New WWB Site + Quim Monzó
The January issue of Words Without Borders is online (as is their new, and Vastly improved, website), and this month it focuses on ‘flash fiction.’ Our own Quim Monzó has two stories featured, Thirty Lines and The Fork. Also featured is one of my personal favorites, José Eduardo Agualusa. (Even if you ...
>
The Golden Calf: An Interview with the Translators
Over at the consistently interesting Lizok’s Bookshelf, Lisa Hayden Espenschade has an interview with Konstantin Gurevich and Helen Anderson, the co-translators of Ilf & Petrov’s The Golden Calf: In your translators’ note, you write, “we approached the novel as a work of literature first and foremost, ...
>
To Be a Hipster Is to Be Remarkably Provincial
There was a time when I thought Flavorpill’s Daily Dose e-mail was all right. Sure, there was the occasional annoying tone, the fact they never covered any of our books, and the hipper-than-thou sort of attitude. But still, it picked up where VeryShortList was before the New York Observer drove it into the ground bought ...
>
2010 Best Translated Book Award: Fiction Longlist
After months and months (twelve to be exact) and books upon books, our nine fiction panelists finally came up with the 25-title fiction longlist for this year’s Best Translated Book Award. It was a rather difficult decision—it always is, and for me, there’s always a moment where it seems like 30 books ...
>
Mo Yan's "Frog"
Thanks to Paper Republic for pointing out this early English-language review of Frog, Mo Yan’s latest novel. The author of many novels, including Red Sorghum and The Republic of Wine, Mo Yan is one of the lucky Chinese writers who has been published in English translation, and it’s likely Frog will make ...
>
Unpacking Galassi's Op-Ed Piece
On the surface, the op-ed piece that FSG publisher Jonathan Galassi wrote for the Tiimes this past weekend seems pretty mundane. His main point seems to be that good editors at good publishing houses make good books better. Or more directly: publishers do more than simply print and sell books. They have special knowledge ...
>
BOMB's Americas Issue
Every year BOMB puts together a special “Americas Issue” focusing on art and literature from a different part of the Americas. This tends to mean South America, but you never know, maybe Canada will be—or was?—the focus at some point in time. Regardless, this is always one of my favorite issues of the ...
>