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The Literary Saloon Archive

22 - 31 May 2026

22 May: Dublin Literary Award | Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize shortlist | Society of Authors' Awards shortlists | 'New books in Hungarian' | Prix Jean d'Ormesson | Q & As: Eduardo Halfon - Emma Ramadan
24 May: Sophie Kerr Prize | Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and Lin King Q & As
25 May: Siegfried Lenz Preis | HKW Internationaler Literaturpreis shortlist | Q & As: Gioconda Belli - Vivek Shanbhag | Orbital review
26 May: Sunday Times Literary Awards longlists | 'BookTok's critical values' | Returning to regularly scheduled programming
27 May: AI and writing in ... China | Publishing in ... Qatar
28 May: Climate Fiction Prize | St. Petersburg International Book Fair | Seven review
29 May: James Tait Black Prizes | Irish Novel of the Year | Turið  Sigurðardóttir Translation Prize | Chinese genre fiction abroad
30 May: Plutarch Award | 'Literary ballet' ? | Spy Story review
31 May: Latin American writers and India | 'Literary chic' | AI translation ...

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       Latin American writers and India

       At Scroll.in Laura Erber writes on Cecília Meireles, Octavio Paz, Julio Cortázar: Latin America’s literary encounters with India -- finding:

India was not their elsewhere -- it was another version of their here, and it obliged them to confront their own Latin American self-image.

       Several of the authors' India-related books are under review at the complete review: In Light of India and A Tale of Two Gardens by Paz, and Cortázar's From the Observatory.

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

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       'Literary chic'

       At Elle (India) Anoushka Madan explores Why Is Everyone Suddenly Dressing Like They Read Books ?
       I did not know it was possible 'dress like you read books', and find no correlation between my reading and what I wear, but, hey, if: "Books have become fashion objects in their own right" -- well, there are worse things, right ?
       And good to know (I guess ?) that:

Literary chic is not confined to minimalism or muted dressing. Someone can wear a sequinned dress, archival designer pieces or maximalist styling and still participate in this performance through references and attitude alone. The goal is not to look quiet. It is to look culturally fluent.

       But, yes, little surprise to the conclusion: "Ultimately, literary chic is not really about books".

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

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       AI translation ...

       Well, if it's newspaper-article-worthy presumably at least that means it's not (yet) commonplace, as, at The New Indian Express, they tout: First fully AI-translated Kannada book released. But presumably it won't be the last .....
       A fancy release -- "The book was unveiled at a function held at Jagannatha Centre for Art and Culture" -- with an MP playing along.
       And:

The Kannada translation was produced using Bengaluru-based startup NAAV AI’s TransLit technology, which significantly reduces the human effort required for editing and proofreading.

       Great .....

       (Gotta love that the page presenting this technology features a picture of leather-bound antique books. AI-generated, of course, and floating around elsewhere on the internet, including here (and used by other *publishers* as well).)

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

       Plutarch Award

       The Biographers International Organization has announced that Gertrude Stein, by Francesca Wade, has won the 2026 Plutarch Award -- "the only international prize of its kind" -- for the best biography of 2025.

       See also the publicity pages at Scribner and Faber, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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

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       'Literary ballet' ?

       They're performing Kenneth MacMillan's Manon at the Vienna State Opera, and in the programme-booklet they write about "Manon" as a literary ballet (as also, apparently, it is: "one of the canonical works of literary ballet").
       An interesting exercise, I suppose:

Literary ballet should therefore be understood as a specific form of choreographic adaptation, in which a source text composed in language is translated into a primarily non-verbal, body-based system of signs. The semantic structure of the literary text is not reproduced, but transformed into a new aesthetic order constituted by movement, music, space and light. The challenge facing every choreographer is to create narrative, psychological and affective dimensions tangible without resorting to language -- a complex undertaking.

       Still, I think I'll be sticking to the printed texts.

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

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       Spy Story review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Len Deighton's 1974 novel, Spy Story.

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

       James Tait Black Prizes

       They've announced the winners of this year's James Tait Black Prizes -- "the UK's longest running literary award"(awarded since 1919) -- in its two categories, fiction and biography -- despite some controversy, as there is an ongoing industrial action at the University of Edinburgh; see, for example, Catriona Stewart's report in The Scotsman, UK's oldest literary prize to be awarded in defiance of university marking boycott.
       On the Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis, translated by Katharine Halls, won the fiction category; see also the Peirene publicity page.

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

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       Irish Novel of the Year

       They've announced the winner of this year's Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, and it is Thirst Trap, by Gráinne O'Hare; see also the publicity pages from Picador and Crown.

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

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       Turið  Sigurðardóttir Translation Prize

       The American-Scandinavian Foundation has added another to their impressive roster of translation prizes, the Turið  Sigurðardóttir Translation Prize, honoring the best translation from a work of Faroese (!) or Icelandic literature into English.

       Coïncidentally, TraLaLit has just posted a (German) Q & A on the Große kleine Sprache Färöisch.

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

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       Chinese genre fiction abroad

       Xinhua reports that a Growing potential unfolds for Chinese genre fiction in overseas market.
       Among the observations:

Zheng Lei, deputy director of the International Department of the China Writers Association (CWA), said genre fiction has become one of the brightest spots in the overseas promotion of contemporary Chinese literature. With strong plots, high readability and themes that resonate with readers worldwide, genre fiction also faces relatively less loss in cross-language translation, he added.

       (Meanwhile, at the CWA site they also report 新时代军事文学创作推进会在京举行; I wonder whether they'll also be touting that abroad.)

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

       Climate Fiction Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Climate Fiction Prize -- the second time it's been awarded --, and it is Hum, by Helen Phillips; see also the publicity pages at Atlantic Books and Scribner, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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

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       St. Petersburg International Book Fair

       They recently held the St. Petersburg International Book Fair, and in The Moscow Times they report on it, in Pro-War Books, Bomb Checks and Z-Poetry Reign at St. Petersburg's Literary Fair.
       One employee from "one of St. Petersburg's oldest independent bookstores" sums up: "It’s the s***iest festival. It’s all about the state agenda".
       It sounds like it was ... missable.

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

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       Seven review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Joanna Kavenna's Seven: or, How to Play a Game Without Rules -- out already in the UK, and coming to the US 14 July.

       (Yet another title for my second-favorite site-index, Titles beginning with numbers: (0 through a billion).)

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

       AI and writing in ... China

       At China Daily Rya Zhu considers When literature meets AI.
       Much the same points as are made elsewhere -- and many will agree with the Chen Qiufan quote: "AI is an extremely powerful engine of mediocrity"

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

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       Publishing in ... Qatar

       QNA reports that Officials, Publishers, Authors to QNA: Qatar's Cultural Scene Supportive for Young Authors -- spearheaded by the (Ministry of Culture-affiliated) Qatari Forum for Authors
       Support and an attempt to foster a literary culture is always good to see -- and it's amusing/revealing to note several mentions of authors being encouraged to read (e.g. Executive Director of HBKU Press Bachar Chebaro: "stressed how crucial reading is for any successful writing project, adding that authors cannot build a genuine experience without broad exposure to various forms of knowledge and literary and intellectual trends, with reading enhancing style and helping create a deeper and more mature creative experience").

       Meanwhile, QNA also reports on a recent 'Future Writers' programme for students ("projected as a pioneering national platform to explore literary talent") -- although it: "focused on promoting the Qatari identity in the participating literary works" .....

       Maybe we'll eventually see some more Qatari fiction in translation ?

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

       Sunday Times Literary Awards longlists

       They've announced the longlists for this year's (South African) Sunday Times Literary Awards in its two categories, fiction and non.

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

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       'BookTok's critical values'

       Via I am pointed to Selen Ozturk's piece on 'BookTok's critical values' at The Point, Common Readers -- Ozturk finding:

What’s new is that now the reader’s appraisal of the work, regardless of its ambition, caves into their emotional response to it. On BookTok, evaluation is testimony: the reader’s response to a book isn’t evidence in service of a judgment, it is the judgment.

       (I am intrigued by the whole 'BookTok' concept/phenomenon, but still haven't found the patience to take/find the time to watch such online video-soliloquies/rants, just as I haven't for listening to 'podcasts'; all I find time for is good (?) old-fashioned text. Still, the medium and message(s) surely can't be ignored.)

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

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       Returning to regularly scheduled programming

       Things have been a bit slow at the complete review for a while now as I have been in the process of a transcontinental relocation -- I and/as the site am now based in Austria -- but things should slowly be getting back to normal (i.e. the way things used to be), with a steady and once again slightly more frequent drip of reviews, as well as hopefully daily posting at this Literary Saloon.
       The time-zone change does, however, change the scheduling of posting; not quite sure where I will land on that, but I am afraid the convenient old schedule -- where US readers could find the latest before going to bed, and European readers woke up to the day's posts -- is no longer feasible; indeed, the time of posting at the Literary Saloon has/will probably shift by some twelve hours or so. I hope this doesn't irritate readers who have gotten used to the old schedule too much, but it can't be helped -- but at least the content/offerings should remain much the same.
       (For what it's worth, I'm finding the adjustment very irritating.)

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

       Siegfried Lenz Preis

       The Siegfried Lenz Stiftung has announced the winner of this year's Siegfried Lenz Prize, and it is Norbert Gstrein.

       The Siegfried Lenz Prize is a biennial author prize paying out a generous €50,000 that has been awarded since 2014; all the previous winners have been foreign authors (such as Amos Oz (2014), Julian Barnes (2016), and Lyudmila Ulitskaya (2020)); Gstrein is the first German-writing author to win this German prize.
       Several of Gstrein's books have been translated into English -- though the most recent seems to have been almost a decade back, A Sense of the Beginning; see also the MacLehose publicity page.
       See also the Hanser foreign rights page for his most recent novel, Im ersten Licht -- English-language rights apparently not yet sold -- with links to information about some of his other titles as well.

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

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       HKW Internationaler Literaturpreis shortlist

       I missed this last week, but the Haus der Kulturen der Welt has announced the shortlist for its Internationalen Literaturpreis, a leading German prize for a contemporary literary work in translation (with the author of the winning work to receive €20,000 and the translator of the winning work €15,000).
       Only one book is a translation from English -- of V. V. Ganeshananthan's Brotherless Night -- with the others translations from: Araabic, Belarusian, Dutch, Farsi, and Hungarian; it looks like an interesting selection.
       The winner will be announced 3 July.

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

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       Q & A: Gioconda Belli

       AFP has a Q & A with the author, 'They're afraid': Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli on fighting censorship, as her latest novel, Un silencio lleno de murmullos (see also the Seix Barral publicity page) -- "It's a novel about the relationship between a mother and a daughter, but it's also a novel about disillusionment" -- has been censored in her homeland.

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

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       Q & A: Vivek Shanbhag

       At Scroll.in they have a lengthy excerpt of Parul Sehgal's Q & A with the Ghachar Ghochar-author, in ‘You must, in some sense, go mad with literature’: Writer Vivek Shanbhag -- the full interview published in the volume Taste; see the Juggernaut publicity page.
       Among the interesting bits:

I write in Kannada, which is not my mother tongue. My mother tongue is Konkani. [...] Today, Konkani is written in five scripts. No other Indian language has this distinction. Speech is mutually intelligible, but writing is not. That in itself is a powerful metaphor for the community’s worldview.

So, there were multiple worlds. At home, we spoke Konkani, but outside, Kannada. Every outside experience, when brought back home, had to be translated. This act of translation was constant, sometimes involving the direct borrowing of Kannada words and phrases. The borders between languages were porous. It sounds romantic now, but at the time, it felt completely natural.

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

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       Orbital review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize-winning novel, Orbital.

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

       Sophie Kerr Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Sophie Kerr Prize at Washington College -- the " largest literary award for a college student" in the US (and, I presume, anywhere else), paying out an impressive US$86,702 this year -- and it is Jaya Basu, whose portfolio included: "poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and playwriting, and explored the forces of attraction that govern the universe and act on all bodies".

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

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       Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and Lin King Q & As

       As I noted earlier this week, Taiwan Travelogue won the International Booker Prize, and it's good to see quite a few Q & A's and profiles of author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translator Lin King, including:

• International Booker Prize winner Yáng Shuāng-zi: ‘We still live under a colonial regime’ by Tobias Grey at the Financial Times (presumably paywalled)
• ‘I refuse to be a second-class citizen in my own land’: Taiwanese International Booker winner Yáng Shuāng-zǐ by Emma Loffhagen at The Guardian
• International Booker winners Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and Lin King on queerness, translation and Taiwan’s future by Ellen Peirson-Hagger at The Observer
• ‘Taiwan Travelogue’ writer hopes book sparks dialogue at the Taipei Times
• ‘China constantly brainwashes us’: The superstar novelist fighting for Taiwan by Claire Allfree at The Telegraph (presumably paywalled)

       And see also the summary-report, with the winners remarks at the ceremony, at (UK) publisher And Other Stories' site.

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

       Dublin Literary Award

       They've announced the winner of this year's Dublin Literary Award -- "the world's largest prize for a single novel published in English" -- and it is Gliff, by Ali Smith.
       See also the publicity pages from Penguin and Vintage, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.

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

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       Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize shortlist

       They've now announced the shortlist for this year's Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
       Awarded to translations "published for the first time in print form in the United Kingdom in the year 2025", the only shortlisted title under review at the complete review is Susan Bernofsky's translation of Tawada Yoko's The Naked Eye.
       The winner will be announced 13 June.

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

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       Society of Authors' Awards shortlists

       The Society of Authors has announced shortlists for five of its awards -- with Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah in the running for the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize -- "awarded to a UK or Irish writer, or a writer currently resident in those countries, for a novel focusing on the experience of travel away from home " -- for his Theft.
       The winners (and those of several more of their awards) will be announced 18 June.

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

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       'New books in Hungarian'

       At hlo they have their regular feature of 'New Books in Hungarian' -- covering spring, 2026 this time.
       Always interesting to see what domestic literature is being published in other languages.

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

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       Prix Jean d'Ormesson

       One of my favorite French literary prizes is the anything-can-be-nominated-for-it prix Jean d'Ormesson -- though in recent years the jurors (who do the nominating) have stuck more to recently-published works; so also this year, with the just-announced winner La Rosa Perdida by Christopher Laquieze; see the Livres Hebdo report; see also the JC Lattès publicity page for the book.
       (At least among the longlisted titles this year was a new Theodor Fontane-translation, as well the (also new) collection of all of Jorge Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy Casares' co-written work, Œuvres complètes à quatre mains; see also the Éditions Seghers publicity page.).

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

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       Q & A: Eduardo Halfon

       At the World Literature Today blog Anderson Tepper has Manipulating Memory: A Conversation with Eduardo Halfon -- mainly about Halfon's recent novel, Tarantula (whereby he notes that the English one: "is like the tenth or twelfth translation" -- as some wariness continues to hold much of the US/UK publishing world back from jumping on translations before seeing how the work fares elsewhere, in other translations).
       Interesting also to hear that he's stayed in Berlin -- living in Wannsee ("So I'm almost at ground zero for my books").

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

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       Q & A: Emma Ramadan

       At the Asymptote blog Xiao Yue Shan has On Self-Enrichment: An Interview with Emma Ramadan on Translating Emma Tholozan's Self-Worth; see also my review of the novel.

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

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