Keeping the foreign in translated literature, Iceland’s “hidden poets,” and more
News, Reviews, and Interviews
WLT contributing editor and Best Translated Book Award judge George Henson writes for Three Percent about the Neustadt Prize and keeping the foreign in translated literature.
In this episode of the Bookworm podcast, novelist and WLT contributor Peter Orner talks about how reading consoled him after his father died and his marriage fell apart.
NPR’s Fresh Air features two new works that confront the refugee crisis with empathy and humanity.
The Cornell Chronicle discusses the “playful and personal” in Mukoma Wa Ngugi’s second poetry collection titled Logotherapy.
“Poetry is a national pastime” in Iceland—the New York Times features some of Iceland’s “hidden poets” and the prolific readers and writers of the island.
The Paris Review’s archives are now available online. Read one of Jorge Luis Borges’s first contributions to the journal from Summer–Fall 1962.
Via NPR, Daniel Alarcón tells the story behind how a stolen first-edition copy of Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude was recovered.
George Takei speaks with Signature Reads about revisiting his experience of being in an internment camp and why this dark chapter in America’s history needs to be explored in depth and not repeated.
In the second of two radio shows recorded by Oregon Public Broadcasting at Portland’s Wordstock book festival, authors Maria Semple, Alexander Chee, and Rabih Alameddine respond to Trump.
Fun Finds and Inspiration
It’s the end of the year, and 2016 best-book lists are rolling in. Check out the New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2016 and 10 Best Books of 2016 (which includes Han Kang’s The Vegetarian), the Guardian’s Best books of 2016, and the Washington Post’s 10 Best Books of 2016. Paste has a standout list that features 21 of best new novels translated into English.
Paste also has a 2016 gift guide for book lovers that features presents under $20.
These 10 grammatically correct gift suggestions from Mental Floss feature products that celebrate proper punctuation and grammar.
