opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

12 - 20 August 2026

12 August : Deutscher Buchpreis longlist | Prime Minister's Literary Awards shortlists
13 August : Arthur C. Clarke Award | Bugadze novel not allowed in prison | Serbian novels
14 August : John Crowley (1942-2026) | Publishing and AI | Uses for AI in ... China
15 August : List of French literary prizes | Los sorias preview | Writers on John McGahern | Andrew Bergman mysteries review
16 August : 'Japan's macabre literati' | 三國遺事 translation | Art Spiegelman profile
17 August : 'From the Shadows to the Light' exhibit | Publishing in ... Russia | Jasper Fforde profile | Ships That Pass in the Night review
18 August : Vertical, Inc. | Unter Tieren premiere
19 August : FT Business Book of the Year Award longlist | Literature from/in Ghana | Book ownership
20 August : China Miéville Q & A | Joanna Russ archives | Publishers in ... California

go to weblog

return to main archive

       China Miéville Q & A

       China Miéville has a massive new novel coming out, The Rouse -- see the publicity pages at Picador and Del Rey or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk -- and at the Boston Review Mark Bould now has a Q & A with him, Revenance Event.

       I've enjoyed Miéville's work -- four of his books are under review at the complete review (e.g. Perdido Street Station) --, so I am certainly intrigued by this one and might try to get my hands on a copy.

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

---

       Joanna Russ archives

       At the Ancillary Review of Books Cameron Kunzelman has an interesting piece about the We Who Are About To ...-author, The Robber Time: Joanna Russ in the Archives.

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

---

       Publishers in ... California

       At The Los Angeles Times Carolyn Kellogg suggests: Forget New York, some of the most ambitious literature in America is happening in California, profiling Transit Books and Unnamed Press, both of whom certainly have interesting lists.

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

       FT Business Book of the Year Award longlist

       At the Financial Times they've announced the longlist for this year's FT and Standard Chartered Business Book of the Year Award -- fifteen titles.
       No fiction this year (a novel made the longlist last year) -- and I haven't seen any of these.

       The shortlist will be announced 6 October, and the winner on 2 December.

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

---

       Literature from/in Ghana

       At Modern Ghana Rajat Kanti Satpati makes the case that Ghana's Literature Isn't Underrated. It's Under-Routed
       As he notes:

A healthy literary ecosystem should allow a writer to become successful at home before becoming interesting abroad. The Ghanaian writers most visible internationally have often been those whose careers became embedded in Western educational, publishing and literary institutions, not because home-grown talent is scarcer, but because the domestic pipeline capable of carrying that talent to scale is still being built.

       But good to hear about these efforts to build up the local infrastructure.

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

---

       Book ownership

       As a (physical) book hoarder, and loathing all forms of 'licensing'-arrangements (the Kindle books you 'purchase'; pretty much all software, *sigh*; etc.) I always appreciate coverage and commentary on the plus side of actually owning this stuff versus simply ... licensing it, so see, for example, William Mullally pointing out AI companies understand the value of owning books. Do we ? at The National.

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

       Vertical, Inc.

       Sad to hear, at The Comics Journal, of the passing (quite a while ago) of Ioannis Mentzas, 1972-2026, as reported at length by Austin Price.
       As Price notes, Mentzas was: "co-founder alongside Hiroki Sakai of the publishing house Vertical and, at the time of his death, Editorial Director of Kodansha USA".
       The old Vertical, Inc. site is still up, and you can see their (very varied) output from their heyday; it's much-missed (in that form).
       Suzuki Koji's Ring was apparently the first title they brought out, in 2003, and Vertical immediately became one of those publishers from whom I requested every work of fiction (and quite a few manga) they put out; quite a few are under review at the complete review. It was an always interesting variety, and translations of the kind of Japanese fiction no one else was putting out, with quite a few neat discoveries among them; I still seek out the handful of fiction titles they published that I don't have.
       (Less of a manga/comics fan, I'm still glad to have also seen, for example, the fat Tezuka Osamu volumes (MW, etc.).)

       For early-days profiles of Vertical, see A. Melissa Kiser's Bringing Japan's Stephen Kings to U.S. at the Princeton Alumni Weekly and Motoko Rich's Now That Japan Is Cool, Its Fiction Seeks U.S. Fans (presumably paywalled) at The New York Times (freely accessible reprinted at the Taipei Times as Japanese books are no longer lost in translation).

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

---

       Unter Tieren premiere

       I reviewed Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek's Unter Tieren a few weeks ago, and now it has had its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival and -- despite its four-hour-length (without an intermission) -- it seems to have gone well; see, for example, Julia Schafferhofer's report at ORF.at.
       See also reviews at, for example, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and nachtkritik.de.

       It's coming to Vienna, to the Burgtheater, in a couple of weeks; I am tempted but .....

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

       'From the Shadows to the Light' exhibit

       At the National Library of the Czech Republic they currently have the exhibit From the Shadows to the Light, and at Radio Prague International Ruth Fraňková spoke with Jana Jirásková and Jiří Blažek about it, in explaining how Prague exhibition reveals how the Nazis sought to build the world's largest Jewish book collection.

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

---

       Publishing in ... Russia

       At Realnoe Vremya Ekaterina Petrova offers, in considerable detail, an Overview of book publishing in Russia, H1 2026: publications grow, but print runs decline.
       All sorts of fascinating numbers -- actual numbers ! -- beginning with the total number of books published in the first half of the year (46,558) and the average print run (2.82 thousand copies, down from 3.25 thousand last year), with the total number of titles published up 1.78%, but the print run down by 10.70%, year on year.
       Translations from English accounted for 50.6% of all translated titles (and 58.3% of the entire translated print run), far, far ahead of French, German, and Japanese, the next most popular languages. Impressively, ancient Greek was the ninth most translated-from language, with 56 titles. There were also 611 titles published in English itself, far ahead of the runner-up in that category, Tatar (155); 31 titles were published in German.
       The author with -- by far -- the biggest print run was, for the fourth year in a row, Anna Jane (yeah, I'm as unfamiliar with her work as you are; see), ahead of Dostoevsky and Stephen King
       'Big books' seem to be out: "Publishers issued 92 publications with a print run of over 100 thousand copies compared to 132 a year earlier. Their total print run fell from 40.8 million to 22.8 million copies".
       I am impressed by the thoroughness of the numbers (though, of course, they're not really the ideal ones: print-runs do not equal books sold, so we're getting a production- rather than consumption-picture) and wish American and European (and other) sources would provide similarly thorough and detailed industry-overviews.

       Meanwhile, however, these fuckers continue to commit outrages like striking Kyiv's book market (among (too) many other non-military sites); see, for example, the most recent RBC-Ukraine report. Shameful, as their whole conduct (and, indeed, initiation) of this conflict has been.

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

---

       Jasper Fforde profile

       At Publishers Weekly Elaine Szewczyk reports on how Jasper Fforde Has Series Business, as the concluding novel in his excellent Thursday Next-series, Dark Reading Matter, is due out this fall. (All the previous volumes, beginning with The Eyre Affair, are under review at the complete review, and I hope to see and cover this one as well.)
       See also the publicity pages for Dark Reading Matter from Soho Press and Hodder & Stoughton.

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

---

       Ships That Pass in the Night review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Beatrice Harraden's 1893 novel, Ships That Pass in the Night.

       This was a big bestseller, back in the day; it's been quite recently newly translated into both German and Spanish.
       (The title is not where the expression originated from -- she's quoting Longfellow -- but apparently it took the book to get that into widespread circulation.)

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

       'Japan's macabre literati'

       At The Japan Times Mike Fu reports on how Japan's macabre literati go global.
       I don't know that this is really anything new -- Suzuki Koji (Ring, etc.), anyone ? -- but, yes: "the latest wave of genre fiction comes as a counterpoint -- and perhaps a complement -- to the highly marketable “healing fiction” segment that has shaped perceptions of Japanese literature" (recently).
       Uketsu (Strange Pictures, etc.) is the prime example here -- and:

[Alfredo] Fee, of HarperVia, sees Uketsu and his contemporaries as part of that broader shift. The darker books, he says, have “broken from the popular trend of healing fiction and yet the books remain approachable, familiar.” He hopes the accessibility might entice readers who first encountered Japanese literature through cozier fare.

       Also rating a mention, if not quite a fit: Nishizawa Yasuhiko's The Man Who Died Seven Times.

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

---

       三國遺事 translation

       In The Korea Times Park Jin-hai profiles Remco Breuker, as Dutch scholar completes landmark translation of Samguk Yusa, as:

Unlike previous English translations, this edition was painstakingly translated in full directly from the original text, which is primarily in classical Chinese, with some elements of "hyangchal" -- an archaic writing system that used Chinese characters to represent vernacular Korean. The new book has over 2,000 footnotes, reflecting modern scholarship.

       Frits Vos' translation, 'revised, supplemented, and annotated by Remco E. Breuker and Boudewijn Walraven', was published by the University of Hawaiʻi Press, as Vestiges of the Three Kingdoms of Ancient Korea -- see their publicity page -- and, as Breuker explains:

"'Samguk Yusa' is written 99 percent in classical Chinese and one percent in Old Korean poems, preserved through Hanzi phonetics," Breuker, 54, said during an interview with the Korea Times at a cafe in Seoul on July 28. "Older translations were not annotated like this. More importantly, they were translations of translations. If you want to make a proper translation, it needs to be from the original."

       Interesting, too:

Beyond its academic significance, [Breuker] stressed the book remains an important work within contemporary Korean society. "It is a living text; it still matters," he observed. "Almost every year, new translations into Korean appear because people look at the text to decide what their ancestors were like and what the future should look like."

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

---

       Art Spiegelman profile

       At The Guardian Sophie McBain has a lengthy profile of Art Spiegelman: ‘The US needs a counter-revolution’..
       Among the fun details:

There is a mural painted by the cartoonist Gary Panter on the living room wall, and another just above their bed, painted to replace a set of bookshelves that collapsed on to the couple when they were asleep, breaking Mouly’s nose and prompting a big book clear out. “Is this book worth dying for ?” Spiegelman says they asked of themselves, a more hardcore alternative to Swedish death cleaning, but even so there are full bookshelves in every room, and pieces of art and curios everywhere.

       'Is this book worth dying for ?' seems a very good rule of thumb regarding book-keeping; I am in the process of stocking many, many shelves but am rather embarrassed by how many books I am coming across for which the answer is emphatically: 'Yes'.

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

       List of French literary prizes

       At ActuaLitté they have put up a handy Liste des prix littéraires français et francophones.
       Limited information -- though more can be found if you click the 'our articles on'-link at each entry -- but a handy overview of the many, many French and francophone prizes, including the quirky ones.

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

---

       Los sorias preview

       Long championed by/at The Untranslated, Alberto Laiseca's Los sorias (see also the publicity pages from Ediciones Simurg and Editorial Barrett) is scheduled to be published by Deep Vellum in Max Lawton's English translation in the spring of 2029, and at the Buenos Aires Herald Agustín Mango previews the coming attraction, in ‘Los Sorias’: the legendary Argentine book that remains a secret abroad.
       The author's approach certainly sounds intriguing:

“My work is delirious realism,” Laiseca once stated in an interview. “I’m very much a realist, too, but not in the way Émile Zola or the Soviets might have been. What I want to do with the distortions of delirium is precisely to highlight parts of reality that are rarely seen. That’s what realism is for.”

       There's also the promise, in the novel, that:

Characters marooning in these three states include philosophizing vagabonds, magicians, zombies, robots, and a host of demonic creatures spawned by a force of absolute evil dubbed Anti-Being.

       So, something to look forward to.

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

---

       Writers on John McGahern

       Eamon Maher has been: "reading letters McGahern received from fellow Irish writers that are held within his literary archive" and quotes from some of these in reporting in the Irish Times on The Writer’s Writer: A dive into John McGahern’s literary archive shows his huge impact.
       I'm not sure letters to the author are the best way to judge what they thought of his writing -- though these are certainly something widely held in high regard.

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

---

       Andrew Bergman mysteries review

       The most recent additions to the complete review are my reviews of two novels by Andrew Bergman featuring his PI Jack LeVine::

• The Big Kiss-Off of 1944
  
  
• Hollywood and LeVine

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

       John Crowley (1942-2026)

       American author John Crowley has passed away; see, for example, the obituary (presumably paywalled) in The New York Times or the Locus notice.

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

---

       Publishing and AI

       Another take, this by Cameron Pugh at the Christian Science Monitor, as to how Caught in the backlash over AI, book publishers face mounting questions.
       Interesting point, that:

Controversies over AI use have struck the publishing industry amid ballooning work and thinning staff. The number of books released by publishing houses in the United States increased by 10% between 2022 and 2025, according to data obtained by Publishers Weekly, rising to 642,242. Yet the number of book publishing jobs fell by 28% between 1987 and 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

       Presumably, too, increased use of AI for tasks menial and otherwise at publishing houses will see an even greater reduction in the number of book publishing jobs .....

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

---

       Uses for AI in ... China

       In the South China Morning Post Meredith Chen reports on How AI is helping to open a new chapter for ancient Chinese literature.
       Digitization certainly seems useful -- see the site she mentions, Shidian Guji -- but as to the LLMs processing and analyzing works: associate professor from the Department of Chinese and History at City University of Hong Kong Tsui Lik-hang notes:

Classical Chinese is especially exposed: unpunctuated, unreferenced, deliberately subtle, often obscure and vast in the amounts of texts. Meaning frequently depends on recognising what is being quoted and why.

       Theoretically, this is something that LLMs could be *good* at, but I suspect it will be a while before they get an adequate handle on it.

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

       Arthur C. Clarke Award

       They've announced the winner of this year's Arthur C. Clarke Award, and it is When There Are Wolves Again, by E.J. Swift; see also the Arcadia publicity page.

       Nice touch: the prize money is £2026 -- an amount raised every year since 2001 (though, I note, at less than the rate of inflation ...).

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

---

       Bugadze novel not allowed in prison

       JAM news reports that Lasha Bugadze becomes first modern Georgian writer whose book was barred from being sent to prison, as prison authorities did not allow the latest novel by the The Literature Express-author, დამკვირვებელი, to be sent to a prisoner.
       In the US, of course, prison censorship is widespread -- many, many books are denied prisoners --, but apparently in Georgia: "the penitentiary code contains no provision explicitly banning fiction from being brought into prisons", so the situation is unusual there.
       Of course it's also of interest because the book itself sounds intriguing -- see also the Sulakauri publicity page -- and it would be great to see this (and, indeed, much more Georgian fiction ...) available in translation. (See also the limited amount under review at the complete review.)

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

---

       Serbian novels

       At НИН, Luka Mičeta has a lengthy Conversation with Gojko Božović: ten novels that best reflect the Serbs and Serbia, and while it cuts off rather abruptly (maybe they want you to register to read the rest ?) there's a lot here, and some good suggestions -- not least, the great Meša Selimović's Death and the Dervish.

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

       Deutscher Buchpreis longlist

       They've announced -- yes, even with a press release in English -- the longlist for this year's German Book Prize, the leading German novel prize (basically: the German imitation-Booker).
       Twenty titles, selected from 205 considered (meaning the jury called in 25, since apparently only 180 were submitted).
       It doesn't look like many of the authors with longlisted titles have published much in English translation; Ingo Schulze appears to be the author who is presumably best-known in the US/UK.

       I haven't heard much about the longlisted titles; the one I have been curious about is by the lone longlisted Austrian author, Elias Hirschl's Schleifen -- see also the Zsolnay foreign rights page. Sounds philosophically fun -- Vienna Circle !

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

---

       Prime Minister's Literary Awards shortlists

       They've announced the shortlists for this year's (Australian) Prime Minister's Literary Awards, "the richest literary prize in the nation".
       Five finalists in each of the six categories, selected from 673 entries.
       The winners will be announced 10 September.

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

previous entries (1 - 10 August 2026)

archive index

- search the site -

- return to top of the page -

© 2026 the complete review


Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links