English Excerpts from the German Book Award Shortlist
As someone commented last week, SignandSight has just posted excerpts from five of the six finalists for this year’s German Book Award. (The only one missing is Rolf Lappert’s Swimming Home, which appears to be in process.) I think this is a very valuable resource, especially if one of the goals of the prize is ...
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Translation Prizes 2008
Over at the Literary Saloon Michael Orthofer has a great summary about the 2008 “Translation Prizes,” lamenting the generic name and overall lack of coverage: We realise it’s sort of an umbrella-designation — the six prizes do come with their own names and/or sponsors — but it still seems ...
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Recent Reviews of Literature in Translation
There are a couple of decent reviews of works in translation from the Sunday papers that are worth mentioning. The first is a review of Carlos Fuentes’s Happy Families that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle: In his latest short-story collection, “Happy Families,” Mexican author Carlos Fuentes ...
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Interesting Comment of the Future of Translation
From Harold Augenbraum’s Reading Ahead post regarding the rise of immigrant fiction in foreign countries: I wonder, however, if the specific minority group fiction in foreign languages—say, Paris’s banlieue—will appeal to the American sensibility, as did Zadie Smith with White Teeth or Hanif ...
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R.I.P. New York Sun
So long New York Sun, we’ll miss your awesome books coverage. And Ben Lytal.
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More Praise for Machado de Assis on the 100th Anniversary of his Death
Over at the PRI’s World Books, Bill Marx has a great appreciation piece for Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, a writer far ahead of his time, and who died 100 years ago yesterday: “If Borges is the writer who made Garcia Marquez possible,” observed Salman Rushdie, “then it is no exaggeration to say that Machado ...
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Antonio Lobo Antunes at the NYPL
Last week, Antonio Lobo Antunes appeared at the New York Public Library as part of the “Live from the NYPL” series. He was in conversation with Paul Holdengräber, the Director of Public Programs (a.k.a. Live from the NYPL). I’ve been watching the Live from the NYPL website every day for the audio file to ...
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