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The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 31 October 2025

21 October: Patrick White Literary Award | QSSI Translation Prize shortlist | Michael Reynolds Q & A
22 October: Nordic Council Literature Prize | Neustadt International Prize for Literature | Governor General's Literary Awards shortlists | Jina Khayyer's Im Herzen der Katze
23 October: British Academy Book Prize | Prix Femina finalists
24 October: John Dos Passos Prize shortlist | New Asymptote | PEN Heaney Prize shortlist
25 October: Warwick Prize longlist | Hongbin Li Q & A
26 October: Profiles: Hoda Barakat - Amitav Ghosh
27 October: Emulating authors' styles: AI vs. MFAs | Aruni Kashyap Q & A | Effingers review
28 October: Forward Prizes | New World Literature Today | Shortlists: Wodehouse Prize - BRICS Literature Award
29 October: Literary Arts Fund | Prix Goncourt finalists | Bayerischer Buchpreis
30 October: Straelener Übersetzerpreis | AI fiction | Sad Tiger review
31 October: Grand Prix du Roman | Shortlists: Crossword Book Awards - William Hill Sports Book

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       Grand Prix du Roman

       The Académie française has announced the winner of this year's Grand Prix du Roman, and it is Passagères de nuit, by Yanick Lahens, which narrowly pipped Un pont sur la Seine by Pauline Dreyfus, eleven votes to ten.
       See also the Sabine Wespieser éditeur publicity page for Passagères de nuit.

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

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       Shortlists: Crossword Book Awards

       The Crossword Book Awards -- a leading Indian literary award -- has announced its shortlists in its five categories (including Translation) -- though not yet at the official site, as far as I can tell, but see the Scroll.in report.
       The winners will be announced 3 December.

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       Shortlist: William Hill Sports Book

       They've announced the seven titles shortlisted for this year's William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.
       The winners will be announced 25 November.

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

       Straelener Übersetzerpreis

       Kunststiftung NRW has announced the winner of this year's Straelener Übersetzerpreis, a €25,000 prize for best translation into German, and it is Claudia Sinnig for her translation of Ričardas Gavelis' Vilnius Poker; see also the S.Fischer publicity page.

       Open Letter published an English translation in 2009, and it was re-issued by Pica Pica Press.

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

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       AI fiction

       At Emerge Josh Quittner reports that AI Novel Tops Japan's Biggest Fiction Website, Sparking Literary Uproar.
       Hey, at least it's still causing an uproar.

       Amusing -- though not surprising -- to hear that:

What made the project explosive wasn’t just that it was AI-written -- it was the speed, with the author publishing so quickly it exploited Kakuyomu’s algorithm, which rewards frequent updates, total page views, and follower growth. The result was a self-perpetuating surge: more chapters (and the subsequent AI-written notoriety) meant more clicks, more visibility, and more engagement, propelling the story to the platform’s No. 1 daily ranking.

       The cost/speed advantage of generative AI will be hard to beat .....

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

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       Sad Tiger review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Neige Sinno's Sad Tiger.

       This was a finalist for the prix Goncourt and has won numerous European literary prizes -- and it's a finalist for this year's National Book Award for Translated Literature.

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

       Literary Arts Fund

       The launch of a new Literary Arts Fund has been announced; it: "will distribute at least $50 million over the next five years, concluding in 2031":

The Literary Arts Fund will award grants to U.S.-based nonprofit or fiscally sponsored literary organizations and publishers that support contemporary writers of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or hybrid literary forms through an annual open call beginning November 10.

       With literature: "receiving only 1.9% of the $5 billion in arts grants awarded in 2023" in the US this is certainly very welcome.

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

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       Prix Goncourt finalists

       The Académie Goncourt has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the four finalists for this year's prix Goncourt, with books by Nathacha Appanah and Laurent Mauvignier still in the running -- though I expect Emmanuel Carrère to take the prize with his Kolkhoze.
       The winner will be announced 4 November.

       They've also announced the finalists for the number two French prize, the prix Renaudot, with five works left in the running in the fiction category, including books by Anne Berest and Justine Lévy; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.

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

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       Bayerischer Buchpreis

       They've announced the winners of the Bavarian Book Prize, and after winning the German Book Prize two weeks ago Die Holländerinnen, by Dorothee Elmiger, took the fiction prize here as well.

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

       Forward Prizes

       They've announced the winners of this year's Forward Prize for Poetry; see also, for example, Emma Loffhagen in The Guardian, Forward prize names poets Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie its first joint winners.

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

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       New World Literature Today

       The November-December issue of World Literature Today is now up -- with the theme of: 'World Lit in the Age of AI'.
       A lot that is of interest -- and, of course, the usual big batch of book reviews.

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

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       Shortlist: Wodehouse Prize

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, "designed to highlight the funniest novel of the past twelve months, which best evokes the Wodehouse spirit of witty characters and perfectly timed comic prose" -- eight titles, selected from 107 submissions.

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

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       Shortlist: BRICS Literature Award

       They've announced the shortlist for the first BRICS Literature Award -- not yet at the official site, last I checked, but see, for example, the TV BRICS report, BRICS Literature Award announces shortlist in Indonesia.
       Ten authors -- one each from each of the BRICS countries -- are shortlisted.
       The winner will be announced on 27 November.

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

       Emulating authors' styles: AI vs. MFAs

       A recent paper by Tuhin Chakrabarty, Jane C. Ginsburg, and Paramveer Dhillon finds ... Readers Prefer Outputs of AI Trained on Copyrighted Books over Expert Human Writers.
       Basically, they compared the output by 'MFA-trained expert writers' with those of generative AIs asked to emulate "50 award-winning authors’ (including Nobel laureates, Booker Prize winners, and young emerging National Book Award finalists) diverse style" and found that, especially if the AI results were further fine-tuned by AI, readers ('expert' ("MFA candidates from top U.S. writing programs") and lay) overwhelmingly preferred what the AIs produced (and also didn't recognize the output as AI-generated).
       Yes, AI is very good at imitation. Very good.
       (Yes, there is a slight caveat here, that they were tested against ... 'MFA-trained expert writers' -- and you might, like me, not be able to suppress a guffaw at the idea that an MFA makes anyone anything even remotely resembling an 'expert' writer, but still .....)
       The key takeaway here is their terrifying 'Economic analysis;, summing up the numbers:

With fine-tuning costs ranging from $22.25 to $272.50 (median $77.88) plus $3 for inference to generate 100,000 words, the total AI cost represents approximately 0.3% of the $25,000 a professional writer would charge. This ∼99.7% cost reduction, combined with reader preference for fine-tuned outputs, quantifies the potential economic disruption to creative writing markets.

       You may not like it -- I don't like -- but, yes, sorry, AI is going to take over vast swathes of what is now 'creative' writing. Soon, too. The cost advantage is crushingly overwhelming .....

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

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       Aruni Kashyap Q & A

       At Frontline Majid Maqbool has a Q & A with: 'The Assamese writer on how translated classics shaped him, living through the Secret Killings, and reversing literary hierarchies', in I saw the world through the lens of literature from Assam: Aruni Kashyap.

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

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       Effingers review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Gabriele Tergit's sweeping 1951 novel Effingers, now coming out in English, from New York Review Books in the US and (as The Effingers: A Berlin Saga) from Pushkin Press in the UK.

       Given my interest in and extended consideration of the Salome-story and, in particular, Oscar Wilde's play in my novel, Salome in Graz, I was amused to note that Tergit has that be the breakout-role for one of her characters who takes to the stage, and that the play is relatively extensively discussed.
       The character plays Salomé as: "a young, playful society lady" -- not an interpretation the protagonists of my novel would have endorsed. But then Tergit also has one of her characters eventually tell the actress:

I hope you've gotten over your expressionist Salomé at last. She was very charming, but she went against Wilde and Salomé herself.

       And later there's also this exchange:

     “Well, that’s how I began my career too, by playing Salomé as a suffering, kind woman. But the time for experiments is over.”
     “For expressionism, you mean ?”
     “Oh God, not that word again. It was so important then. We’ve become humbler now. We want to put the words of the poet in the spotlight, rather than ourselves.”

       Tergit effectively uses a variety of literary and other cultural references in the novel, but Salomé is a particularly good fit; as my novel suggests, the changing interpretations and readings of the Salome-story in general across the ages are often revealing of the various times, and this is a good example.

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

       Profile: Hoda Barakat

       At The National Saeed Saeed profiles Sheikh Zayed Book Award winner Hoda Barakat says new generation is reviving Arab literature.

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

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       Profile: Amitav Ghosh

       At The Korea Herald Hwang Dong-hee profiles The Glass Palace-author Amitav Ghosh, in 'Literature must give voice to the nonhuman'.
       Ghosh was in South Korea to pick up the Park Kyongni Award, named in honor of Pak Kyong-ni -- "renowned for her epic saga 'Toji (The Land)'" -- with Ghosh noting: "he was unable to find an English translation of Toji". It has apparently been translated -- see the Global Oriental publicity page -- but is out of print (and expensive) .....

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

       Warwick Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, 14 titles originally written in 10 different languages, selected from 145 entries (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) (yes, they admirably reveal what titles are actually being considered -- just as every literary prize should).
       Only one of the longlisted titles is under review at the complete review -- Antonia Lloyd-Jones' translation of Olga Tokarczuk's The Empusium -- and I've only seen two more of these .....
       The winner will be announced 27 November.

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

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       Hongbin Li Q & A

       At China Books Review Evan Peng has a Q & A with the The Highest Exam co-author, in Hongbin Li: How the Gaokao Shapes China (previously, paywalled, at The Wire China).

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

       John Dos Passos Prize shortlist

       Longwood University has announced the shortlist for its John Dos Passos Prize, an author prize awarded: "to a writer whose work offers incisive, original commentary on American themes".
       The winner will be announced "by the end of the year".

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

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       New Asymptote

       The October issue of Asymptote is now out -- lots of great material for your weekend reading.

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

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       PEN Heaney Prize shortlist

       English PEN has announced the shortlist for its Heaney Prize, "which recognises a single-author collection of poetry of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships".
       The winner will be announced 1 December.

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

       British Academy Book Prize

       The British Academy has announced the winner of this year's Book Prize, and it is The Burning Earth, by Sunil Amrith; see, for example, the publicity pages from W.W.Norton and Penguin.

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

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       Prix Femina finalists

       The prix Femina finalists have been announced, in its three categories -- French novel, foreign novel, and non-fiction --; see, for example, the ActuaLitté report.
       The prix Femina -- first awarded in 1904 -- is notable for having always had an all-female jury.
       Five of the six foreign-fiction finalists are translations from English. That doesn't seem like it's a good thing.

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

       Nordic Council Literature Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Nordic Council Literature Prize, the leading Scandinavian book prize, and it is a volume of Faroese poetry by Vónbjørt Vang, Svørt Orkidé (published by Forlagið Eksil). It apparently includes collages, including this one.
       I like how the author-bio in the English version of the prize-announcement emphasizes that her work has not yet been translated into English ...:

Her first poetry collection, Millumlendingar was published in 2011, followed by Djúpini in 2017, neither of which have been translated into English. Her writing explores deep human relationships and how these are anchored in time and place. Together with Svørt Orkidé, she published Úr loggbókunum (2023) neither of which have been translated into English.

       [Underscore added.]

       The Nordic Council Literature Prize has an impressive list of winners -- ten of which are already under review at the complete review.

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

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       Neustadt International Prize for Literature

       World Literature Today has announced the winner of the 2026 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, recognizing: "outstanding literary merit in literature worldwide", and it is Ibrahim Nasrallah; see also, for example, his books published by American University in Cairo Press.

       With the translations of several of his works coming out in Iran Samaneh Aboutalebi has a profile in the Tehran Times, Expressing the unseen: Ibrahim Nasrallah's insights on Palestinian stories, culture.

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

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       Governor General's Literary Awards shortlists

       The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the finalists for this year's Governor General's Literary Awards -- now apparently nicknamed 'GGBooks' (as opposed to the previous 'GGs').
       There are seven categories -- twice over, once in English and once in French.
       The winners will be announced 6 November.

       Admirably, they also reveal all the titles that were submitted -- a rare major literary prize that does that (though they all should).

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

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       Jina Khayyer's Im Herzen der Katze

       Jina Khayyer's Im Herzen der Katze was longlisted for this year's German Book Prize -- see also the Suhrkamp foreign rights page -- but at Qantara.de Omid Rezaee argues that all it offers is: The Iran that Germany wants to see, and that:

In the Heart of the Cat is not only a weak, cliché-laden novel. It is also a mirror: reflecting the expectations of a Western audience and the negligence of a literary establishment that not only accepts such projections but promotes them.

       Translate more contemporary Iranian fiction, I say !
       (See also the Persian literature under review at the complete review.)

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

       Patrick White Literary Award

       They've announced the winner of this year's Patrick White Literary Award, an A$20,000 author prize, and it is David Brooks (no, not, dear god, The New York Times guy); see the official press release (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) or the report at Books + Publishing.
       See also his official site or a 2011 Q & A at Poetry International.

       The Patrick White Literary Award was established by the great Nobel laureate; it has a solid list of previouys winners that includes Christina Stead (1974), Thea Astley (1989), Elizabeth Harrower (1996), Gerald Murnane (1999), and Janette Turner Hospital (2003).

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

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       QSSI Translation Prize shortlist

       The Queen Sofía Spanish Institute has announced the shortlist of its Translation Prize, "a $10,000 award for the best English translation of a work originally written in Spanish".
       Only one of the five shortlisted titles is under review at the complete review -- Megan McDowell's translation of Alejandro Zambra's Childish Literature.
       The winner will be announced 20 November.

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

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       Michael Reynolds Q & A

       At Publishers Weekly John Maher has a Q & A with Europa Editions' executive publisher Michael Reynolds, in Frankfurt Book Fair 2025: Europa Editions Turns 20.

       Interesting to hear some of the numbers:

What are some other quiet achievements ?

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cossé, the Christelle Dabos books, and Valérie Perrin -- these are all 200,000-, 300,000-, 400,000-copy-selling books, and Hedgehog is up near a million. That doesn't happen very often with translation in this market.

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

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