Archive | December 2009
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Antonio Muñoz Molina Interview Video on El Público Lee – Spanish Only
For those of you who understand Spanish, El Público Lee has an interview with Antonio Muñoz Molina from 2004. It is about an hour long and El Público Lee is ususally worth the trouble.
Antonio Muñoz Molina – Chat at El País
This already happened, but if you want to read a recent chat between Antonio Muñoz Molina and his readers, you can head on over to El País and read the transcript.
Javier Marías Interview Video in English at the Guardian UK
It is an interesting interview, but he doesn’t explain how he can dislike long modern novels, and yet write such monsters himself. Other topics covered: The Spanish author Javier Marías talks to Richard Lea about the looping trajectory of his three-volume epic, Your Face Tomorrow, his father’s wish to see himself portrayed in fiction and why [...]
Vindication: The NY Times Doesn’t Like Season of Ash Either
Perhaps I’m being a little snarky, but when you write a negative review and NPR and the like says it is one of the best translated books of the year, you might feel a little annoyed. But now Scott at the Quarterly Conversation points out that the NY Times has given it a bad review, [...]
Nadirs by Herta Müller – A Review
Nadirs Herta Müller, pg 122 Nadirs poses a problem: how does one describe a child’s vision of the world? And once that is asked the next is only logical: can you? In Nadirs Herta Müller constructs an almost privativist child, one who is not only unable to understand the social world around her, but unable to [...]
No Tomorrow by Vivant Denon – A Review
No Tomorrow (New York Review Books Classics) Vivant Denon, pg 63 No Tomorrow is neither a love story, nor the remnants of a siliceous affair. It is a suggestion that doesn’t state, a book filled with lacuna where a modern would explain. Yet the story in its scant 30 pages (the other 30 is in French) is a reminder [...]
More publishers put the brakes on electronic books – According to Tech Flash
It looks like there is some push back on the e-readers from publishers. According to TechFlash publishers think e-reader sales should come between hard backs and paper backs. We will see how this works out. The film industry is fighting this battle right now with studios wanting simultaneous release on all channels. Will there be someone who blinks [...]
Elliott Bay Books Is Moving to Capital Hill
It is official, Elliott Bay Books is moving to 1521 10th Avenue Capital Hill. From the email sent out today, it looks like a good move and I for one will be more likely to go there more often now that it is near things I goto, instead of a separate trip into Pioneer Square. [...]
Season of Ash Review Available at The Quarterly Conversation
My review of Jorge Volpi’s Season of Ash is now available at the Quarterly Conversation. I wrote the review before many reviews had come out and it has been interesting to see how much positive press he has gotten. NPR named it one of the best books of foreign fiction this year. As you will [...]
New Quarterly Conversation Out Now
The Winter 2009 issue of the Quarterly Conversation went up on Monday, as usual it has a great mix of features and reviews. Some of the things that caught my eye were Translate This Book! We’ve talked to some of the top translators into English working today; we’ve talked to publishers big and small; we’ve [...]
Jose Emilio Pacheco Has Won the Cervantes Prize
Jose Emilio Pacheco, Mexican poet and novelist, has won the most important Spanish language literary prize. From what I have read it is deserved. His Battles in the Desert is an excellent book about Mexico in a certain epoch. My review of Battles in the Desert An appreciation from Elena Poniatowska I translated.
Emilio, los chistes y la muerte – A Review
Emilio, los chistes y la muerte Fabio Morabito , 173 pg I read this because of a review—a good one—but a review that focused on the style of the writing whose clarity and precision showed a master stylist at work. Emilio is certainly sparse and there are few pharagraphs of more the five sentences. Most of [...]
