At English PEN Emma Cleaves reports that Schwob project to seek out 'the truffles of world literature', as: "European Union awards the Schwob.nl project €200,000 to fund a European portal for the best unknown books of world literature".
As the official site has it:
They already have a few titles up at the still-all-Dutch site, including several under review at the complete review: Tun-Huang by Inoue Yasushi, Niels Lyhne by Jens Peter Jacobsen, and Border Town by Shen Congwen -- and I certainly approve of some of the other choices (Karl Philipp Moritz, Bolesław Prus ...).
I'm very curious to see what develops here.
As the official site has it:
Schwob.nl is a showcase website for these forgotten or undiscovered books. Schwob is created by translators into and out of Dutch, foreign publishers and editors, researchers, readers and critics.And now, as Cleaves reports:
Schwob is now about to start operating at a European level. The Dutch Foundation for Literature will cooperate with literature foundations and partners in six other countries: Catalonia (Institut Ramon Llull), Finland (Finnish Literature Exchange), France (European Society of Authors), Poland (Polish Book Institute), Belgium (Flemish Literature Fund) and the UK (Wales Literature Exchange).Sounds pretty good, and €200,000 is certainly a hell of a lot of money to play with (by comparison: the complete review's annual budget is considerably less than 1 per cent of that ... sigh).
The partners will work together on the selection, distribution and promotion of 'Schwob titles' -- the truffles of world literature; exceptional but hard to find or undiscovered modern classics that whet the appetite.
They already have a few titles up at the still-all-Dutch site, including several under review at the complete review: Tun-Huang by Inoue Yasushi, Niels Lyhne by Jens Peter Jacobsen, and Border Town by Shen Congwen -- and I certainly approve of some of the other choices (Karl Philipp Moritz, Bolesław Prus ...).
I'm very curious to see what develops here.