The blogger Biblibio posted a call to arms in this December 9th post Where In the World Are Women Writers? and the follow-up Women in translation – responses. After informally crunching the numbers he/she came to the conclusion that less than 30% of the literature translated into English is written by women. After reviewing my reading history I came up with results that were startlingly similar. … Continue reading A New Ol’ Girls Club
I always try to post updates on the more interesting literary awards – all the Man (International, Booker & Asian) Literary Prizes, the Nobel Prize for Literature, etc. But, as wonderful as those longlists tend to be, they seldom inspire the absolute, all-consuming, bank account-deflating, oh-my-god-where-am-I-going-to-put-more-books-I-don’t-care book lust as the lists I’m here to talk about today: The Best Translated Book Award and The Independent … Continue reading Translation Prizes – The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld / Jeffrey M. Green, translator (Hebrew) Alice by Judith Hermann / Margot Bettauer Dembo, translator (German) From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón / Victoria Cribb, translator (Icelandic) The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco / Richard Dixon, translator (Italian) New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani / Judith Landry, translator (Italian) Dream of Ding Village … Continue reading The Shortlists Are In
As the gears of the Mayan calendar slowly grind to a stop, I find it’s best to keep our minds off the impending apocalypse. And what better distraction than a list of books from around the world – all due to be published before November, of course. (You know, just in case you’re stockpiling early and have some room leftover in your end-of-the-world backpack). February … Continue reading The Review: Looking Forward to Translations in 2012
READER AT LARGE 