Man Booker International Prize 2013 Finalists
This morning, the finalists for the 2013 Man Booker International Prize were announced, and it’s a pretty fantastic list: U R Ananthamurthy (India) Aharon Appelfeld (Israel) Lydia Davis (USA) Intizar Husain (Pakistan) Yan Lianke (China) Marie NDiaye (France) Josip Novakovich (Canada) Marilynne Robinson ...
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Intriguing Questions about Translation and Culture
Over at today’s Publishing Perspectives, there’s an interesting piece by translator Burton Pike about “Cultural Homogeneity and the Future of Literary Translation.” This essay was written in preparation for a German Book Office panel discussion, and as such, it focuses more on bringing up issues and ...
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Facts and Bad Jokes [France Apocalypse Trip!]
So, I’m in Paris this week. It’s a special editorial trip that came about last minute thanks to the fact that Laurence Marie and Anne-Sophie Hermil are the most wonderful people. They brought me here yesterday (Monday morning) for 18 appointments with literary folks in four days—a rather intense schedule ...
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Riffle. Oh, Riffle
So, a couple weeks ago, Publishers Weekly ran an article on Riffle, asking whether it could be “the Pinterest for Books.” A social media tool powered by Odyl, Riffle takes its name from the word for thumbing through a book.1 And that’s exactly the sense of discovery that Odyl founder and CEO Neil Baptista ...
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Bigger than a MegaUltraÜberApocaCane [Random House Penguins]
Although information started leaking last week, it wasn’t until this morning that the Penguin-Random House merger was made official: Publisher Pearson says it has agreed a deal with German media group Bertelsmann to combine their Penguin and Random House businesses. Under the terms of the deal, the two ...
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2013 Best Translated Book Award: Fiction Update
OK, now that ALTA is over and the new catalog doesn’t come out for two months, I have a bit of time to concentrate on this year’s Best Translated Book Awards. Over the next couple weeks I’ll be posting information about the fiction and poetry panelists, along with an updated list of all translations ...
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Nobel Prize in Literature Will Be Announced Tomorrow
And if Murakami Haruki wins, I’m calling in sick. Those odds are plain out stupid. I sort of find the betting on literary prizes angle to be intriguing, but it’s so clear that the betting public is basically no more knowledgable than a herd of sheep, and just as likely to follow and loud dog. And why is Bob ...
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