Mogadishu International Book Fair
Great to hear that they're holding the Mogadishu International Book Fair (see also the write-up by Warka at Mareeg, Literary feast in Mogadishu as Mogadishu International Book Fair opens)....
View ArticleMoods review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Yoel Hoffmann's Moods, recently published in translation by New Directions.
View ArticleFiction from ... Central Europe
Checking out Visegrad Insight (re. above), I find this useful Translators' guide to new fiction from the Visegrad Group countries (the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland) -- a nice...
View ArticlePirate libraries
At Eurozine they reprint Bodó Balázs' piece (originally in Visegrad Insight), offering 'A central and eastern European perspective' on Pirate libraries. He reports that: Today's pirate...
View ArticleMurakami and the Nobel (sigh ...)
I haven't really gotten into much Nobel-speculation yet -- even though the announcement-date is only about six weeks off -- but there hasn't been much gossip in the air so far (even though the...
View ArticleMountain lit. prize
The Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature is ... exactly that, "an annual award to authors of literary works, the central theme of which is concerned with mountains" (and worth £3,000)....
View Articleहंस profile
In the Hindustan Times Manoj Sharma reports that For Hindi literature, Hans writes a story of grit and revival, profiling हंस (Hans) magazine. Hey, founded by Premchand and with Mahatma...
View ArticleFrench Concession review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Xiao Bai's French Concession. I was particularly curious about this one, because Yao Minji, in Old Shanghai thriller lures...
View ArticleChetan Bhagat Q & A
The Times of India gets a number of writers to play along in its 'Write India' initiative, soliciting reader-questions for them; this month they offer Chetan Bhagat's responses to fifteen...
View ArticleLanark, the play
Alasdair Gray's best-known work -- and modern classic -- Lanark has been turned into a play, by David Greig, and has now premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival; see their publicity...
View ArticleGraywolf Press profile
At Vulture Boris Kachka explains How the Tiny Graywolf Press Became a Big Player in Book Publishing in a profile of independent non-profit publisher Graywolf Press. As he notes:...
View ArticleLiu Cixin Q & A
Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem won the 'Best Novel'-category this year at the just-announced Hugo Awards (all the more impressively for being a replacement-finalist that wasn't even in the...
View ArticleSeptember Words without Borders
The September issue of Words without Borders is now up, dedicated to the: 'Geography of the Peruvian Imagination'.
View ArticleReading in ... France
BVA surveyed French reading habits in Les Français et la lecture and offer some of the summary-results there. That Victor Hugo remains the most popular author isn't that surprising; that...
View ArticleKurdish writing
At Your Middle East Aras Ahmed Mhamad has a Q & A with Kae Bahar on Breaking new ground with Kurdish literature. As Mhamad explains: While Kurdish language has two major written and...
View ArticleDmitry Bykov Q & A
At Russia Beyond the Headlines Olga Mamayeva has a Q & A with Russian author (and visiting lecturer at Princeton) Dmitry Bykov. Some interesting responses -- and title-suggestions,...
View ArticleLibrary of America profile
In Humanities -- the magazine of the (American) National Endowment for the Humanities -- David Skinner recounts some of the history of the launched-with-the-help-of-an-NEH-grant Library of...
View ArticleBeauty is a Wound review
The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Eka Kurniawan's Beauty is a Wound. With Indonesia the 'guest of honour' at the Frankfurt Book Fair this year we're seeing...
View ArticleErich-Maria-Remarque-Friedenspreis
The biennial, €25,000 Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize -- awarded by the city of Osnabrück -- has a mixed but generally solid list of previous winners, and they've now announced that Syrian...
View ArticlePrix Goncourt longlist
Despite its small payout -- all of € 10 -- the prix Goncourt is the most prestigious French book prize, and they've now announced the fifteen-title-strong longlist. (Unlike most literary...
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