Österreichischer Staatspreis für europäische Literatur
The Austrian State Prize for European Literature, which they've been handing out since 1965, has a pretty solid list of winners -- pretty much an all-star roster of Eurtopean writers --, and...
View ArticleBy the Tungabhadra review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Saradindu Bandopadhyay's By the Tungabhadra. Of course what I really want to cover are Bandopadhyay's Byomkesh...
View ArticlePulitzer sales-effect
I would have expected that Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch has been selling just fine, but apparently there is a sales-effect from a 'big' prize such as the Pulitzer: as Publishers Weekly reports,...
View ArticleHarvard University Press' bestseller
Piketty-mania, and articles relating to his new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (see the Harvard University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk)...
View ArticleTadeusz Różewicz (1921-2014)
Tadeusz Różewicz, the last of the old guard of great Polish poets that included Zbigniew Herbert and Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska (and, before them, Czesław Miłosz), has passed away; see,...
View ArticleKrasznahorkai and Japan
At hlo Diána Vonnák writes how East meets East. Krasznahorkai's intellectual affair with Japan. (Krasznahorkai László's Seiobo There Below is one of the ten finalists for this year's...
View ArticleChetan Bhagat profile
In The Guardian Nirpal Dhaliwal profiles Chetan Bhagat: Bollywood's favourite author. Dhaliwal suggests: The books are Hornby-lite: schmaltzy, earnest and simplistic. But, like Bollywood...
View ArticleSōseki abroad
The Asahi Shmibun reports that Meiji-Taisho Era novelist Soseki becoming trendy across the world 100 years later -- and, indeed, new translations of several of his works have come out in...
View ArticleParade review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Yoshida Shuichi's Parade -- just out in the UK, coming soon to the US. This was Yoshida's first novel, published in 2002,...
View ArticleHilary Mantel Q & A
In The Observer Tim Adams has a Q & A with Hilary Mantel. Adams asks her about her phenomenal "success, late-ish in your career"; oddly, while a big fan early on, I haven't been to...
View ArticleBest Translated Book Award anticipation !
What excitement ! The Best Translated Book Award (for which I am a judge) will be announced tomorrow, at 13:00 EST ! There's even a countdown clock (which I'm not sure is calibrated right ...)...
View ArticleKarate Chop review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Dorthe Nors' collection, Karate Chop. I have to say, I'm impressed by how this has gotten to and been received on the...
View ArticleWriting in ... Russia
One of my favorite recent headlines: in The Moscow Times Elizabeth Kaplunov reports that Russian Authors Say Literature Refutes Time and Space. So they're apparently not lacking for ambition....
View ArticleInternational Prize for Arabic Fiction countdown
The winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction will be announced tomorrow, and in The National Asmaa Al Hameli finds International fiction prize spreads the word about Arabic...
View ArticleNobel insight
A lot of the Nobel-deciding Swedish Academicians are apparently on international tour -- Göran Malmqvist hit China (see my recent mention) and now Kjell Espmark is in the Gulf, with John...
View Article(Not) filming One Hundred Years of Solitude
In The Independent Daniel McCarthy reports that impresario Harvey Weinstein claimed that Gabriel García Márquez told him that: if he, and director Giuseppe Tornatore, wanted the rights to One...
View ArticlePEN World Voices Festival
The PEN World Voices Festival begins today in New York, running through 4 May. No doubt quite a bit of interest on the programme -- though I haven't figured out yet what I hope to catch....
View ArticleBest Translated Book Award
The winners of the Best Translated Book Awards, in fiction and poetry, will be announced today at ca. 13:55 EST. Due to scheduling conflicts I can't update this post when the time comes,...
View ArticleWriting in ... Zimbabwe
In The Herald they consider (yet again, it seems ...) Is Zim literature at the crossroads ? as Lovemore Ranga Mataire finds: it seems Zimbabwean literature is sliding backwards into some kind...
View ArticleBest Translated Book Awards winners
They've announced the winners of the Best Translated Book Awards, and they are: Fiction: Seiobo There Below by Krasznahorkai László, translation by Ottilie Mulzet; runners-up: A True Novel by...
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