The Nobel Prize in Literature announcement, a translation starter kit, and ye olde bookmobiles
This week was officially Nobel Prize week! Since September, we’ve watched the odds for each hopeful rise and drop, and we waited on the edge of our seats Thursday as the winner was revealed. And after a long wait and much speculation, Canada’s Alice Munro took the prize. You can learn more about her by visiting the links below.
News, Reviews, and Interviews
The Paris Review interviewed Alice Munro in 1994 for its Art of Fiction Series.
Since 1930, only 11 Americans have received the Nobel Prize in Literature. So why, exactly, the New Yorker asks, don’t more Americans win the prize?
Haidar Haidar’s controversial book A Banquet for Seaweed is projected to be published in English translation by the end of this year.
Interested in literature in translation from Peru? There’s now a whole website dedicated to people just like you, called Stories from Peru.
Herman Koch’s novel The Dinner is now the most translated modern Dutch novel in history.
You love translated literature, we love translated literature, but why does it get so little attention in the press?
You can read a deleted excerpt from William S. Boroughs’s first book, Junk, at the Paris Review’s Tumblr page.
Despite the political climate in the region, Russian bookstores remain oases for independent thought and acceptance.
After three years in the business, Stefan Tobler from And Other Stories recalls the struggles of publishing translated fiction and what the future might look like for independents and small presses hoping to make it big.
How do a book and its book cover relate? Arabic Literature (in English) interviewed Jessamy Klapper about this very question this week.
For Your Calendar
Archipelago Books is currently doing a Kickstarter project for a special edition of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book One. If you help fund the project, you can get your hands on special rewards, including a subscription to the entire My Struggle series.
Pittsburgh residents, be sure to check out the Prague Writers’ Festival next week, hosted by Point Park University.
If you live in Ontario and would like to be more involved in your local literary scene, check out the literary events calendar by IFOA. It’s an excellent resource!
Don’t miss out: Peirene Press is going on tour in the UK all month long.
Fun Finds and Inspiration
If you’ve ever wanted to own a famous residence, Elmore Leonard’s Michigan mansion is for sale.
If you can solve this man’s riddle poem, you’ll find a fortune he supposedly buried in secret.
Ready to jump into literature in translation but not sure where to begin? This starter kit may be of use to you.
Powell’s Books is giving away books by the boatload! Enter their October sweepstakes for a chance to win 22 signed books from best-selling international authors.
What does your bookshelf organization say about your personality? (We consider ourselves to be curators.)
Bookmobiles, though becoming popular recently, are not a new invention. Scroll through some pictures of the bookmobiles of yesteryear to see what we mean. (For more contemporary bookmobiles and microlibraries, check out our Pinterest board dedicated the subject.)
