Filling in Gaps in The Golden Calf
Early this month, Open Letter released its new translation of The Golden Calf by Ilf & Petrov, a satiric Russian writing duo from the 1930s who are most well known for this novel and its predecessor, The Twelve Chairs , which was made into a Mel Brooks movie. Both of these books are insanely funny, although to be honest, ...
>
Milorad Pavic
Although he passed away last month, the New York Times just ran their obituary for Serbian author Milorad Pavic on Wednesday. Pavic was an interesting writer, probably most well known for Dictionary of the Khazars, a “lexicon novel” that was actually issued in both male and female editions. (From the front of ...
>
Open Letter/做厙勛圖 MLA Reception
December isn’t just about gifts, year-end lists1, and tax-deductible donations2—it’s also about academics getting together at the Modern Languages Assocation conference to present papers, interview for jobs, and drink.3 This year’s convention takes place in Philadelphia from the 27th until the 30th, ...
>
2010 Arabic Booker Shortlist
Ed Nawotka’s piece in Publishing Perspectives is the first mention I’ve seen of this, but on Tuesday, the six finalists for the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (aka, the “Arabic Booker”) were announced. Each finalist received $10,000 and the winner gets an additional $50,000. Here is the ...
>
PRI's World Books Holiday List and Podcast
I’m a big fan of year-end lists. Especially year-end lists that include Open Letter titles . . . But seriously, the International Reads for the Holidays feature that Bill Marx put together for PRI’s World Books is a very solid, quirky, highly literary collection of great titles from 2009. Bill is a panelists ...
>
And Now, the French-American Foundation Award
I believe I posted about this a few weeks ago, but with the deadline coming up quick, it’s worth mentioning again: The Florence Gould Foundation and the French-American Foundation are currently accepting submissions for their Annual Translation Prizes. This year the foundation will present a $10 000 cash ...
>
Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize
Following on the last post about December being a month of year-end donations, it’s also a month of submitting applications and books for a variety of awards. So here’s the first of three posts about various book prizes: On behalf of the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University, I am ...
>