Canadian Argument for Public Funding of the Arts
Following the news that the Canadian government is going to cut funding to five arts and culture programs (up to $20 million in funding), there’s an interesting piece in CBC News listing some of the arguments for why arts deserve public funding: It used to be, in the 1960s and ’70s, that the arts were ...
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Interview with Peter Pistanek
A couple of months ago, Robert Buckeye reviewed Peter Pistanek’s Rivers of Babylon, a novel about Racz, a stoker in the Hotel Ambassador whose power quickly expands when he realizes that “he who puts the heat on can control things.” Rivers of Babylon was on the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist ...
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Peter Mayer on the Frankfurt Book Fair
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Frankfurt Book Fair (the history of which actually dates back hundreds of years, although the modern version started shortly after WWII), the FBF newsletter is focusing each month on another decade of the fair. This month they look at the 1980s and talk to Peter Mayer, who, at the ...
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NPR Goes to Europe! Sort of . . .
It may be irrational, but this Three Books . . . column about doing the “Grand Tour” of Europe via literature just bugs me. Not the idea that “literature takes you places!” but the fact that the three books featured are Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and A Room with a View. This ...
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German Book Award Longlist
The longlist for the 2008 German Book Award was announced yesterday, and as Michael Orthofer points out, there a number of familiar names on the list, including Peter Handke, Karen Duve, Uwe Timm, Ingo Schulze, and Feridun Zaimoglu. Michael’s write-up on the prize is really good, especially since he reads German and ...
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NEA Translation Fellowships
This morning the NEA announced the new round of Translation Fellowships, awarding these gifted translators $10-$20,000 for their projects. Complete descriptions of all the projects, along with translator bios, are available on the NEA site. Congratulations to everyone who received a fellowship—this is one of my favorite ...
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September Translations
Earlier this year, I was trying to write up short overviews of all forthcoming translations. Unfortunately, things got in the way, and this project was sort of pushed to the side. Which is unfortunate. One of the main reasons we started this website was to promote international literature and uncover great books and ...
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