opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

1 - 7 June 2026

1 June: Culture in ... Georgia | Arabic literature in ... Poland
2 June: EU Prize for Literature | Mario Praz | L'impossible retour review
3 June: Carol Shields Prize for Fiction | Borges, back in print | Translation in ... India | Nádas awarded Orden Pour le mérite
4 June: Premio Strega finalists | RSL Ondaatje Prize | Like a Cat Loves a Bird review
5 June: Marjane Satrapi (1969-2026) | Griffin Poetry Prize | Literary Arts Fund grants | Publishing in ... Luxembourg
6 June: Caroline Bicks Q & A | Thirst for Love review
7 June: Book Arsenal festival report | Readers' top 100 novels

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       Book Arsenal festival report

       The International Book Arsenal Festival ran 28 to 31 May in Kyiv, and at The Ukrainian Weekly Roman Tymotsko reports on "Ukraine's most prominent literary and publishing event and one of the largest cultural festivals in Eastern Europe", in Book Arsenal draws 27,000 visitors as Ukraine's literary community gathers amid ongoing war.
       Olesia Ostrovska-Liuta, director general of Mystetskyi Arsenal, noted:

Air raid alerts, of course, added complications and interrupted several important events. But we understand that these are the realities of organizing a festival during wartime, and we are grateful to all participants and visitors who quickly and calmly moved to shelters and then returned again and again to continue the festival

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

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       Readers' top 100 novels

       The Guardian recently selected The 100 best novels of all time and now they've collected the votes of readers -- some 3000 apparently weighing in -- as well and offer Readers' top 100 novels of all time.

       I have no idea what top-100 variation they'll come up with next, but, no doubt, of list-making there will be no end .....

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

       Caroline Bicks Q & A

       At Harvard Magazine Olivia Farrar has a Q & A with the Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King-author, with the ... provocative headline Shakespeare and Stephen King Have a Lot in Common.
       Bicks mentions, incidentally:

Like most educators, though, I've noticed a marked decline in my students' attention spans and confidence when it comes to creating their own ideas and writing them down.

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

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       Thirst for Love review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Mishima Yukio's 1950 novel, Thirst for Love.

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

       Marjane Satrapi (1969-2026)

       Marjane Satrapi, best-known for her Persepolis graphic works, has passed away; see, for example, reports at Le Monde, The New York Times (presumably paywalled ?), and The Guardian.

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

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       Griffin Poetry Prize

       They've announced the winner of this year's Griffin Poetry Prize, a leading international poetry prize paying out a generous C$130,000 to the winner, and it is Night Watch, by Kevin Young; see also the publicity pages from Alfred A. Knopf and Jonathan Cape.

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

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       Literary Arts Fund grants

       The newly formed Literary Arts Fund, stepping in where the US government stepped out, has announced the winners of its first batch of grants -- US$7.7 million in unrestricted grants doled out to 40 organizations and publishers.
       They include the tally:

In the past year alone, according to data collected in the Fund’s grant application process, the 40 inaugural grant awardees -- more than half of which have annual budgets below $1,000,000 -- supported upwards of 10,000 individual authors of creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry through their programs and publications. They presented 5,909 writers at events, hosted 590 writers at residencies, awarded 421 writers financial prizes, and published 2,141 writers in books and literary magazines, among other activities -- reaching over 9,000,000 readers and audience members in person and online.

       Great to see the support.

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

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       Publishing in ... Luxembourg

       At RTL Bea Kneip reports that, after thirty-three years Publishing house Op der Lay is closing its doors.
       As Kneip notes, Op der Lay has had: "An impressive track record for a small publishing house". (Though presumably it's hard to be or find a big publishing house in Luxembourg.)

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

       Premio Strega finalists

       They've announced the six finalists for this year's Premio Strega, the leading Italian literary prize -- with I convitati di pietra by Michele Mari (see also the Einaudi publicity page) getting the most votes (280) among the longlisted titles (yes, all sorts of folks get to vote for this -- 2031 were submitted).
       There are six finalists this year, rather than the usual five because the Premio Strega rules say that if none of the five top vote-getters is published by an "editore medio-piccolo" (a 'mid- to small-sized publisher') then the book from one with the most votes gets to join the top five as a finalist; as it happens, Vedove di Camus by Elena Rui, published by mid- to small-sized L'orma (see their publicity page) came in sixth in the voting anyway, and is now one of the finalists.

       Among the authors with shortlisted books, Michele Mari is presumably the best-known in English; And Other Stories has published two of his books. Matteo Nucci's Plato-novel probably stands a good chance of getting translated, too -- see the Einaudi publicity page --; he's translated Plato's Symposium (see the Einaudi publicity page, making for some decent bona fides.

       The winner will be announced 8 July.

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

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       RSL Ondaatje Prize

       The Royal Society of Literature has announced the winner of this year's RSL Ondaatje Prize -- awarded: "for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place" -- though not yet at the official site (which is ... not very good at keeping pace with the latest news/announcements ...); it is A House for Miss Pauline, by Diana McCaulay; see, for example, the report in The Gleaner.
       See also the publicity pages for A House for Miss Pauline from Dialogue Books and Algonquin Books.

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

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       Like a Cat Loves a Bird review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of James Bailey on The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark, in Like a Cat Loves a Bird.

       This is yet another of these books that was published by a big *commercial* publisher in the UK -- Hachette UK imprint Sceptre -- and is coming out (next week) from a university press in the US (Princeton University Press).

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

       Carol Shields Prize for Fiction

       They've announced the winner of this year's Carol Shields Prize for Fiction -- celebrating (very generously, with a payout to the winner of US$150,000): "creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States" -- and it is Hellions by Julia Elliott; see also the Tin House (now a Zando imprint) publicity page.

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

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       Borges, back in print

       The original Spanish edition of Adolfo Bioy Casares' monumental Borges has long been out of print and hard to find -- but, via, I am pointed to the great news at La Nacion that Reeditarán el “Borges” de Bioy Casares, en versión definitiva y ampliada, en dos tomos.
       Okay, the two-volume aspect is a bit disappointing, but otherwise this is awesome: definitive and expanded !
       (A (delayed) English translation of this is forthcoming from New York Review Books -- see their publicity page -- but not a full one of the definitive and expanded version, I fear: yes, in a single, handy volume, but it sure sounds like it will be (considerably) abridged. Still, something to look forward to.)

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

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       Translation in ... India

       At The Federal Pramila Krishnan reports on Why literary tanslators feel their work is finally getting its due in India, speaking with translators Malini Sheshasri and Shubhashree Desikan.

       AI-translation also gets addressed -- with the interesting observation that:

Seshadri pointed out that AI systems require extensive linguistic databases containing not only vocabulary but also usage patterns, idioms and cultural references.

While English-language datasets are relatively large, many Indian languages still lack comparable resources.

As a result, literary translation between Indian languages and English is likely to remain a human-driven endeavour for the foreseeable future.

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

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       Nádas awarded Orden Pour le mérite

       Hungarian author Nádas Péter has been awarded the German Orden Pour le mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste, a German honor awarded since 1842 to both Germans and foreigners who have made great contributions to the arts or sciences (the 'peace class' of the honor, to complement the 'military honor'-track, awarded since 1740 (and, after 1810, exclusively for military achievements)); the members elect who gets to join them.
       An interesting history -- click 'EN' to read it in English -- including:

In 1933, the year the Nazis came to power, the Order Pour le mérite was worn by, among others, the Jewish physicist Albert Einstein, the communist artist (and first woman elected to the Order) Käthe Kollwitz, and the artist and writer Ernst Barlach, whose works were branded „degenerate“ by the Nazis. With such members, the Order hardly suited the new regime. Although the Order’s international renown saved it from being abolished outright, a prohibition on electing new members was designed to let it die out.

       Odd, however, that a German honor has a (half-)French name .....
       See also the hlo report, Péter Nádas Awarded Germany’s Highest Honour (qualified slightly in the article itself to: "the highest honour that the Federal Republic of Germany can bestow for services rendered to the common good"). (The article also notes: "The award does not come with a monetary prize".)

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

       EU Prize for Literature

       They've announced the winner of this year's European Union Prize for Literature -- the peculiar prize which rotates in a triennial cycle through the the EU countries (for this one only titles from Armenia, Croatia, Czechia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Sweden were eligible) -- and it is Mariborská hypnóza, by Dora Kaprálová.
       I'd like to like this prize more, but when they can't even be bothered to mention the name of the winning title in the press release announcing the winner ...... (Yes, you can see it in the picture; still .....)
       See also the Větrné Mlýny publicity page for Mariborská hypnóza.

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

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       Mario Praz

       At meer Emanuela Borgatta Dunnett considers Why no one writes like Mario Praz anymore -- suggesting that: "Prazian prose requires a patient, cultivated reader willing to lose themselves in references, silences, and shadows".
       Always good to see a Praz-mention: The Romantic Agony certainly made a great impression on me as a teen; is it really out of print ? (Mine is a late-70s reprint of the 1970 second edition from Oxford University Press.) Obviously, his Salomé-discussion was one of the significant seeds planted for my own Salome in Graz.
       And while I haven't seen it yet, it seems clear that any Rome-visit must include a visit to the Casa Museo Mario Praz (more pictures here). (Not sure I'd want to live in that *style* -- and where are all the books ? (Yes, a couple of shelves full -- but still .....))

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

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       L'impossible retour review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Amélie Nothomb's (briefly-)back-to-Japan novel from 2024, L'impossible retour -- not yet available in English.

       (This is the twenty-ninth work by Nothomb under review here.)

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

       Culture in ... Georgia

       At voxeurop Archil Kikodze 'reflects on what it means to tend a culture under siege -- and watch Europe become a myth just as his fellow citizens reach for it', in Mussolini in Tbilisi -- A tale of today's Georgia.
       Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2018, Georgia briefly managed a greater presence on the international publishing stage, but, as the state of the Georgian National Book Center suggests, they haven't been doing much in a while. A shame -- an interesting literature -- see the few titles under review at the complete review --, much more of which deserves to be translated; Dalkey Archive Press brought out a batch a while back -- and kudos to Dedalus, who continue to publish some.

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

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       Arabic literature in ... Poland

       The Warsaw International Book Fair ran 28 to 31 May, with the Emirate of Sharjah as Guest of Honour, and at The National Saeed Saeed now reports on How Arabic language and literature took root in Poland over a century.

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

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