Émile Guimet de littérature asiatique -- though not yet at the official site, last I checked ....; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
       The three finalists in the novel category are The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka and works by Yan Lianke and Sang Young Park.
       The winners will be announced 4 June.

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

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