opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 May 2025

1 May : V.Y.Mudimbe (1941-2025) | EBRD Literature Prize finalists | Bonjour Tristesse movie
2 May : New World Literature Today | Joyce Carol Oates Prizes
3 May : Carol Shields Prize | Edgar Allan Poe Awards | Reading in ... Germany
4 May : Q & As: Margaret Drabble - Amitav Ghosh | 'Redefining Arabic literature'
5 May : OCM Bocas Prize | People's Choice Literature review
6 May : Pulitzer Prizes | Conclaves | NEA grants
7 May : Goncourt de printemps | Valeriy Shevchuk (1939-2025) | The last bookshop in Greenland
8 May : Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize longlist | Prix Jan Michalski longlist
9 May : Joseph-Breitbach-Preis | Age Book of the Year Awards | Neustadt International Prize jurors
10 May : PEN America Literary Awards | 'On Ismail Kadare'

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       PEN America Literary Awards

       PEN America has announced the winners of its Literary Awards -- though for the second year in a row the top prize -- the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award -- was not conferred.
       The Tuner of Silences-author Mia Couto won the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature, while Brian Robert Moore's translation of Michele Mari's Verdigris won the PEN Translation Prize.

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

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       'On Ismail Kadare'

       At n+1 Daniel Petrick writes at length on the Twilight of the Eastern Gods-author Ismail Kadare, in What a Terrible Name !

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

       Joseph-Breitbach-Preis

       The Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur | Mainz has announced the winner of this year's Joseph Breitbach Prize, a leading German-language author award, paying out €50,000, and it is Frank Witzel (whose Die Erfindung der Roten Armee Fraktion durch einen manisch-depressiven Teenager im Sommer 1969 won the German Book Prize in 2015).

       Hard to top their 2000 selections -- Ilse Aichinger, W.G.Sebald, and Markus Werner were all homored -- but the prize has consistently had a fairly good record.

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       Age Book of the Year Awards

       They've announced the winners of this year's Age Book of the Year Awards; see, for example, Kylie Northover's report in The Age, A late-career marvel and an enriching memoir: The Age Book of the Year winners.
       Rodney Hall's Vortex won in the fiction category; see also, for example, the Picador Australia publicity page.

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       Neustadt International Prize jurors

       The Neustadt International Prize for Literature has announced the jurors for the 2026 prize -- more significant than for most prizes, because this is a prize where each juror gets to select one of the finalists for the prize.
       The finalists they choose will be announced next month, and the winner will be annound in October.

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

       Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, awarded: "for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language".
       Only one of the titles is under review at the complete review -- Megan McDowell's translation of Alejandro Zambra's Childish Literature -- and I have only seen one more of these .....

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       Prix Jan Michalski longlist

       The prix Jan Michalski -- rewarding: "works of all literary genres, fiction or non-fiction, irrespective of the language in which it is written" -- has announced its first selection.
       The only title under review at the complete review is Barbara J. Haveland's translation of Solvej Balle's On the Calculation of Volume (I); other finalists include Percival Everett's James and the new Pierre Bayard.

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       Goncourt de printemps

       The Académie Goncourt has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the winners of its spring prizes, including Anca Visdei's Cioran-biography -- see the L'Archipel publicity age --, the biography-prize winner

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       Valeriy Shevchuk (1939-2025)

       Ukrainian author Valeriy Shevchuk has passed away; see, for example, the Babel report; see also the A-BA-BA-HA-LA-MA-HA author page.
       His The Meek Shall Inherit ... has been translated into English; print copies are hard to come by, but you can find a pdf copy online.

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       The last bookshop in Greenland

       I missed this a couple of weeks ago, but apparently tha last and only real bookshop in Greenland closed at the beginning of the year; see Malthe Pedersen's report at nordiskpost, Greenland without a bookstore: the end of Atuagkat marks a cultural turning point.

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

       Pulitzer Prizes

       They've announced this year's Pulitzer Prizes.
       James, by Percival Everett, won the Fiction category, over three other finalists: The Unicorn Woman, by Gayl Jones; Mice 1961, by Stacey Levine; and Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel.
       (Updated - 7 May): Apparently, as Alexandra Alter reports in The New York Times, ‘James’ Won the Pulitzer, but Not Without Complications (presumably paywalled), as "James was not the top pick among the Pulitzer's five fiction jury members. It wasn't even in the top three" ..... Ah, literary prizes ....

       The Criticism award went to Alexandra Lange, with none of the three finalists a literary critic.

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

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       Conclaves

       It's Conclave-time in the Vatican !
       They're voting for a new pope !

       To get in the mood, check out the two novels under review at the complete review titled ... Conclave: Robert Harris' (which the recently-released movie is based on) and Roberto Pazzi's.

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

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       NEA grants

       As widely reported, the (American) National Endowment for the Arts started rescinding and terminating already-awarded grants on Friday, including many to publishers. See also, for example, Sophia Stewart's report in Publishers Weekly, NEA Literary Grants, Staff Cut as Trump Proposes Eliminating the Agency.
       This follows this administration's similar actions regarding grants in other areas. Regardless of whether or not one thinks what the NEA does is something the federal government should be doing, it is, at the very least, very bad form to pull these grants after they have been awarded. With many of the organizations receiving funds planning ahead with the expectation of being able to rely on these funds, this sudden pulling-of-the-plug is devastating. (It also doesn't save a great amount of money.)

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

       OCM Bocas Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and it is Village Weavers, by Myriam J.A. Chancy.

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

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       People's Choice Literature review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the two-in-one of The Most Wanted and Unwanted Novels by Tom Comitta, People's Choice Literature, forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

       I am curious to see how much attention this one gets; certainly an interesting exercise.

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       Q & A: Margaret Drabble

       This week's 'The books of my life'-column in The Guardian features Margaret Drabble: ‘Our family had a passion for Georgette Heyer’.
       She was won over by the works of Georges Perec -- and admits:

My comfort read
Anything by Lee Child. I love Jack Reacher.

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

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       Q & A: Amitav Ghosh

       At Scroll.in Ashutosh Kumar Thakur has a Q & A with the author, in ‘It would be a mistake to think that hyper-technological people don’t live by stories’: Amitav Ghosh -- mainly about his latest book, Wild Fictions.
       He notes: "Kalidasa's Meghaduta [The Cloud-Messenger] is not just a poem; it is a conversation between the cloud and the earth"

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       'Redefining Arabic literature'

       In The National Saeed Saeed reports on how: 'Authors are blurring genres and experimenting with narrative techniques', in From blogs to book prizes: How a new generation is redefining Arabic literature.

       They apparently also have a new list of the 50 Most Important Arabic Novels of the 21st Century, but it's behind the paywall.

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

       Carol Shields Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, a US$150,000 prize which celebrates: "creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States", and it is Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin.
       See also the publicity pages from Vintage Canada and Soft Skull Press, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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       Edgar Allan Poe Awards

       The Mystery Writers of America have announced the winners of this year's Edgar Allan Poe Awards.

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       Reading in ... Germany

       In Die Zeit Anant Agarwala and Martin Spiewak apparently report (paywalled) on German university students' diminishing reading skills and interest; at Börsenblatt they sum it up, noting also the shocking statistic that the percentage of students who read books daily declined from 43 per cent in 2003 to 17 per cent in 2024.
       That is .... not good.

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

       New World Literature Today

       The May/June issue of World Literature Today is now out -- 'The City Issue: Delhi | In the Anthroposcene'.
       Lots to keep you covered for the weekend -- including the extensive book review section.

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

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       Joyce Carol Oates Prizes

       The New Literary Project has announced the winners of this year's Joyce Carol Oates Prize, which: "honors mid-career authors of fiction who advance the vision and mission of NewLit -- to drive social change and unleash artistic power across the generations and the nation" -- two winners this year, Jennine Capó Crucet and Willy Vlautin.

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

       V.Y.Mudimbe (1941-2025)

       African author and scholar V.Y.Mudimbe has passed away; see, for example, the obituary (presumably paywalled) in The New York Times.

       Several of his novels have been translated into English, though it's mainly the non-fiction that seems to be in print (e.g. The Invention of Africa (Indiana University Press), The Mudimbe Reader (University of Virginia Press), Africa and the Disciplines ( University of Chicago Press)).

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

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       EBRD Literature Prize finalists

       The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has announced the three finalists for this year's EBRD Literature Prize, awarded for a: 'book of translated literary fiction translated into English and written originally in any language of a country where the EBRD currently invests by an author who is (or has been) a citizen of one of these countries':

• The Empusium, by Olga Tokarczuk
• Forgottenness, by Tanja Maljartschuk
• Sons, Daughters, by Ivana Bodrožić

       The winner will be announced 24 June.

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

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       Bonjour Tristesse movie

       Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse was made into a film in 1958, directed by Otto Preminger and starring Jean Seberg, David Niven, and Deborah Kerr -- and now there's a new version out, directed by Durga Chew-Bose and starring Chloë Sevigny, Lily McInerny, and Claes Bang, which is coming to US cinemas tomorrow; see, for example, the Greenwich Entertainment publicity page.

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

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