From Paper Cuts:

According to a spokesman for Archipelago Books, which recently published the first English translation of Tanpinar’s novel, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, Deniz Baykal, told the president: “So you just don’t just understand Turkey through your ties with the governing and opposition parties in parliament, I’m presenting you with these two works of literature. In these books you will find the nuances of our culture and identity.”

“I’ll be sure to read them,” Obama replied.

We’re planning on posting a review of A Mind at Peace later this month, and it’s a title that will likely pop up in the longlist discussions for the 2010 Best Translated Book Award . . .

Natasha is one of the rising stars among translators, thanks in no small part to her translation of Bolano’s The Savage Detectives. (She has also translated Mario Vargas Llosa and Laura Restrepo.)

For all Bolano fans, here’s a nice tease for 2666, which is supposed to come out from FSG later this year:

Long stretches of the novel are set on the Mexico-U.S. border and inside a prison. And that’s not all. Bolaño really gives the translator a workout. I also researched Black Panther history, pseudo-academic jargon (actually, some of that came naturally), World War II German army terminology, Soviet rhetoric, boxing lingo, obscure forms of divination and forensic science vocabulary, among other things. If that makes the novel sound like a hodgepodge, I promise it’s not. Even the most obscure detours are thoroughly Bolaño-ized – filtered through his weird, ominous, comic worldview.