The Future of the Spanish Novel is in Translation?
El Confidential had one of those yearly articles about the Frankfurt book fair that purports to gauge the trends in publishing. This year it is about the need to have one’s book translated. It is an interesting statement because as I’ve read and mentioned in these pages before, the drive towards translation can also make […]
Carmen Martín Gaite’s American Success
El Paishad an article on the success of Carmen Martín Gaite in the academic world. For an author without translations and who died in 2000, she has a surprisingly large number of followers. She is probably the best known of the generation of the 50s, partly because she outlived many, but also because her work […]
The Mexican Reality with Mexican Publisher Diego Rabasa at Notebook on Cities and Culture
Collin Marshall of Notebook on Cities and Culture has a long interview with Diego Rabasa the editor of Sexto Piso a small press in Mexico. It is an interesting interview about the publishing scene in Mexico. (And in English). Colin Marshall sits down in Mexico City’s Colonia Roma with Diego Rabasa, co-founder of Sexto Piso […]
Words Without Borders – North Korean Defectors Out Now
The May Words Without Borders is out now featuring North Korean Defectors. A very interesting collection and timely. Nonfiction by Shirley Lee Introduction The mere use of everyday language is a subversive act in the North Korean literary context. Nonfiction by Park Gui-ok I Want to Call Her Mother Again After that day, I had […]
Basque Literature Profiled at El Pais
El Pais has an excellent overview of Basque literature. Basque literature has undergone a spurt of growth over the last 30 to 40 years, starting almost from nothing at the end of the Franco regime to today with dozens of writers. Because of the small number of readers, 20,000 average and 40,000 for a best […]
Isabel Allende – The Just Hatchet Job
Maggie Shipstead in the New Republic has a long (and accurate) negative review of the new Isabel Allende novel. Unfortunately, Allende’s work just isn’t that good. I say unfortunately because as the most famous Latin American woman writer and given the propensity of critics to treat women authors differently, in other words call a novel […]
Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam – A Review
Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam Nick Turse Metropolitan Books, 2013, 370 pg Note to my regular readers: I don’t read as much history as I would like to, but from time to time I will venture away from just literature. There were more atrocities in Vietnam than Mai Lai is […]
Clara Usón and Juan Carlos Mestre Win the premios de la Crítica Prize
Clara Usón and Juan Carlos Mestre have won the premios de la Crítica Prize, she for fiction and he for poetry. This is the first woman to win the prize for fiction in 52 years, which is quite surprising (only 3 women have won the prize at all). These are the Spanish language winners. There […]
April Words Without Borders, Iraq, Ten Years Later Out Now
The ever interesting Words Without Borders has an addition dedicated to Iraq, Ten Years Later As part of our tenth-anniversary year, we are returning to the “Axis of Evil,” Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, the subjects of our first three issues. We begin with Iraq, which has just passed its own ten-year milestone, one of […]
Hablar solos (Talking Alone / Talking to Ourselves) by Andrés Neuman – A Review
Hablar solos (Talking Alone / Talking to Ourselves) Andrés Neuman Alfagara, 2012, pg 179 Andrés Neuman is a remarkable writer who is at home writing short stories and novels. With the publication of his latest book Hablar solos, he has returned to a more intimate writing than what readers of Traveler of the Century, published […]
Guadalupe Nettel Has Won the Ribera del Duero Prize for Short Stories
Guadalupe Nettel has won the Ribera del Duero prize for short stories. The judging panel was Enrique Vila-Matas, Cristina Grande, Ignacio Martínez de Pisón, Samanta Schweblin, and Marcos Giralt Torrente. I’m not familiar with her work but if a panel of authors I respect have selected her, I think her work might be worth looking […]
José Ovejero has won the Alfaguara de Novela
José Ovejero has won the Alfaguara de Novel. According to El Pais: La invención del amor transcurre en Madrid y relata la historia de Samuel, soltero de 40 años, que es socio de una empresa de materiales de construcción, que se enamora de una mujer que ha muerto. A partir de ahí empieza a reinventar […]
On The Road – The Original Scroll by Jack Kerouac – A Review
On The Road – The Original Scroll Jack Kerouac Viking, 2007, pg 408 It would be an obvious way of approaching On The Road the Original Scroll to compare it to the published version; however, for good or bad it has been a long time since I’ve last read On the Road. What I’m left […]
