opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 31 July 2026

21 July : Günter Grass up for grabs | Madan Puraskar shortlist | Lydia Davis exhibit
22 July : PEN Translates grants | Ho Chi Minh book
23 July : Colson Whitehead Q & As | Amazon Literary Partnership grants | Wow! Literary Award open for submissions
24 July : Großer Preis des Deutschen Literaturfonds | Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist | Alan Turing story analysis | The Bantam Story review
25 July : Theakston Award | 'Reading Globally' at US libraries
26 July : Safal Kiswahili Prize | Philippine literary narratives as ... furniture
27 July : German Museum of Books and Writing | Philippine works in translation database | AI and publishing
28 July : Higashino Keigo (1958-2026) | Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Award shortlist | Tanner on Ice review
29 July : Booker Prize longlist | Korean literature abroad
30 July : Hyphen | Reacher | Emily Wilson Q & A
31 July : Nunez on Woolf / Ridgway on Beckett | South Korean literature in ... Turkey | Cundill Prize longlist | Grand Prix de Traduction finalists

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       Nunez on Woolf / Ridgway on Beckett

       At Publishers Weekly Nick Hilden has Q & As with two authors about literary influence -- Sigrid Nunez on Virginia Woolf and Keith Ridgway on Samuel Beckett.

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       South Korean literature in ... Turkey

       At Korea JoongAng Daily they report that Turkish readers write history as K-literature translation tops best sellers in 2025 as, impressively:

"Turkey is Europe's most enthusiastic market for Korean literature," Hong Soon-chul, the head of literary rights agency BC Agency, said. "Three universities, including Ankara University, have even established dedicated programs to train translators of Korean literature."

       Some numbers, too:

A total of 66 Korean literary works were translated into Turkish between 1993 and 2025. Of those, 52 were published between 2017 and 2025.

       Always good to see more translation between such languages. (Though of course it would be interesting to hear/compare how much Turkish literature is being translated into Korean .....)

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       Cundill Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Cundill History Prize -- "The world's leading prize for a work of history written or translated into English", awarded for a work demonstrating: "excellence across the prize's guiding criteria: craft, communication, and consequence"
       Fifteen titles, selected: "from almost 400 submissions from across the world".

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       Grand Prix de Traduction finalists

       Atlas (the Association pour la promotion de la traduction littéraire) has announced the seven finalists for this year's Grand Prix de Traduction Amédée Pichot, a leading French prize for a translation of a 'remarkable work of contemporary fiction'.
       Noteworthy: none of the seven finalists are translations of a work written in English.
       The past three winners have been translations of Mircea Cărtărescu's Theodoros (2025), Stefano d'Arrigo's Horcynus Orca (2024), and Dubravka Ugrešić's Fox (2023), which is pretty impressive; indeed, the list of winners overall is consistently very strong.

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       Hyphen

       I mentioned this when it was still in the works, but now the new publication Hyphen has launched -- the first issue: "featuring work in seven languages by 17 writers and 11 translators, with Marathi as the Language in Focus". Looks promising !
       At South First Ashutosh Kumar Thakur writes about the magazine and the launch, in Hyphen and the dream of a shared Indian literature -- suggesting that:

Hyphen aims to be much more than a new literary journal. It is an attempt to reshape the ecology of Indian literature itself. It invites readers to imagine India’s many literatures not as isolated traditions but as parts of a shared intellectual landscape connected through translation, curiosity and conversation.

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       Reacher

       Season four of Prime Video's adaptation of Lee Child's long-running Jack Reacher series of novels is set to become available 12 August, and they've now also announced details about season five -- see, for example, the report at The Hollywood Reporter.
       I mention both because the books they are each based on are under review at the complete review: season four is based on Gone Tomorrow, and season five on Make Me.

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       Emily Wilson Q & A

       With a new Odyssey-film out, Emily Wilson -- who, among other things, has translated Homer's epic -- is getting some attention, especially since she reviewed the new film version, at considerable length (4234 words, as the webpage helpfully points out) at the London Review of Books, a take (and, basically, take-down) which has itself been much-discussed.
       At npr they apparently had her on for a radio Q & A; you can listen to the whole 43 minutes (as the webpage helpfully points out) there, but they also have a written summary and her answers to some of the questions, at 'Odyssey' translator Emily Wilson says Nolan shouldn't have written the movie himself. It sounds like the whole thing -- which thankfully doesn't just focus on the film -- would be worth listening to (but some of us don't have anywhere near the patience for that sort of thing; too bad there's no full written transcript).

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       Booker Prize longlist

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Booker Prize, the leading English-language novel prize.
       Thirteen titles -- and, amazingly, one is actually under review at the complete review: The Palm House, by Gwendoline Riley.

       The shortlist will be announced 22 September, and the winner on 9 November.

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       Korean literature abroad

       The Literature Translation Institute of Korea has announced its latest tally of the past five years, 2021 to 2025, of South Korean book sales abroad and, as The Korea Times' Hankook Ilbo report sums up, World embraces Korean literature, with 3.58 mil. copies sold overseas over 5 years.
       The numbers the past two years have been amazingly steady, overseas sales of South Korean titles reaching 1,197,557 copies in 2025, just a bit more than the 1,197,329 in 2024.

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

       Higashino Keigo (1958-2026)

       Japanese author Higashino Keigo has passed away; see, for example, Elizabeth Beattie's Japanese author Keigo Higashino, known for penning intricate mystery novels, dies at 68 in The Japan Times or the Kodansha press release.
       Several of his works are under review at the complete review:

• The Devotion of Suspect X
• Invisible Helix
• Malice
• A Midsummer's Equation
• The Name of the Game is a Kidnapping
• Naoko
• Newcomer
• Silent Parade

       His work has been phenomenally popular in Japan, but also especially in South Korea and China.

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       Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Award shortlist

       PEN Belarus has announced the shortlist for this year's Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Award, the leading Belarusian literary award -- six titles, two of them submitted anonymously; see also the Belsat report, Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Award announces 2026 shortlist.
       The winner will be announced 7 November.

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       Tanner on Ice review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Lawrence Block's 1998 novel, Tanner on Ice -- the eighth in his sleepless Evan Tanner series.

       (I'm always curious about books with a Burma setting .....)

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       German Museum of Books and Writing

       The German Museum of Books and Writing -- "the world's oldest museum of book culture", founded in 1884 ! -- can be found at the German National Library in Leipzig and looks pretty neat. And at the dnb blog Linus Hartmann-Enke now offers a nice little (German ...) overview -- with pictures -- of what the museum collects, in the post on Was sammelt eigentlich unser Museum ?

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       Philippine works in translation database

       At ABS-CBN News Mye Mulingtapang takes a look at The database that finally mapped PH literature's global journey -- Anthony John Balisi's 'The Database of Philippine Works in Translation', documenting: "2,647 translated editions in 65 languages across 81 countries". Other titbits from the database: 710 of the translations are into English, while the translations are from 35 source languages "including 22 Philippine languages" (leading me to wonder what the 13 non-Philippine languages Philippine works have been translated from -- sure, English and Spanish, but what about the others ?).
       Also:

English remains the dominant bridge between Filipino writing and international readers. Nearly one quarter of all recorded translations pass through English before reaching other languages, shaping which books gain visibility overseas.

       Disappointingly, the database does not appear to be freely accessible online.

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       AI and publishing

       In the Financial Times Daniel Thomas writes at length on The new premium product: books written by people (presumably paywalled, but ...).
       Pretty much all the usual stuff, but some fun quotes -- "Poor style on its own is not enough to identify AI usage. “Lots of books are badly written,” one executive shrugs" -- and the like.
       Also impressive:

New books with ISBN numbers in the US rose by a third last year to over 4mn, with more than four-fifths of these self-published. Many such authors are able to use AI tools to generate a book a day with little use of their own creativity.

       As always, I think there is way too much focus on/concern about the idea of 'authorship' (including from the wannabe 'authors' who generate books via AI): what matters is the text. For that reason, too, I am much more concerned about non-fiction -- where facts and references, and getting them right, matter (or should ...), something AI has problems with -- than fiction (where surely, always, everything goes and it's the output -- human or LLM-generated -- that matters, and where AI can perform adequately or even well (yes, the writing is often 'bad' -- but so is so much 100%-human-written stuff ....)).
       (Interesting to see then that:

Fletcher describes a “schism”, especially between fiction, where there is “more dogma” over AI use, and non-fiction, where its value for research is often prized.

       I've found AI basically unusable for research beyond the loosest 'summarize this'-tasks, because it plays so fast and loose with facts, numbers, and dates. Relying on it to any extent would involve so much fact-checking that it is much easier to basically avoid it from the start. Always go to the original sources, folks ! Always ! (Meanwhile: don't be dogmatic about fiction -- anything should go in fiction, whatever works !))
       But I do not envy those in publishing who have to deal with this, especially the poor agents and publishers inundated by AI-generated stuff. (I feel bad enough for them already, being inundated with human-generated stuff, knowing how terrible much of that slush that comes their way is .....)

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       Safal Kiswahili Prize

       They've announced the winners of the Safal Kiswahili Prize for African Literature, "established with the express goal of promoting reading and writing in African languages", -- though, sigh, not yet at the official site, but see, for example, their social media post or the report at Writing Africa. (I continue to fail to understand why, if a prize has a nice, official site they don't keep it properly updated and make this sort of information (surely the most significant bit of news, each year) available there immediately; if they can *tweet* (etc.) it, then surely they can also post to the site (which is the obvious place for people who are interested in the prize to look for the latest news from/about it ).....)
       The prize is given in three categories -- fiction, poetry, short story collections -- and this year's winners were selected from 230 submissions from seven countries.

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       Philippine literary narratives as ... furniture

       It isn't as clear from the SoFA recap, Inside iPAMANA: A Recap of SoFA's Furniture Design Exhibition, but Patrick de Veyra's Lifestyles.inq more extensive article, When Filipino myths become furniture, explains that the "curatorial brief" for the recent SoFA Design Institute exhibition 'iPamana: Honoring Filipino Stories Through Furniture' was: "translate Philippine literary narratives into contemporary furniture design".
       An interesting idea .....

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       Theakston Award

       They've announced the winner of this year's Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, and it is The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths; see also the publicity pages from Quercus and Penguin Books.

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       'Reading Globally' at US libraries

       At Publishers Weekly Nathalie op de Beeck reports how American 'Public libraries are augmenting their world language collections and bringing patrons to the international stacks', in Reading Globally.
       Good to hear that: "U.S.-wide, libraries are keeping their stacks inclusive" -- and interesting if perhaps not surprising to hear that sourcing books is a major issue: "Trusted vendors are essential to world language collecting. “The biggest challenge is the time it takes to identify vendors,” says Stephen Sposato, collection manager at the Chicago Public Library".

       (Hard to beat the old and much-missed World Languages Collection at the much-missed Donnell Library Center (yeah, the replacement 53rd Street Library looks spiffy, but it just ain't the same) of the New York Public Library system, however. They moved a lot of these books to the Mid-Manhattan branch before that was re-done, and much is still there and elsewhere in the system, but it's not the same as that: "unique, centrally located circulating collection of about 175,000 books in languages other than English", sigh.)

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       Großer Preis des Deutschen Literaturfonds

       The Deutscher Literaturfonds (German Literary Fund, a sort of National Endowment for the Arts but just for contemporary literature (and politically untainted)) has announced the winner of its annual Grand Prize, and it is Esther Dischereit.
       The prize is noteworthy not least because it offers impressive author support -- the pay-out is €50,000. (Until 2020 it was known as the Kranichsteiner Literaturpreis, and it has an impressive list of winners, including the inaugural winner, Rainald Goetz (1983); other winners include Wolfgang Hilbig (1987), Herta Müller (1991), and Esther Kinsky (2015).)
       Several of Dischereit's work have been translated into English -- see, for example, Flowers for Otello, published by Seagull Books and Sometimes a Single Leaf, published by ARC.

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       Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist

       The Nigeria Prize for Literature has announced its longlist -- though not yet at its poorly updated official site (the general slowness of updating there disappointing especially since, with its $100,000 payout and Nigeria LNG Limited backing, they seem to be very well funded).
       "The competition runs a four-year cycle that revolves around Prose Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Children's Literature", and this is a poetry year; for a list of the eleven finalists, selected from 223 entries, see, for example, FULL LIST: Nigeria Prize for Literature announces longlist for $100,000 poetry prize at the Nigerian Tribune.

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       Alan Turing story analysis

       The short, untitled story by Alan Turing wasn't unknown -- read the manuscript of AMT/A/13 at the Turing Digital Archive -- but University of Cambridge professor Sarah Dillon's study of it just published in The Review of English Studies, ‘Pryce’s Buoy’: Alan Turing’s autofictional short story, is getting a lot of attention and certainly of some interest.
       See also the University of Cambridge press release by Tom Almeroth-Williams, Alan Turing's story, summing things up; most of the press reports seem to use this as the basis for their coverage (to put it mildly ...), see, e.g. (just one example ...) Mark Brown's Racy short story by Alan Turing offers glimpse of ‘playful, funny, cheeky’ side

       (On social media, etc. the overwhelming majority of mentions will, of course, link to the regurgitated press coverage rather the original press release, much less Dillon's actual, freely-accessible article or even the Turing manuscript itself (admittedly somewhat hard to read -- but a transcription is included as an Appendix in Dillon's article). I understand media-outlets regurgitating the press release for their readers -- that's what a huge proportion of contemporary journalism consists of --, but on the internet there's really no excuse for not linking directly to the source material (which, disappointingly, most of the media mentions don't bother with either).)

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       The Bantam Story review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Clarence Petersen on Twenty-Five Years of Paperback Publishing, as he tells The Bantam Story.
       Ah, the days of mass (really mass !) market paperbacks .....

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       Colson Whitehead Q & As

       The third volume in Colson Whitehead's Harlem trilogy, Cool Machine, is now out, so there are reviews and coverage all over the place, including quite a few Q & As.
       Lex Pryor's How to Die and Be Reborn in Colson Whitehead's New York at The Ringer looks to be the most extensive, but see also Natalie Weiner's Colson Whitehead Talks About Embracing Change, Pulling Off A Heist, And Finding A Good Coffee Table at Defector, and Ayesha Rascoe's Colson Whitehead discusses 'Cool Machine,' the third book in his Harlem trilogy series at npr.

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       Amazon Literary Partnership grants

       Amazon has announced the latest batch of its Amazon Literary Partnership in the US, "providing $1 million in grants to 102 literary organizations across more than 25 states", with the grants supporting: "20 literary magazines, 19 poetry organizations, more than 10 workshop and writing centers, more than 10 event-driven organizations, five residency programs, and seven organizations exclusively focused on serving young writer".
       Many fine institutions and organization here -- quite a few focusing on translation, too ! --, including a handful of certainly worthy publishers, and certainly good to see they get to see a bit of extra cash -- and Amazon shareholders shouldn't feel a pinch; with net income last year at Amazon of US$77.7 billion ("$7.17 per diluted share") this really isn't even pocket-change -- and since it looks like pretty much all the grant-recipients are 'non-profits' for US tax purposes the grants are presumably tax-deductible (i.e. essentially subsidized by US taxpayers). (General legal/accounting note for donors: just because a donation is tax-deductible does not mean you have to take the deduction (though I understand that most Americans are of the opinion that that defeats their purpose ...).)

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       Wow! Literary Award open for submissions

       The SETI Institute (whose official: "mission is to lead humanity's quest to understand the origins and prevalence of life and intelligence in the universe and share that knowledge with the world") has announced that The SETI Institute is now accepting submissions for the Wow! Literary Award for Emerging Writers.
       Usually, I wouldn't link to/mention a call for submissions, but I couldn't resist here, not just because of the name of the award, but because the name is new, as they re-named the award this year -- previously, it was the Cosmic Chronicles Literary Prize, which certainly isn't as catchy.
       Curious, I wondered how long they had stuck with 'Cosmic Chronicles Literary Prize' -- and it turns out that just lasted ... one year: yes, the Cosmic Chronicles Literary Prize -- now the Wow! Literary Award for Emerging Writers -- was just established last year .....
       Stay tuned for what they call it next year !
       (Also: I wonder what the over/under is on this year's winner saying: "Wow!" when they accept the prize.)

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       PEN Translates grants

       English PEN has announced the latest batch of its PEN Translates grants, fourteen titles, translated from seven languages.
       Quite a few promising-sounding titles here.

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

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       Ho Chi Minh book

       Human Rights Watch reports that in Vietnam: 5 Arrested for Ho Chi Minh Book.
       The five have been detained "for their roles in the publication of a controversial book about Ho Chi Minh, the founder of Vietnamese communism"; the book is Chuyện với Thanh by Nguyễn Thành Nam, and apparently:

The book details Ho Chi Minh’s life and revolutionary career using conversational dialogues between a teacher and a student, and contemporary vernacular to make Ho Chi Minh and his thinking relevant to younger Vietnamese people.

       Apparently everything was going fine -- "Events to introduce the book in April and May garnered positive coverage, including in state media outlets" -- but:

However, in June, the retired provincial Communist Party official Phan Trung Can criticized the book online, accusing the author of disrespecting Ho Chi Minh and disparaging Vietnam’s revolutionary history. He focused on the book’s use of contemporary language as insufficiently reverential toward Ho Chi Minh and called for the book to be destroyed. Following his initial post, like-minded internet users demanded punishment of everyone involved in producing and promoting the book.

       Yes, he deemed: "the book’s use of contemporary language as insufficiently reverential toward Ho Chi Minh" ..... And that seems to have been enough for what sounds like a real harsh crackdown (aside from the arrests, e.g.: "In July, the ministry’s Press Bureau fined 23 newspapers for promoting the book", etc.).

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       Günter Grass up for grabs

       Longtime Günter Grass-publisher Steidl has apparently applied for bankruptcy -- something like the American 'Chapter 11', from the sounds of it -- and, as Börsenblatt reports, oh, by the way, they've lost the worldwide rights to the Nobel laureate's work, which are now with the copyright-holders, the Günter und Ute Grass Stiftung.
       Look for a high-bidding free-for-all -- not least because of Grass' imminently upcoming centenary (16 October 2027). This should get really interesting .....

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       Madan Puraskar shortlist

       Madan Puraskar Guthi has announced the ten-title strong shortlist for its Madan Puraskar, "Nepal's most prestigious literary award", selected from 298 submissions; see also the The Rising Nepal report.

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       Lydia Davis exhibit

       The exhibit Notes I Have Now and Then Made: Items from the Lydia Davis Papers at Columbia University's Rare Book & Manuscript Library closed back in April already, but in the Columbia Spectator Zoha Bajwa has a look back at it and its curation.

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