Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize
Fady Joudah has been awarded the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for his translation of the late Mahmoud Darwish’s The Butterfly’s Burden. From The Guardian: The Butterfly’s Burden, published as a bilingual edition, brings together the first three volumes of poetry Darwish published on his return to ...
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Interesting Translation Issue
In reading the new translation of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Levi Stahl came across a really interesting translation issue. In “The Prisoner,” when Madame Verdurin suggests inviting Comtesse de Mole to a party, the Baron de Charlus insults her: “Well, well, there’s no accounting for ...
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Bulgarian Fiction
As mentioned on the Absinthe blog, the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation and VAGABOND (an English-language magazine from Bulgaria) are teaming up to publish works from twelve “young and sometimes not-so-young Bulgarian writers that the EKF considers original, refreshing and valuable.” The first one available is ...
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I'd Like
A master of metafictional writing reminiscent of the French nouveau roman writers of the ’50s and in particular Marguerite Duras, Greece’s Amanda Michalopoulou invites us to view the world of one story presented through a prismatic lens of all its characters in I’d Like, a collection of thirteen gritty and poignant ...
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Wordsworth Books Update
Edward Nawotka has an update on Wordsworth Books, the Decatur, Ga. bookstore that tried to raise $25,000 to stay afloat, and was poorly profiled by NPR: The two-week blitz enabled Wordsworth to raise nearly $25,000, taking itself out of immediate danger. “We came very close to our fundraising goal,” said owner ...
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Marian Schwartz on World Books Podcast
Over at PRI’s World Books, Bill Marx has a really interesting podcast interview with Marian Schwartz, whose retranslation of Bulgakov’s The White Guard was recently released by Yale University Press. (Bill Marx also put together a special White Guard related Geo Quiz.) The interview is really interesting, ...
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Comic Books and the Digital Revolution
After all the recent Kindle discussions (which are still ongoing in today’s Shelf Awareness), this Publishers Weekly article about comic book publishers embracing the possibilities of digital publishing jumped out at me. In terms of engaging and trying to please their fans, the comic industry seems miles ahead of book ...
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