opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 10 April 2026

1 April: International Booker Prize shortlist | Baifang Schell shortlist | Kertész Imre and his German readership
2 April: PEN America Literary Awards | EBRD Literature Prize shortlist | Wiesław Myśliwski (1932-2026)
3 April: Premio Strega longlist | Anne Fadiman Q & A
4 April: The popularity of Norwegian literature in Nazi Germany | Margaret Drabble profile
5 April: Halcyon Years review | The Complete Review at 27
6 April: The Corrections - the TV mini-series ? | Ben Lerner | New Spiró György novel
7 April: 'Piracy and African Literature' | Tanka poetry | The Camp of the Saints
8 April: Dublin Literary Award shortlist | Translations of Bengali historical, literary, and philosophical works | PEN America on 'The State of Literary Translation in the U.S.'
9 April: Windham-Campbell Prizes | Stella Prize shortlist | German Book Prize entries | Paramount Global Publishing
10 April: Premio Aena | IPAF | Goncourt de printemps shortlists

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       Premio Aena

       I mentioned the new Premio Aena de Narrativa Hispanoamericana recently, because it is one of the best-paying book prizes out there, with a €1,000,000 prize for the winner, and they've now announced the first winner, and it is Good and Evil and Other Stories by Samanta Schweblin; see, for example, the report in the Buenos Aires Herald.
       See also the publicity pages for Good and Evil and Other Stories from Alfred A. Knopf and Picador.

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

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       IPAF

       They've announced the winner of this year's International Prize for Arabic Fiction, and it is صلاة القلق, by Mohamed Samir Nada.

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

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       Goncourt de printemps shortlists

       The Académie Goncourt has announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the finalists for its spring prizes -- for best first novel, stories, and biography.
       The winners will be announced 5 May.

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

       Windham-Campbell Prizes

       They've announced the recipients of this year's Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prizes, paying out US$175,000 to each.
       They are: Gwendoline Riley, Adam Ehrlich Sachs, Lucy Sante, Kei Miller, Christina Anderson, S. Shakthidharan, Joyelle McSweeney, and Karen Solie.
       The only one of these authors with any books under review at the complete review is Gretel and the Great War-author Sachs -- though I do also have a pile of Rileys to get to.

       I suspect this year's prizes will be much discussed, as one of the two fiction winners (Riley and Sachs) was second choice: originally, they had intended to honor the certainly also very deserving The Last Samurai-author Helen DeWitt; you can read why that didn't work out at her paperpools weblog, in the post We lose again: Windham-Campbell Prize manqué.
       Just one quote should give you some idea:

I think I am looking death in the face. Can’t get my head around this – impossible to imagine Pynchon or Cormac McCarthy, in early career, contemplating this with anything but horror.

       It turns out the literary-industrial complex is even more screwed up than I could possibly have imagined.

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

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       Stella Prize shortlist

       The Stella Prize -- "celebrating Australian women and non-binary writing" -- has announced its shortlist, six titles in a variety of genres -- poetry, fiction and non, and a graphic novel.
       The winner will be announced 13 May.

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

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       German Book Prize entries

       They've announced the number -- but, alas, not the actual names -- of titles submitted for this year's German Book Prize: 180 titles submitted by 106 publishers.
       The longlist will be announced 11 August, the shortlist 8 September, and the winner on 5 October.

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

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       Paramount Global Publishing

       So Paramount Launches Global Publishing Imprint to Expand Iconic Franchises and Deepen Original Storytelling, as:

Paramount, a Skydance Corporation, today announced the launch of its own publishing imprint, Paramount Global Publishing, marking a strategic expansion in how fans engage with the company's revered content while also creating new opportunities to develop original IP.

       Apparently they'll be: "publishing content inspired by its iconic portfolio of brands and franchises". I couldn't find a handy overview of what those might be at the corporate site, but, yeah, sure.

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

       Dublin Literary Award shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Dublin Literary Award -- six titles, three of which are translations from the French.
       The only title under review at the complete review is Perspective(s) by Laurent Binet (published in the UK as Perspectives because ... publishers ...).
       The winner will be announced 21 May.

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

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       Translations of Bengali historical, literary, and philosophical works

       At Columbia Magazine Paul Hond's report Jennifer Crewe Retires from Columbia University Press has some sensational news tucked in:

All this came with the big news, delivered by vice provost and University Librarian Ann Thornton, that literary theorist and University Professor Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, one of several CUP authors in attendance, had just made the largest gift in the history of the press: $3 million for an endowed fund in honor of her parents. The fund, said Thornton, will enable CUP to publish English translations of historical, literary, and philosophical works in Bengali

       This sounds very promising indeed; I can't wait to see these.

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

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       PEN America on 'The State of Literary Translation in the U.S.'

       Via I'm pointed to the recent PEN America report, Fairness in Publishing: The State of Literary Translation in the U.S..
       Lot's here that is of interest (and, yes, lot's that's depressing ...).

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

       'Piracy and African Literature'

       At okayafrica Esohe Iyare considers how: 'The practice of end-user literary piracy, driven by the unavailability and high cost of classic titles, pits the moral imperative of intellectual property against the urgent need for access and preservation in African literature', in Piracy and African Literature: The Blurred Lines Between Ethics and Access.
       Iyare takes the recent making-available of "scanned copies of many titles from the African Writer Series" as a starting point -- noting also that: "289 of the 359 titles in the series have been out of print since 2002"
       I'm a huge fan of the series -- see the AWS titles under review at the complete review --; it's one of those imprints where, if I come across a title from it I don't have I'll buy it. (I do draw the line at e-copies, but then that's because I find it almost impossible to read a book in an e-format.)
       Some interesting numbers and statistics here -- including:

In a survey of over 100 readers of African Literature, 93% of whom live in Nigeria, a staggering 73.5% indicated that they were strongly interested in reading older African literature, but only 11.7% of readers say that these titles are easy for them to find.

       (I know the feeling.)

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

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       Tanka poetry

       In The Japan Times Zoria Petkoska reports on Why tanka poetry is clicking with a new generation.
       As Petkoska notes:

Written in a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable structure, tanka is one of Japan’s oldest poetic forms, with a history spanning more than 1,300 years. [...] And while haiku has gained global recognition, it is tanka that has recently captured the attention of Japan’s younger generations.

“Haiku is more descriptive of the environment … frogs jumping into ponds and such,” says Damiana De Gennaro, an academic at Stockholm University whose main area of research is tanka communities, referencing a classic haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644-94). “But what tanka does is communication between people.”

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

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       The Camp of the Saints

       Among the worst, and surely the most offensive books reviewed at the complete review is Jean Raspail's The Camp of the Saints, and at Le Monde Olivier Faye now writes at some length on How 'The Camp of the Saints' became the far right's cult novel, from the Le Pens to MAGA.
       (I'm always reluctant to even just mention this atrocity but ... it's out there, and gets a lot of attention (and readers). As Faye notes:)

Translated into around 15 languages, The Camp of the Saints has sold several hundred thousand copies since its release, including around 50,000 abroad. Its most recent 2011 reissue in France alone accounted for nearly 80,000 sales. The book is still regularly reprinted. Many elevated Raspail, who died in 2020, to the rank of prophet, supposedly foreseeing before anyone else the significance of the migration phenomenon.

       Faye chronicles some of its US publication history, but the copyright page of my edition is already pretty revealing:



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

       The Corrections - the TV mini-series ?

       We've been here before: in 2012 HBO wanted to make a mini-series of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections but bailed on it (see my previous mention); now, as widely reported, Netflix has announced Meryl Streep to Star in Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections Adaptation; ominously: "There's no release date yet".
       Interestingly, as, for example, Nellie Andreeva reports at Deadline:

Netflix bought The Corrections from Paramount TV Studios, which is owned by Paramount, the company that recently outbid Netflix for Warner Bros.

For The Corrections, the roles were reversed, with Netflix outbidding Paramount+, among others. I hear PTVS pitched the project to its sibling streamer, which made an offer. HBO did not, having developed its own take on Franzen's book a decade and a half ago, sources said.

       Well, we'll see if this one takes.

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

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       Ben Lerner

       Ben Lerner's new novel Transcription is just out and getting exceptionally good reviews, and so there have also been quite a few profiles and Q & As; see, for example (all possibly paywalled):

• Ben Lerner: ‘Screens are destroying us but we don’t know what they’ll open up’ by Will Pavia in The Sunday Times
• Ben Lerner and the Impossible Interview by Andrew Marantz at The New Yorker
• Ben Lerner’s Big Feelings by Kevin Lozano at Vulture

       (I haven't seen Transcription yet; but see, for example, the publicity pages from Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Granta.)

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

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       New Spiró György novel

       At hlo Róbert Bak reviews Spiró György's novel Padmaly; see also the Magvető publicity page.
       I was very impressed by Spiró's Captivity, and clearly we should see more of his books in English translation; see also the Magvető Rights author page, with information about some of his other (still untranslated) books.

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

       Halcyon Years review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Alastair Reynolds's recent novel, Halcyon Years.

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

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       The Complete Review at 27

       The first reviews were posted at the complete review on 5 April 1999 -- yes, twenty-seven years ago today. And now here we are, this twentieth-century relic still plodding along, 5452 reviews later ......
       I've been a bit distracted for a while now, so the review-rate has slowed down some for some time, but I will get back up to speed eventually, once a couple of things have been sorted. Meanwhile, raw page-view numbers are up tremendously over the past year -- but the majority of these clearly come from AIs hoovering up information; the number of actual readers seems to be continuing its steady slow decline, though an active, dedicated core remains -- much appreciated !

       I do have a lot more books I want to get to, so I figure I'll keeping going for a while.

       I hope you continue to find the site useful and of interest, and I appreciate your looking in !


       But twenty-seven years ... man, that's a long time.

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

       The popularity of Norwegian literature in Nazi Germany

       At Sciencenorway.no Bård Amundsen explores What made books from Norway so appealing in Nazi Germany ? -- pointing also to Kathryn E. Sturge's interesting dissertation, “The Alien Within”: Translation into German During the Nazi Regime (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) and the more recent book by Narve Fulsås, Norsk litteratur i Nazi-Tyskland (see also the full text (warning ! dreaded pdf format !)).
       Always good to see actual numbers, too:

Before the war ended, Trygve Gulbranssen had sold over half a million copies of these books in Germany. No other translated works reached such a high circulation in the Third Reich.

Other books that sold well included Mikkjel Fønhus' Troll-Elgen (430,000 copies) and Knut Hamsun's Victoria (392,000) and Growth of the Soil (245,000).

Another, lesser-known Norwegian author who sold a great many books in Germany was Olav Gullvåg. His novel It Began on a Midsummer Night sold over 250,000 copies.

       And interesting to hear that:

Fulsås points out that the German market was also very economically attractive.

There was a great demand for literature in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. It became even greater after the war started in 1939.

World War I had shown exactly the same thing: when there's war, people want to read books.

This also happened in Norway during World War II.

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

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       Margaret Drabble profile

       At The Times Alice Jone profiles Margaret Drabble at 86: ‘I could write terrible things about people’ (possibly paywalled ?).
       Among the titbits of interest: the mention of her sitting room being: "lined with books (Samuel Beckett to Lee Child)"
       And interesting to learn that:

In 2004 she published The Red Queen, a historical novel set in 18th-century Korea. “Oh, that was a disaster,” she says. “Not my finest hour.” Accusations of cultural appropriation and a row with a translator left her feeling “unhappy” with the whole idea of writing fiction.

Still, she wrote three more novels, then, in 2017, her daughter, Rebecca, died of cancer, aged 53 — and she knew her life as a novelist was over. “I just realised that I simply didn’t want to do it any more. I was in the middle of something and I really had no wish to finish it.”

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

       Premio Strega longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Premio Strega, the leading Italian fiction prize -- twelve titles selected from 79 submissions (written by authors ranging in age from 20 to 94).
       There are eight hundred eligible voters who will now vote for first the shortlist -- to be announced 3 June -- and then the winner, to be announced 8 July..

       They've also announced the five finalists for the Premio Strega Europeo, awarded for a European work of fiction in translation.
       The winner will be announced 17 May.

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

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       Anne Fadiman Q & A

       At The Harvard Gazette Liz Mineo has a Q & A with the author, in Writing about a pet frog is trivial ? Anne Fadiman disagrees.
       Among her comments:

AI is going to change both education and literature. I think it’s going to be like B.C. and A.D. B.C. is about to end: the period during which all books were actually written by humans.

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

       PEN America Literary Awards

       PEN America has announced the winners of its Literary Awards.
       The PEN Translation Prize went to Minna Zallman Proctor for her translation of The Leucothea Dialogues by Cesare Pavese.
       The PEN Award for Poetry in Translation went to Michael Martin Shea for his translation of Theory of the Voice and Dream by Liliana Ponce.

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

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       EBRD Literature Prize shortlist

       The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has announced the ten-title shortlist for its Literature Prize, awarded: "for a work of literary fiction originally written in a language of an economy where the Bank invests, translated into English and published in the past year".
       Several of the shortlisted titles are under review at the complete review:

• Death and the Gardener by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel
• Eye of the Monkey by Tóth Krisztina, translated by Ottilie Mulzet
• Ice by Jacek Dukaj, translated by Ursula Phillip
• We Computers by Hamid Ismailov, translated by Shelley Fairweather-Vega

       The winner will be announced 2 July.

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

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       Wiesław Myśliwski (1932-2026)

       Leading Polish author Wiesław Myśliwski has passed away; see, for example, the Polish Museum of America mention.

       Archipelago Books has published several of his excellent books.

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

       International Booker Prize shortlist

       They've annouced the shortlist for this year's International Booker Prize.
       The six finalists are:

• The Director by Daniel Kehlmann
• The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar
• On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia
• She Who Remains by Rene Karabash
• Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ
• The Witch by Marie NDiaye

       The winner will be announced 19 May.

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

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       Baifang Schell shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for this year's Baifang Schell Book Prize, which: "celebrates exceptional book-length works on or from China and the Sinophone world that are geared toward the general reader".

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

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       Kertész Imre and his German readership

       At hlo Katharina Raabe writes at length about the Nobel laureate, exploring How Imre Kertész Found His German Readership
       Among the titbits of interest:

In Hungary, Kertész had been making a name for himself primarily as a translator from German since 1980, with translations of plays by Tankred Dorst, Walter E. Richartz’s Büroroman (Office Novel), and above all the works of Hofmannsthal, Nietzsche, Elias Canetti, and Wittgenstein.

       And, with elections coming up in Hungary, it's worth remembering:

Since at least 2010, Orbán has represented everything Kertész opposed in the 1990s, and which ultimately drove him from the country after he received the Nobel Prize in 2002: hatred of the other, and particularly anti-Semitism.

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

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