FILI Spotlight
I’m not sure when FILI—the organization in charge of promoting Finnish literature abroad—redesigned its website, but the results are pretty impressive and definitely worth checking out. I really like the Spotlight feature, which highlights a few Finnish authors, providing short overviews, excerpts in ...
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International Prize for Arabic Fiction
Although the official announcement isn’t available at the IPAF website (which is surprising and disappointing), it’s being reported elsewhere that Egyptian novelist Baha Taher has received the first International Prize for Arabic Fiction for the novel Sunset Oasis. At least there’s a bit of info about the ...
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Juan Rulfo's Perfect Novel
It kind of makes me cringe to see one of the greatest works of twentieth-century Mexican literature referred to as The Perfect Novel You’ve Never Heard Of, but well, this is America . . . Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo isn’t just a Mexican classic though—it’s one of the greatest books ever written. ...
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German Book Office Pick for March
Each month the GBO selects a German book in translation to feature on their website. This month they selected How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišić, which is coming out from Grove in June. The author will be in the States for the PEN World Voices Festival at the end of April, and this is a title ...
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2008 Translations: Dedalus and Peter Owen
In part because of this news about Dedalus being sponsored for the next two years by Routledge Book, and in part because I just received a nice batch of their titles, I’d like to mix things up a bit today and focus on forthcoming translations from two UK presses distributed over here rather than looking at titles from a ...
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My Befuddled Head Just Exploded
I love tournaments in March—especially ones involving screamin’ Gus Johnson—but my love for the Morning News Tournament of Books ended this morning with The Savage Detectives being upset in the first round by Vendela Vida’s Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name. It’s really not the who that ...
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Arcadia Books Wins Diversity Award
It really seems to be the Best Week Ever for Arcadia Books. First Arcadia wins the IPG Diversity Award: The award was given to Arcadia ‘in recognition of its success in promoting books from disparate cultures. In 2007 it combined its commitment to diversity with record sales, critical acclaim and literary awards, ...
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