PEN Literary Awards longlists
The PEN Literary Awards are doing things a bit differently this year, as they have admirably decided now also to announce the longlists for the prizes in the major categories. (They don't...
View ArticlePremio Formentor de las Letras
I missed this last week, but they announced that Enrique Vila-Matas has won the revived Premio Formentor de las Letras; see, for example, Vila-Matas gana el Formentor por "renovar los...
View ArticleMaltese writing
In the Malta Independent Charles Briffa has a Q & A with Oliver Friggieri 'about how an established Maltese writer sees his world today', in Maltese literature with a view. Several...
View ArticleLiterary hairstyling ?
In the US it's not uncommon for menu-items -- sandwiches at 'delis', especially -- to be named after 'famous' people. In the Basavanagudi area of Bangalore a local hairdresser, V.Harish,...
View ArticleIndian writing
In this month's The Caravan Amitava Kumar writes about 'Raising the stakes for Indian writing in English', in The Shiver of the Real. Several interesting points -- including that: "India...
View ArticleNew World Literature Today
The May-August 2014 double issue of World Literature Today is now available, with a decent amount of the contents freely available online -- notably the whole review-section, World Literature...
View ArticleThe Avenue of the Giants review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Marc Dugain's fictional re-telling of the 'Co-Ed Killer' Edmund Kemper's life, The Avenue of the Giants, coming out from Europa...
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Drabble on Jules Verne
In the New Statesman Margaret Drabble writes on Submarine dreams: Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, arguing 'The classic sci-fi novel is more than a ripping yarn -- it...
View ArticleThe French 'polar'
In Le Figaro Bruno Corty and Sebastien Lapaque look at Le réveil du polar français -- 'polar' being more or less the catch-all French term for crime thrillers. I'm still not sure they're...
View ArticleVolker Braun at 75
(East) German author Volker Braun turned 75 on 7 May. Several of his works are under review at the complete review, but there's almost nothing of his available in English: What's Really...
View ArticleMerck Kakehashi Literature Prize
The biennial Merck Kakehashi Literature Prize is a new literary prize awarded by the Goethe-Institut Tokyo and Merck KGaA, a translation prize for making works by German authors accessible to a...
View ArticleMalba Tahan profile
In The Guardian Alex Bellos profiles Malba Tahan: the literary hoaxer who made Brazil love maths -- Julio Cesar de Mello e Sousa, who found success with a pseudonym (and more colorful...
View ArticleThe Mussel Feast review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Birgit Vanderbeke's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-shortlisted novel(la), The Mussel Feast. It does seem to have...
View ArticleSigrid Rausing profile
In The Telegraph Mick Brown profiles the mega-rich owner/operator of both Granta and Portobello Books, in Sigrid Rausing on money, addiction and collective farming. How mega-rich is she...
View ArticleAgainst Art review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Tomas Espedal's novel, Against Art -- yet another book from Seagull Books that deserves more attention/readers than it got.
View ArticleElechi Amadi Q & A
Nigerian author Elechi Amadi turns eighty today, and in The Sun Henry Akubuiro has a Q & A with him. Get your copy of The Concubine from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.
View ArticleNo Hero review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Jonathan Wood's fantasy-thriller, No Hero, just re-issued by Titan Books, as sequels are in the offing in the fall and next spring.
View ArticlePublishing in ... Zimbabwe
In The Herald Stanely Mushava asks whether Zim literature operating at zero profitability ? as piracy has apparently cut deeply into what little money might go to local authors....
View ArticleTranslating Abdourahman Waberi
In the NEA Arts Magazine Rebecca Gross takes 'A Look at Literary Translation', in Literature's Invisible Art, profiling 2014 NEA Translation Fellowship-winning Nancy Naomi Carlson and...
View ArticleLast Words from Montmartre review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Qiu Miaojin's Last Words from Montmartre, a 1996 work now coming out in translation from New York Review Books -- who will also...
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