Tributes to Seamus Heaney, the best poets of 2013, and Teju Cole’s contemporary dictionary
This week we said goodbye to two literary giants: first to Seamus Heaney, who passed away this week at the age of 74. We also lost Frederik Pohl this week, champion of the sci-fi genre with a career spanning over eight decades and more than sixty books.
News, Reviews, and Interviews
Newly translated fiction by Albert Camus, titled “The Life of an Artist,” appeared at the New Yorker last month.
Four famous Gabriel García Márquez novels were recently transformed into audiobooks, including One Hundred Years of Solitude.
We are saddened to report the passing of Seamus Heaney, 1994 Neustadt Prize nominee and 1995 Nobel Prize winner. Read our special blog post in tribute to him for more information on his life, works, and legacy.
In order to stay on top of the ever-changing digital landscape, libraries across America are undergoing technological makeovers.
Neustadt juror Andrew Lam was recently nominated for this year’s Story Prize. You can read his essay about his life after immigrating to America on the Story Prize blog.
Anthony Shadid, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who died last year while on assignment in Syria, has been posthumously awarded the Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award for his memoir, A House of Stone. We published Shadid’s last interview in the November 2012 issue.
Frisch & Co. believes that ebooks are the future of literary translation. What do you think?
Best New Poets came out with their list of the 50 best poets of 2013 this week.
Grazia recently published an interview with Samar Yazbek about her hopes for Syria and why she joined the rebel protests in 2011.
The Nobel Prize announcement draws ever closer, and the Guardian now reports that Neustadt nominee Haruki Murakami is the favorite for this year’s honor.
The MacArthur Foundation recently announced that it would increase its genius grants to a total of $625,000 USD. This year’s winners will be announced later this month.
Frederik Pohl passed away at the age of 93 this week. He will be missed among the sci-fi community as well as the greater literary community.
For Your Calendar
Have you seen the Newpages.com list of writing conferences? There are enough there to keep you busy traveling the entire year!
The People’s Book Prize for emerging authors in the UK is now open for voting in its final round.
Fun Finds and Inspiration
If you’re a fan of Charles Bukowski, you simply must check out this new website featuring his poetry and story manuscripts, all free and open to the public.
Teju Cole has published his Dictionary of Received Ideas at the New Yorker, filled to the brim with snarky definitions of common-use words.
Micro libraries, like the ones we featured in the July 2012 issue, have quickly become the next best thing in book sharing. In a recent Huffington Post article, John Geoghegan shares the history of one of the more popular forms of micro library, the book vending machine.
In memory of Seamus Heaney, Buzzfeed posted a lovely tribute of 11 videos of Heaney reading his poetry aloud.
In a fun new feature on the Poetry Foundation website, beloved children’s author Lemony Snicket highlighted his picks for best children’s poetry, including a selection by 2010 Puterbaugh Fellow Sherman Alexie.
Translator Ros Schwartz shared her best translation tips this week over at the English PEN website.
Past Neustadt juror Yahia Lababidi has published more aphorisms at the Caldera Culture Review. If you crave more tidbits of his knowledge after reading those, check out the ones he posted for our blog back in January 2012.
