I Was Jack Mortimer review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Alexander Lernet-Holenia's I Was Jack Mortimer, coming out from Pushkin Press. It's nice to see Pushkin Press offer this;...
View ArticleWriting in ... Kashmir
In Kashmir Life Muhammad Maroof Shah diagnoses a Decaying Literary Culture, noting a shift from the previous mystical orientation of Kashmiri literature to what: "can well be described as a...
View Article2013 PEN Literary Awards
They've announced the winners of the 2013 PEN Literary Awards. Sergio De La Pava took the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize (for a first novel) for A Naked Singularity, while Frank...
View ArticleGerman Book Prize longlist
From the (alas, not identified) apparently 201 titles the jury considered, they have now announced that the Jury nominates 20 novels for the German Book Prize 2013 as the longlist has been...
View ArticleReading in ... China
At The Atlantic Helen Gao wonders Why Aren't Chinese People Reading Books Anymore ? A lot of these statistics seem a bit iffy to me -- for example, on the one hand: "the Chinese market...
View ArticleNew Swedish Book Review
A new issue of the Swedish Book Review is now out, Cool Swedish Titles from Finland: 2013/2014 Special Issue, focused on Swedish-writing Finnish authors (such as Monika Fagerholm and Kjell...
View ArticleFagunwa, fifty years on
Nigerian author D.O.Fagunwa died fifty years ago, and they recently held a conference, D.O.Fagunwa: Fifty Years On -- and there are now some extensive account of it: in The Guardian (Nigeria)...
View ArticleSławomir Mrożek (1930-2013)
Sad to hear that Polish playwright (mainly) Sławomir Mrożek has passed away; as the Polskie Radio report has it, that does come close to wrapping things up: President of the Polish PEN club,...
View ArticleAsymptote opportunities
If you read this weblog you should, of course, also be familiar with Asymptote, the awesome "international journal dedicated to literary translation" -- and since you know how awesome it is,...
View ArticleNLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature longlist
They've announced the longlist for the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature -- rotating through genres, it's the poets' turn this year. See the press release at the official site (where they don't...
View ArticleFirst Zibaldone review
I've mentioned Giacomo Leopardi's Zibaldone, one of the publication highlights of 2013, before (and have now also gotten my very own copy, which has left me near dumbstruck (and buckling under...
View Article10 Forgotten Classics ?
Steven Moore's The Novel: An Alternative History: 1600-1800 is due out soon -- the second volume in his novel survey, after The Novel: An Alternative History: Beginnings to 1600 (which I...
View ArticleTurbulence review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Samit Basu's Turbulence -- a fantasy novel from India that's now also available in the US. On the US edition they have a...
View ArticleVladimir Makanin Q & A
At Russia Beyond the Headlines Marina Brovkina has a Q & A with Vladimir Makanin: On writing as chess play. Good to see an author acknowledging: There are two processes: creation and...
View ArticleGombrowicz's Kronos
I mentioned Witold Gombrowicz's autobiographical Kronos when it came out this spring in Poland -- one of the most-anticipated releases of the year there, it seems -- and now Eurozine offer a...
View ArticleTo Each His Own review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Leonardo Sciascia's To Each His Own -- originally published as A Man's Blessing in its English translation in 1968, and since...
View ArticleRheingau Literatur Preis
They've announced that Ralph Dutli has won the Rheingau Literatur Preis 2013 for his Soutines letzte Fahrt (see the Wallstein Verlag publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.de); it was also...
View ArticleWorld and Global lit.
I've been mulling over the recent n + 1 opinion piece/article, World Lite -- on the idea (or rather, their idea) of 'world literature' (or 'global literature') -- but have had the hardest time...
View ArticleEthnic literature in ... Burma
It's hard enough to find anything translated from the Burmese (see also the few offerings at the complete review), but there are also several large minority cultures in Burma with distinct...
View ArticleByatt v. Drabble
At Slate Katy Waldman considers: 'Two gifted sisters, a domineering mother, and one of the greatest literary feuds of English lit' in "A Narrative of Jealousy and Bafflement and Resentment" --...
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