The New Literary Project has announced the winner of this year's Joyce Carol Oates Prize, awarded to: "a mid-career fiction writer who has earned a distinguished reputation and the approbation and gratitude of readers", and it is Ben Fountain, best known for his novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk ..read more

       The Tehran International Book Fair has opened and runs through the 18th; see also the Tehran Times report, 35th TIBF opens doors to public.        India was scheduled to be the 'Guest of Honour' this year, but, pretty much at the last minute, was replaced by ... Yemen; see, for example, the Tehran Times report -- where they note: With only 10 days remaining until the event, it remains to be seen what plans Yemen has for its participation in the Tehran International Book Fair.         ..read more

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Shibusawa Tatsuhiko's only novel, the 1987 Takaoka's Travels, now out in English, from Stone Bridge Press.        Shibusawa also translated extensively from the French, notably the works of the Marquis de Sade; his collected translations run to fifteen volumes; see the Kawade publicity page ..read more

       They've announced the longlist for this year's Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, awarded "for book-length literary translations into English from any living European language".        Three of the sixteen longlisted titles are under review at the complete review: Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop, translated by Sam Taylor Exiled Shadow by Norman Manea, translated by Carla Baricz Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade, translated by Katrina Dodson        The winner will be announ ..read more

       At minor literatures there's a Q & A with the translator, “I have a weird fearlessness with translation [...] I don’t think they can’t speak with an accent”: An interview with Max Daniel Lawton — Cristina Politano        Much of the discussion is about Vladimir Sorokin's Blue Lard -- and among Lawton's responses is: Do you have a favorite Dostoyevsky translator ? I like the Pevear and Volokhonsky. They get a lot of flack, but their fucked-up English is a good match for Dostoyevsky’s fucked-up Russian ..read more

       They've announced the winners of this year's Pulitzer Prizes, with Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips taking the fiction prize; the other two finalists were: Wednesday's Child by Yiyun Li and Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park.        The criticism prize went to a film critic, Justin Chang; Zadie Smith was also a finalist -- but also for a film review ..read more

       Bernard Pivot, host of the famous French literary talk show, Apostrophes, which ran 1975 to 1990, has passed away; see, for example, the report at France24.        You can find an Apostrophes-sampler here -- and see also the Q & A with Ma vie avec Bernard Pivot-author Noël Herpe at the Blogs of Alexandre Gilbert from just a few weeks ago ..read more

       Simon & Schuster has announced that they are buying leading Dutch publisher Veen Bosch & Keuning; see the press releases from S & S (English) and VBK (Dutch).        VBK CEO Geneviève Waldmann says: "We would like to offer our writers a larger and international platform. By joining S&S, we can expand on this ambition". I am curious to see how that pans out ..read more

       At EFE Rita Cardeira looks at the ‘Modi-fied Narrative:’ India’s literary landscape reflects ‘saffron’ shift, as: "Indian bookstores currently reflect a shift in the concept of the new India, rewriting history to align with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist ideology as he gears up for a third consecutive term".        Sigh ..read more

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Sequence of Unease by Kay Dick, her 1977 novel They, 'rediscovered' a couple of years ago, and re-issued by McNally Editions (in the US) and Faber & Faber (in the UK), and then in translation by all the publisher-lemmings in all the major international markets ..read more