Kamchatka
Kamchatka: a remote peninsula in the Russian Far East. However, to the ten-year-old narrator in Marcelo Figueras’s novel Kamchatka, it represents much more. It is a territory to be conquered in his favorite game of Risk, it is “a paradox, a kingdom of extremes, a contradiction in terms,” and it is the last thing ...
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2012 ALTA Travel Fellowship Awards
So, ALTA just sent out the following info about applying for a fellowship for this year’s conference, which will take place from October 3-6 right here in Rochester. If you’re a young translator, you really have to apply for this for a few reasons: 1) ALTA will introduce you to mentors and contacts that will ...
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Come Find Me at AWP!
So for the first year ever, Open Letter has a booth at AWP, the annual conference of the Associated Writing Programs. Our booth is J8, which, if you look at this rather daunting map, is against the wall in the Southeast Hall. Not exactly the center of all AWP foot traffic, so PLEASE come by. I promise to make it worth your ...
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By This Time Tomorrow . . .
We’ll have announced the 25-title fiction longlist for this year’s Best Translated Book Awards. Any never-before-translated book published between December 1, 2010 and December 31, 2011 is eligible, and looking at the list, I have to say that this year is particularly loaded . . . But rather than tease you with ...
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The Passing of a Publishing Great
Barney Rosset, one of the most important publishers of the twentieth century, passed away yesterday. What he did for literature, for free speech, for Grove Press, for any number of young literati that he inspired, can not be summed up in any single post or obituary. I did have the honor (thanks to Margarita Shalina) to meet ...
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And There It Is
I’ve been predicting this for a while, and still think a Spotify for ebooks would be a $1million idea. (Or a $1million bankruptcy. Whatever.) Anyway, from today’s Publishing Perspectives: Everything you can read in a month for just €9.99 sounds like a good deal, doesn’t it? That is what Booquo, the new ...
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In Spite of the Dark Silence
With In Spite of the Dark Silence, Jorge Volpi puts a new spin on a classic tale of obsession, following the fictional narrator who is consumed with his research of actual Mexican poet and chemist, Jorge Cuesta. The fictionalized biography, in its slightly bizarre nature, weaves the narrator’s research of Cuesta with the ...
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