New Simenon translations

       In The Bookseller Stacey Bartlett reports that Penguin to publish 75 Maigret novels -- that's the whole series, and that's pretty exciting news. But Bartlett misses the most exciting aspect: apparently at least some are being newly translated, and just check out the first three they have lined up:

• Pietr the Latvian, translated by David Bellos (publicity page)
• The Late Monsieur Gallet, translated by Anthea Bell (publicity page)
• The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien, translated by Linda Coverdale (publicity page)

       That is a pretty awesome line-up of translators; personally, I prefer the non-Maigret Simenons (indeed, one of the first Simenons I read, way back in the early 1980s when it first came out, was the mother (i.e. bad father) of them all, Mémoires intimes, which I found endlessly fascinating (and since I didn't read it in the edited (boo !) English translation it was even more endless than US/UK readers can appreciate)), but damn right that I want to read the Bellos-Maigret, and the Bell-Maigret. (If you're in the neighborhood: Bellos will be speaking about 'Making Maigret New' in the Translation Lunch Series at Princeton on 16 September.)
       (See also this useful Maigret bibliography for previous editions and translations of all the works.)
       The first Penguin volume -- Bellos' rendering, Pietr the Latvian -- is due out 7 November (28 January in the US, sigh ...); pre-order now at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.