The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Syrian author Nihad Sirees' timely 2004 novel, The Silence and the Roar, now out in English.
Other Press brought this out in the US, and it's really worth noting what an impressive fiction-in-translation list they have this year. They've always had a few translations, but this looks like a breakout year as far as numbers and significance goes. Yes, some of these titles first appeared from traditionally translation-strong Pushkin Press in the UK (this one, for one) or Dedalus (the far too overlooked Where Tigers are at Home by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès (why hasn't this book gotten more attention ?)), but they're also bringing out novels by Merethe Lindstrøm, Mizumura Minae, and Gabi Gleichmann (the last two, like the Blas de Roblès, fat books in the 800-page range), all of which I have copies of and all of which look very promising. Plus novels ranging from Hervé Le Tellier's Eléctrico W to Antonio Skármeta's The Days of the Rainbow. Pretty impressive.
(Less impressive -- but a phenomenon that I stumble across so frequently that I can't help but note it -- is the fact that they misspell the name of the narrator/protagonist on the jacket-flap copy (and indeed on their publicity page), writing 'Fathi Chin' instead of, as they have it throughout the text proper, 'Fathi Sheen'. Obviously, the error comes from the French edition (apparently the French had the international rights for this) -- the translator Anglicized the name, the publicity copy person failed to make the leap ..... Still, that shouldn't happen. (Of course, equally embarrassing, there are publications who relied on that publicity copy without checking the text itself and misspelt the name as well -- see the New York Post and npr.))
Other Press brought this out in the US, and it's really worth noting what an impressive fiction-in-translation list they have this year. They've always had a few translations, but this looks like a breakout year as far as numbers and significance goes. Yes, some of these titles first appeared from traditionally translation-strong Pushkin Press in the UK (this one, for one) or Dedalus (the far too overlooked Where Tigers are at Home by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès (why hasn't this book gotten more attention ?)), but they're also bringing out novels by Merethe Lindstrøm, Mizumura Minae, and Gabi Gleichmann (the last two, like the Blas de Roblès, fat books in the 800-page range), all of which I have copies of and all of which look very promising. Plus novels ranging from Hervé Le Tellier's Eléctrico W to Antonio Skármeta's The Days of the Rainbow. Pretty impressive.
(Less impressive -- but a phenomenon that I stumble across so frequently that I can't help but note it -- is the fact that they misspell the name of the narrator/protagonist on the jacket-flap copy (and indeed on their publicity page), writing 'Fathi Chin' instead of, as they have it throughout the text proper, 'Fathi Sheen'. Obviously, the error comes from the French edition (apparently the French had the international rights for this) -- the translator Anglicized the name, the publicity copy person failed to make the leap ..... Still, that shouldn't happen. (Of course, equally embarrassing, there are publications who relied on that publicity copy without checking the text itself and misspelt the name as well -- see the New York Post and npr.))