World Literature Weekend: Ma Jian with Flora Drew
Where: BP Room, British Museum, London, UK Ma Jian’s Beijing Coma, winner of the T. R. Fyvel Index on Censorship Award and shortlisted for this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, is a seminal novel about the Tiananmen Square protests. Gao Xingjian, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, has called Ma’s ‘one ...
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World Literature Weekend: Translation: Making a Whole Culture Intelligible?
with Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-winning translators Anne McLean, Anthea Bell, Daniel Hahn and Frank Wynne Where: London, UK Chair: Kate Griffin, Arts Council England Anthony Burgess insisted that ‘translation is not a matter of words only’. Umberto Eco has said that ‘translation is the art of failure’. ...
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Carlos Ruiz Zafon at International House
Where: International House, 1414 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 We are very excited to welcome Carlos Ruiz Zafon as he discusses his new book, The Angel’s Game. “The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that, when I opened those windows, its streets would whisper stories to me, ...
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World Literature Weekend: Hanan al-Shaykh with Esther Freud
Where: BP Room, British Museum, London, UK The leading Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh’s most recent novel, Only in London, was shortlisted for the 2002 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Also a short-story writer and playwright, she pays particular attention in her work to women’s role in society and the relationship ...
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The Twin
Penetrating, beautifully sparse, and eerie in its stillness, Gerbrand Bakker’s The Twin tells the story of Helmer van Wonderen, an aging farmer whose life has been characterized by passivity, inaction, and a profound sense of isolation. Having begrudgingly taken over the family dairy farm after the accidental death of his ...
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Frankfurt Book Fair: Finland and International Booksellers
Over the past couple days, I’ve received two interesting press releases from the Frankfurt Book Fair worth sharing. First off, it was announced earlier this week that Finland will be the 2014 Guest of Honor. From the press release: Finland is known for its literary export of children’s books – for example, ...
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"Mustafa" by Nikolai Grozni [Guardian Short Stories from Eastern Europe]
Today’s installment in “The Guardian‘s” week of Eastern European stories is Mustafa by Nikolai Grozni. By far the funniest piece of the week, “Mustafa” centers around a funereal gone awry: In any event, questioning the authenticity of my grandmother’s body at her funeral was not ...
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