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opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review
7 December 2024
- Saturday
Nobel Prize lecture in literature
Leipziger Buchpreis zur Europäischen Verständigung
Diagram Prize | Prix Grand Continent
Nobel Prize lecture in literature
Han Kang will give her Nobel Prize lecture in literature at 17:00 CET today; you can catch it live (or then replay it) here, and a transcript of the lecture will be available here.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
Leipziger Buchpreis zur Europäischen Verständigung
They've announced the winner of the 2025 Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding, which will handed out at next spring's Leipzig Book Fair, and it goes to Europas Hunde the German translation of Alhierd Bacharevič's Сабакі Эўропы; see also the Voland & Quist publicity page.
Bacharevič's Alindarka's Children came out in English (and Scots, in the creative approach to this translation) a few years ago in the UK from Scotland Street Press and then in the US from New Directions; get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
Diagram Prize
They've announced the winner of this year's The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year, and it is The Philosopher Fishm by Richard Adams Carey; see also the Brandeis University Press publicity page.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
Prix Grand Continent
The prix Grand Continent is a multi-lingual European book prize, with a shortlist of five titles originally written in five different languages (French, German, Italian, Polish, and Spanish) and they've now announced this year's winner -- and it is Martina Hefter's Hey, Guten Morgen, wie geht es dir ? (which had already won tis year's German Book Prize); see also the Klett-Cotta publicity page.
Part of the prize is that they will subsidize the translation of the winning work into the other four prize-languages.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
6 December 2024
- Friday
Jacques Roubaud (1932-2024) | Imaginary Books exhibit
Dionne Brand Q & A | Calder Prize update
Joyce Carol Oates Prize longlist
Jacques Roubaud (1932-2024)
Oulipien Jacques Roubaud has passed away -- a great loss; see, for example, Thierry Clermont's obituary in Le Figaro.
Several of his works are under review at the complete review:
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
Imaginary Books exhibit
The exhibit that opened at the Grolier Club in New York yesterday looks fantastic -- Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books.
The entire exhibit can be seen online as well -- good fun !
It runs through 15 February.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Dionne Brand Q & A
At The Nation Elias Rodriques has a Q & A with Dionne Brand about her recent book, Salvage, in How the Western Literary Canon Made the World Worse.
See also the Farrar, Straus and Giroux publicity page, , or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Calder Prize update
I mentioned the Society of Authors' new John Calder Translation Prize last week.
Originally, it was limited to translations from European languages, but in light of the ... feedback they got about that they have admirably now expanded it to translations from any language -- great to see.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Joyce Carol Oates Prize longlist
The New Literary Project has announced the very long (thirty-two authors !) longlist for the 2025 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, a $50,000 prize honoring: "a mid-career author of fiction in the midst of a burgeoning career, a distinguished writer who has emerged and is still emerging".
Somewhat to my embarrassment, no works by any of the thirty-two authors appear to be under review at the complete review.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
5 December 2024
- Thursday
Kanai Mieko profile | Best covers of 2024 ?
End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland review
Kanai Mieko profile
At Kyodo News Sho Hirakawa finds Japanese author with cult status draws spotlight abroad, profiling Kanai Mieko -- and noting that, while she's enjoying success abroad: "Kanai never took off in Japan except among a coterie of literary enthusiasts", with Kanai herself reporting that:
the novels in her own language she has written thus far, which do not have clear-cut themes, have been ignored by Japanese book reviewers for a long time.
Several of her works have been translated into English -- indeed, I have both the Kurodahan Press and the Stone Bridge Press editions of Oh, Tama ! (as well as the Dalkey Archive Press edition of The Word Book).
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Best covers of 2024 ?
Along with all the 'best books'-lists coming out there are also some other bests -- such as Print magazines 100 of the Best Book Covers of 2024.
Meanwhile, in India they've announced the longlist for this year's Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize; see the Scroll.in report.
(Updated - 7 December): See now also Electric Lit, where you can Cast Your Vote for the Best Book Cover of the Year.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the new translation of Murakami Haruki's 1985 novel, End of the World and Hard-Boiled Wonderland -- out (today !) in the UK and next week in the US.
Alfred Birnbaum's 1991 translation was one of the Murakami titles that was heavily cut when it was published and, as translator Jay Rubin says in his Afterword: "the time is long past for a full-length translation of Haruki's great early masterpiece".
Indeed !
(I am surprised there hasn't been more pre-publication notice/mention of this one, especially since it so obviously complements the new Murakami novel that just came out in English a few weeks ago, The City and Its Uncertain Walls.)
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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4 December 2024
- Wednesday
NYTBR's 'The 10 Best Books of 2024' | Kafka exhibit
NYTBR's 'The 10 Best Books of 2024'
The New York Times Book Review has announced its 10 Best Books of 2024 (presumably paywalled).
I haven't seen any of these -- but will probably try to seek out Álvaro Enrigue's You Dreamed of Empires at some point.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Kafka exhibit
A new exhibit has just opened at the National Library of Israel -- Kafka: Metamorphosis of an Author, which runs through next June.
One focus:
The exhibition will also trace the fascinating story of Kafka's estate and how his literary works were eventually published by his friend Max Brod.
This story begins before Kafka's death and comes to a conclusion in 2019, when Israel's Supreme Court decided that Kafka's archive was a cultural asset that was to be deposited at the National Library of Israel.
See also Benjamin Balint on Kafka's Last Trial, which covers that.
See also Jessica Steinberg's report on the exhibit, Franz Kafka's papers metamorphose into National Library exhibit, in the Times of Israel.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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3 December 2024
- Tuesday
Translation Prizes shortlists | Wolfson History Prize
Wingate Prize longlist | Best translations of 2024 ?
Translation Prizes shortlists
The Society of Authors has announced the shortlists for eight of its translation prizes.
Only three of the forty-one shortlisted titles are under review at the complete review:
- Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize
- Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Translation Prize:
The winners will be announced 12 February 2025.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Wolfson History Prize
They've announced the winner of this year's Wolfson History Prize -- the "most valuable history-writing prize in the UK", paying out £50,000 -- and it is Shadows at Noon, by Joya Chatterji.
This is one of those books that was published by a 'commercial' publisher in the UK (Bodley Head in hardcover; now in paperback from Vintage) but *only* by a university press in the US (Yale University Press); get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Wingate Prize longlist
They've announced the longlist for the 2025 Wingate Prize, " given to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to convey the idea of Jewishness to the general reader" -- seven novels and seven non-fiction titles.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Best translations of 2024 ?
Steve Donoghue always offers a variety of best-of-the-year lists (and a few worsts, as well), and has now released his The Best Books of 2024: Literature in Translation.
I can't really judge the quality here -- I've only seen a single one of these (On Leaders and Tyrants), and haven't gotten to it yet (though I expect to) -- but the list seems very classical-heavy, with only two of the books by actually living authors (and one of those books is about ... ancient Greece), and also very re-translation heavy: we've seen previous translations of practically all of these.
Contemporary fiction ?
Not a single title .....
(If this had been a blind tasting, I would have sworn this list was made by Sam Tanenhaus -- the former editor of The New York Times Book Review who rarely deigned to allow reviews of translations of any sort to appear in its pages; if and when they did, chances were ridiculously good that it was either of a re-translation or a work by a Nobel laureate (we got one of those here, too).)
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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2 December 2024
- Monday
Gulf Migrants in Malayalam Literature
Gulf Migrants in Malayalam Literature
At New Lines Magazine Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil considers The Lives of Gulf Migrants in Malayalam Literature -- noting that Benyamin's "Goat Days marked a turning point in Malayalam literature, introducing a new way of speaking about the Gulf in Malayali society".
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
1 December 2024
- Sunday
John Banville profile | The Princess Casamassima review
John Banville profile
In The Observer Tim Adams has a lengthy profile of the Man Booker-winning (for The Sea) author, in ‘I’m writing a memoir. It’s a pack of lies’: John Banville on a lifetime in books, bereavement, and the Irish love of words.
He isn't very far with the memoir -- "only just 8,000 words" -- but I certainly like the set-up, much more interesting than your usual memoir:
The truth is I had two ideas for books: one was this autobiography, and the other an idea to write a book about the last man.
You know: a pandemic, a bomb, whatever, it’s killed everybody, and there is one survivor and it just happens to be me.
I thought at my age I wouldn’t get the two books done, so I combined them.
The last man is now writing his autobiography. But of course it turns out he’s not the last – there’s a woman too. So they sort of stalk each other...
His residency-gig at the Prado museum in the Writing the Prado-programme also sounds neat -- Olga Tokarczuk was the fellow in the spring, and Coetzee also had a go.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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The Princess Casamassima review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Henry James' 1886 novel, The Princess Casamassima.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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30 November 2024
- Saturday
de Boon longlist | Publishing sales
de Boon longlist
They've announced the longlists for the 2025 de Boon, the leading Flemish book prize, with two categories -- children's/YA literature, and general (both fiction and non lumped together), written in Dutch -- paying out €50,000 in each.
The fifteen titles on the general longlist include works by Arnon Grunberg and Niña Weijers
Admirably, they reveal all the books that were considered for the prize (as every literary prize should ...) -- 539 titles for the general prize.
The shortlists will be announced 10 January, and the winners on 25 March.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Publishing sales
'Tis the season for sales from (especially: independent and university) publishers when you buy directly from their sites -- coming in all shapes and sizes, especially this 'Black Friday'-weekend but in many cases extending to Christmas or even the end of the year; check out you favorite university press and independent publisher sites.
So also, in case you haven't gotten your copy yet, my Salome in Graz is 30% off at Lulu.com with the promo code HOLIDAY30 at checkout through 2 December.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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29 November 2024
- Friday
Scotland's National Book Awards | John Calder Translation Prize
Prix Mare Nostrum
Scotland's National Book Awards
The Saltire Society has announced the winners of this year's Scotland's National Book Awards; see, for example, John Hislop's report in The Edinburgh Reporter.
Thunderclap by Laura Cumming won both Non-Fiction Book of the Year as well as overall Book of the Year, while John Burnside's Ruin, Blossom took the Poetry award, posthumously.
Ajay Close's What Doesn't Kill Us won the Fiction category.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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John Calder Translation Prize
The Society of Authors has announced the launch of the John Calder Translation Prize, named in honor of publisher John Calder (who had an excellent list).
It is open to works of fiction, non, and poetry, as long as they are full-length -- but is limited to translations: "from any European language into English".
(The Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize is similarly limited to translations: "from any living European language" -- a shame the Calder doesn't expand on that.)
(Updated - 6 December): The Society of Authors seems to have gotten quite a lot of ... feedback regarding the language limitation and has now admirably opened the prize to translations: "from any language into English".
Good for them, good for the prize.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
Prix Mare Nostrum
The French are big on regional literary prizes -- witness also their 'Grand prix de littérature américaine' ... -- and the latest prize to announce its winners is one focused on the Mediterranean, as they've now announced the winners of the Prix Mare Nostrum in its four categories, two of which are fiction (general and first); the others are 'history and geopolitics' and 'philosophy and spirituality'.
The novel prize went to La danse des flamants roses by Yara El-Ghadban; see also the Mémoire d'Encrier publicity page.
(One of this Palestinian-Canadian author's novels has been translated into English -- I am Ariel Sharon; see also the House of Anansi publicity page.)
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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28 November 2024
- Thursday
Jan Michalski Prize | Irish Book Awards
Jan Michalski Prize
They've announced the winner of this year's Jan Michalski Prize for Literature -- a CHF50,000 prize for: "a work of world literature" in any language --, and it is Ducks, by Kate Beaton; see also the Drawn & Quarterly publicity page.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
Irish Book Awards
They've announced the winners of this year's An Post Irish Book Awards, with Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan winning Eason Novel of the Year and the Irish-language fiction prize going to Geansaithe Móra by Gearóidín Nic Cárthaigh; see also the LeabhairCOMHAR publicity page.
Sally Rooney didn't win any of the book prizes, but was named Library Association of Ireland Author of the Year.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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27 November 2024
- Wednesday
NYTBR 100 Notable Books of 2024 | Orhan Pamuk Q & A
John Dos Passos Prize shortlist
NYTBR 100 Notable Books of 2024
The New York Times Book Review has released its list of their 100 Notable Books of 2024 (presumably paywalled).
As best I can tell, a mere four of the books are works in translation (there were eight last year)..
Four of the titles from the 2023 list were under review at the complete review at the time of its release; this year I managed a mere two:
(Two more are on my to-read pile, and I am curious about a handful of others, but don't count on reviews of too many more of these.)
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
Orhan Pamuk Q & A
At Hyperallergic 'Kaveh Akbar speaks with the Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist about his book of journal entries and paintings, authors who also make art, and the delight of writing fiction', in Orhan Pamuk’s Secret Paintings of Time.
Pamuk's Illustrated Notebooks 2009-2022, Memories of Distant Mountains is now out; see also the publicity pages from Alfred A. Knopf and Faber & Faber, or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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John Dos Passos Prize shortlist
Longwood University has announced the five finalists for this year's John Dos Passos Prize -- awarded to an: "underappreciated writer whose work offers incisive, original commentary on American themes".
The winner will be announced next month.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
26 November 2024
- Tuesday
Urs Allemann (1948-2024) | Sapir Prize longlist | The Rest is Silence review
Urs Allemann (1948-2024)
Swiss author Urs Allemann -- of, among other books, the notorious Babyf**ker -- has passed away; see, for example, the report in Der Bund.
His The Old Man and the Bench has also been published in English, by Dalkey Archive Press; see also their publicity page.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
- permanent link -
Sapir Prize longlist
They've announced the twelve-title-strong longlist for the Sapir Prize, a leading Hebrew-language fiction prize; see, for example, this report.
The winner will be announced in January.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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The Rest is Silence review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Augusto Monterroso's only novel, The Rest is Silence, finally available in English, from New York Review Books.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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25 November 2024
- Monday
Breyten Breytenbach (1939-2024) | FT Business Book Award Q & A
Reading in ... Spain
Breyten Breytenbach (1939-2024)
South African author Breyten Breytenbach has passed away; see, for example, Danai Nesta Kupemba's report at the BBC.
I have read several of his books, but only one of his works is under review at the complete review, Voice Over.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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FT Business Book Award Q & A
At the LSE blog Martin C.W. Walker has a Q & A with Andrew Hill, senior business writer at the Financial Times, about the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award -- the: "purpose of the prize, its history and what makes a good business book" --, in Business books for busy people.
Among his observations:
There seem to be more women writing business books today compared to the early days of the prize, though it is still the case that only 25 per cent of the books entered are by women.
The topics seem to change over time to reflect public interest.
Recently there have been, perhaps surprisingly, fewer good books about China or globalisation and, of course, more focused on technology.
Celebrity CEO books still feature among the entries, though few get through.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Reading in ... Spain
At El País they have the results of a large-scale survey of reading in Spain in the twenty-first century, La gran encuesta al lector español del siglo XXI.
The most 'relevant' Spanish author, according to respondents ?
Arturo Perez-Reverte -- by a wide margin.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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24 November 2024
- Sunday
JCB Prize | Japanese fiction in ... the UK
Murakami Haruki Q & A | Naples 1925 review
JCB Prize
They've announced the winner of this year's JCB Prize for Literature, a leading Indian fiction prize, and it is Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life, by Upamanyu Chatterjee; see also, for example, the Scroll.in report and the Speaking Tiger publicity page.
Chatterjee's English, August has been published in the US/UK, but his more recent books haven't -- maybe this prize-win will see more become available outside India.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Japanese fiction in ... the UK
At The Guardian John Self considers Surrealism, cafes and lots (and lots) of cats: why Japanese fiction is booming -- as:
In 2022, figures from Nielsen BookScan showed that Japanese fiction represented 25% of all translated fiction sales in the UK.
The dominance is even more striking this year: figures obtained by the Guardian show that, of the top 40 translated fiction titles for 2024 so far, 43% are Japanese
(I'm not quite sure what that second statistic means -- 43 per cent of 40 titles is ... 17.2 titles; presumably (?) they mean 43 per cent of the sales of the top 40 titles.)
Apparently, also -- so Alison Fincher --: "The role of Convenience Store Woman in the Japanese literature boom really can't be overstated", with Murata's books having: "now sold more than half a million copies".
However:
The fact remains, however, that the genres of Japanese fiction that are popular in the UK – crime, young women’s literary fiction, comfort books – are “heavily curated”, as Fincher puts it, to the detriment of other genres that are popular in Japan.
See also the Japanese fiction under review at the complete review.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Murakami Haruki Q & A
At The Guardian John Self has a Q & A with the The City and Its Uncertain Walls-author, Haruki Murakami: ‘My books have been criticised so much over the years, I don’t pay much attention’
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Naples 1925 review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Martin Mittelmeier on Adorno, Benjamin, and the Summer That Made Critical Theory, in Naples 1925.
This is based on Mittelmeier's Adorno in Neapel, which came out in German in 2013; the English translation has just come out, in Yale University Press' Margellos World Republic of Letters.
I hold both the press (and imprint) and translator Shelley Frisch in high regard, but this English version is a reduced and revised version of the German original and, it seems (I haven't seen the original), not for the better ......
I can (sort of ...) understand re-shaping a book for a foreign audience in translation, especially a decade on, when the author might want to add or change things, but what was done here does not seem to have served the book well .....
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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23 November 2024
- Saturday
Boualem Sansal detained in Algeria
Boualem Sansal detained in Algeria
French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal (2084, etc.) traveled to Algeria last week and has not been heard from since; apparently he was detained by the authorities.
France 24 reports on Concern in France over fate of prize-winning French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, while at the BBC Hugh Schofield reports that France alarmed by disappearance of writer in Algeria.
See also the 'Communiqué des Éditions Gallimard', Pour la libération de Boualem Sansal, and, sigh, the Algérie Presse Service report, Sansal, le pantin du révisionnisme anti-algérien.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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22 November 2024
- Friday
Murakami Haruki profile | Warwick Prize
JCB Prize sponsorship protest | HWA Crown Awards
Murakami Haruki profile
At Esquire Jonathan Russell Clark writes about The Cult of Haruki Murakami, as Murakami's The City and its Uncertain Walls is just out in English.
Clark finds:
Murakami’s global appeal, then, might exist in the heightened contrast between the unruly, traumatizing, consciousness-splitting, ghost-filled world beyond and the comforting, drama-less certitude of the conventional life.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Warwick Prize
They've announced the winner of this year's Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and it is Andrew Shanks' translation of Nelly Sachs' Revelation Freshly Erupting; see also the Carcanet publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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JCB Prize sponsorship protest
The JCB Prize for Literature, a leading Indian fiction prize, is the latest prize to find itself facing complaints about tainted sponsorship money, as an open letter signed by more than 120 authors, translators, and publishers calls the prize out, writing:
to expose the deep-rooted hypocrisy of the JCB Prize for Literature, on account of the company’s major role in the horrifying destruction of homes and livelihoods across India, Kashmir and Palestine.
See also, for example, the Scroll.in report, Over 120 writers accuse JCB Literature Prize of hypocrisy over links to ‘bulldozer justice’.
The winner of the JCB Prize for Literature is to be announced tomorrow, 23 November.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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HWA Crown Awards
The Historical Writers Association has announced the winners of this year's HWA Crown Awards.
The HWA Gold Crown Award went to Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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21 November 2024
- Thursday
(American) National Book Awards | Writers' Trust of Canada Awards
Prix du Meilleur livre étranger | Cold Enough For Snow review
(American) National Book Awards
The National Book Foundation has announced the winners of this year's National Book Awards.
The National Book Award for Translated Literature went to Lin King's translation of Yáng Shuang-zi's Taiwan Travelogue; see also the Graywolf publicity page.
The Fiction prize went to James, by Percival Everett.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Writers' Trust of Canada Awards
They've announced the winners of this year's seven Writers' Trust of Canada Awards.
Unfortunately, you have to click through each of the prizes to see who won at the official site -- single-page press release, folks, please ! -- so see, for example, the easier-to-peruse report at CBC.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Prix du Meilleur livre étranger
They announced the winners of this year's prix du Meilleur livre étranger, a leading French prize for works in translation; see, for example, the Livres Hebdo report.
Both prizes went to translations from the English: the fiction prize went to Hisham Matar's My Friends, and the non-fiction prize went to Anna Funder's Wifedom.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Cold Enough For Snow review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Jessica Au's Cold Enough For Snow.
This won the inaugural, 2020 (but announced in 2021 ...) The Novel Prize, a prize co-sponsored by (American) New Directions, (British) Fitzcarraldo Editions, and (Australian) Giramondo who then published it -- quite the publisher line-up, and it is indeed a worthy winner.
(The prize, however, could do with updating the would-be official site.)
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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20 November 2024
- Wednesday
Baillie Gifford Prize | Giller Prize
Baillie Gifford Prize
They've announced the winner of this year's Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction -- "The UK's premier annual prize for non-fiction books" -- and it is Question 7, by Richard Flanagan.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Giller Prize
They've announced the winner of this year's Scotiabank Giller Prize -- a ... big Canadian prize, recognizing: "excellence in Canadian fiction -- long format or short stories" -- and it is Held, by Anne Michaels.
The prize had ... considerable sponsorship issues this year -- as, as the CBC reported:
In July, more than 20 authors pulled their books from consideration for the prize, which is sponsored by Scotiabank, to protest the bank's investment in Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence contractor.
By the time of the short list announcement, approximately 45 authors had signed a letter demanding the Giller Foundation pressure Scotiabank to fully divest from Elbit Systems.
Meanwhile, Dan Sheehan describes the prize as: "formally Canada’s most prestigious literary award, now synonymous with artwashing genocide and apartheid" in the Literary Hub report on the award, The book world’s most bloodstained award was handed out in Toronto last night.....
(I suspect there quite a few more-bloodstained awards out there, but who can resist a bit of hyperbole ?)
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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19 November 2024
- Tuesday
Österreichischer Buchpreis | Cercador Prize | Brenner Prize
Tanikawa Shuntarō (1931-2024)
Österreichischer Buchpreis
On Sunday they announced the Swiss Book Prize -- see my mention -- and yesterday it was the turn of the Austrian Book Prize: they announced the winner, and it is Brennende Felder, by Reinhard Kaiser-Mühlecker; see also the S.Fischer foreign rights page.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Cercador Prize
They've announced the winner of this year's Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation -- recognizing: "works of literature in translation as selected by a committee of independent booksellers based across the United States", and it is Agustín Fernández Mallo's The Book of All Loves, in Thomas Bunstead's translation; see also the Fitzcarraldo Editions publicity page.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Brenner Prize
They've announced the winner of this year's Brenner Prize, a leading Israeli literature prize, and it is שלושה ימים בקיץ, by Yossi Avni-Levy; see also Neria Barr's report in The Jerusalem Post, Brenner literature prize goes to Yossi Avni-Levy.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Tanikawa Shuntarō (1931-2024)
Japanese poet -- and Peanuts-translator -- Tanikawa Shuntarō has passed away; see, for example, the reports from Kyodo News and the AP.
Quite a bit of his work has been translated into English, including The Art of Being Alone; see the Cornell East Asia Series publicity page or get your copy at Amazon.com, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.co.uk.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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18 November 2024
- Monday
Peter Handke Q & A | Schweizer Buchpreis
Peter Handke Q & A
Nobel laureate Peter Handke (On a Dark Night I Left my Silent House, etc.) was awarded the Großes Goldene Ehrenzeichen des Landes Steiermark mit dem Stern (the 'Great Golden Badge of Honor of the State of Styria with the Star' (with the star !) -- see, for example, the ORF report -- and in the local Kleine Zeitung editor in chief Hubert Patterer has a (German) Q & A with him in which he reminisces about his years in Graz.
He amusingly admits to being something of a dandy -- and recounts being taken to a Beatles concert around 1966 and getting John Lennon to sign a copy of In His Own Write.
He was also a student in Graz -- studying law, and so Patterer asked him:
Wären Sie ein guter Anwalt geworden, wie Schirach ?
Ich glaube nicht. Ich glaube, ich wäre ein Star-Anwalt geworden, aber nicht im guten Sinn.
[Would you have become a good lawyer, like Schirach ?
I don't think so.
I think I would have become a star lawyer, but not in a good way.]
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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Schweizer Buchpreis
They've announced (warning ! dreaded pdf format !) the winner of this year's Swiss Book Prize -- the leading German-language Swiss book prize, paying out CHF30,000 -- and it is Seinetwegen, by Zora del Buono; see also the C.H.Beck publicity page.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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17 November 2024
- Sunday
Richard Flanagan Q & A
Richard Flanagan Q & A
At The Guardian Anthony Cummins has a Q & A with Richard Flanagan: ‘I’m not sure that I will write again’.
Among his responses:
Do you think you’ll go back to writing novels of plot and character ?
I am not sure if I will write again. Whatever impelled me for so long has left, for now at least.
Perhaps I’m just happy to be in the company of friends and family.
Always good to hear when a writer doesn't force the issue -- as far, far too many do.
Several of Flanagan's books are under review at the complete review -- e.g. Gould's Book of Fish -- but I haven't seen Question 7 yet.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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16 November 2024
- Saturday
AI-generated poetry
AI-generated poetry
Via and via, I'm pointed to the recent Scientific Reports paper by Brian Porter and Edouard Machery that found that AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably.
These are rather ... unsettling findings, beginning with: "Notably, participants were more likely to judge AI-generated poems as human-authored than actual human-authored poems".
Amusingly (I guess ...):
Our findings suggest that participants employed shared yet flawed heuristics to differentiate AI from human poetry: the simplicity of AI-generated poems may be easier for non-experts to understand, leading them to prefer AI-generated poetry and misinterpret the complexity of human poems as incoherence generated by AI.
The El País report claim that: "Would a group of critics, academics, or poetry experts have given more precise answers ? A group of Spanish academics already asked this question" is somewhat misleading, as it dealt with AI-generated stories rather than poetry, but good to see that at least as far as prose goes, humans have the edge for now (and maybe even a few more weeks ...).
The future is ... well, it depends on your point of view, but in any case it's coming faster than most people seem willing to admit.
(Posted by:
M.A.Orthofer)
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