Hard to Pronounce Literary Names

Lists
August 22, 2006 | 3 books mentioned 94 3 min read

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Update 3: Thanks to some friendly advice, and seeing competing pronunciations flying around in the comments, especially for that pesky Goethe, I decided to go to the library and to do a little more Internet research to try to get some definitive pronunciations for these names, specifically printed references where available. So here is a new updated post on Hard to Pronounce Literary Names

Ask the Internet any question you want, and usually you’ll be able to learn the answer, but for some reason it’s not very good at helping people find out how to pronounce words and names. I’ve noticed, looking at my visitor logs, that people show up here again and again trying to find how to pronounce a handful of difficult literary names. Sadly they’ve found no answers here… until now. So on to the pronunciations.

  • J.M. Coetzee – the Nobel Laureate’s name is pronounced “cut-ZEE-uh” according to this Slate article and a number of other news items.
  • Paul Theroux – This well-known travel writer’s name “is pronounced ‘Thor-ew,'” says the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “not like the dude from Walden Pond” (which would be Henry David Thoreau, whose name, according to the “Pronouncing Thoreau” sidebar to this NPR story is frequently mispronounced; it is supposed to sound like “thorough.”)
  • Spy novelist John Le Carre is pronounced “luh KAR-AY” or “luh kahr-AY,” according to this site, which lists pronunciations found in the Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names (who knew that such a book existed?). Incidentally, Le Carre is actually the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell.
  • Contemporary novelist and short story author Dan Chaon is pronounced “Shawn.” So says my friend Edan, who was a student of his at Oberlin.
  • Pulitzer, as in the prize and newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer – Number 19 in the Pulitzer FAQ: “The correct pronunciation is ‘PULL it sir.'”

If anybody else has other ideas for hard to pronounce literary names, leave them in the comments and we’ll add them to the list. Meanwhile, here’s a bonus link. The BBC has launched a pronunciation blog (via LanguageHat).

Update: Some great suggestions are rolling in from the comments. Kyle’s got some classic problem names:

  • Donald Barthelme = “Bartle-may” not “Bar-THELM” as I had originally heard. Michael Silverblatt solved that one for me.
  • Michael Chabon = “SHAY-bun” not “Sha-BON” like my friend has said.
  • Thomas Pynchon = “PIN-chawn” not “PIN-shin” or “PIN-chin” etc. etc.

…and for kicks here are two German oldies that need some respect…

  • Rainer Maria Rilke = “RILL-kuh” not “RILL-kee”
  • and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe = “GOO-tuh” not “GARE-tuh” like we smarmy Americans like to think it is. I have heard it as “GO-thee” and all kinds of botched up ways, but yesterday I asked a German woman who is a Lit. major and she straightened it out. Apparently, here in the states we overemphasize the umlaut to an R when it isn’t as harsh as that. [Bud contends that you don’t “ignore the r sound altogether in Goethe.” In Chicago, there is a Goethe Street in the Old Town neighborhood, which the locals apparently pronounce Go-EE-the, though I could never figure out if they were just pulling my leg. –Max]

Laurie adds Ngugi Wa’Thiong’O, the Kenyan author whose latest book Wizard of the Crow just came out and Eoin Colfer, neither of whose names I know how to pronounce. Any help? She also suggests Seamus Heaney, Nobel laureate, which The Traveller tells us is pronounced SHAY-mus HEE-knee.

Update 2: Some debate about Seamus Heaney in the comments, but this NY Times article seems to confirm it: “SHAY-muss HEE-nee”. Kyle, meanwhile, informs us that Eoin Colfer is pronounced “Owen”. My favorite unpronounceable book title, by the way, is James McCourt’s Mawrdew Czgowchwz, pronounced “Mar-dew Gorgeous”.

created The Millions and is its publisher. He and his family live in New Jersey.

Lists

55 More Thoughts for English Teachers

Lists
February 10, 2016 | 3 books mentioned 3 5 min read

A lot has changed in my life since I first offered 55 thoughts to English teachers. After teaching for more than a decade at a high school with over 3,000 students, I now teach at a school with less than 850. I went from a California-style school surrounded by businesses and pharmaceutical companies to a single-building surrounded by woods and mountains. Many teachers would rather retire than start over at a new school, but I believe it is important to teach in one’s own community. I enjoyed my old school, but had a personal reason for the switch: I used to leave the house while my daughters were still asleep. Nothing compares to actually being able to kiss and hug them before the day starts.

I have learned that each school has its own culture, but many elements of good teaching transcend districts — particularly the belief that kids deserve support and love. That change of culture has made me reflect on this most complex profession. Here are 55 more thoughts for English teachers.


1. Teach the students in front of you, not the students you had last year, not your favorite students from a decade ago.

2. Yours is not the only course students are taking.

3. You’ve been thinking about yesterday’s lesson, about how students must have appreciated those clever lines from Marianne Moore or Natasha Trethewey. Students have been thinking about a thousand other things. That is fine, but learn a method to bring them back into your world of words.

4. Question your standards. Every year, every unit.

5. If you are frustrated by the complaints of students, try this: for one day, write down all of your own complaints. You will quickly reach the bottom of a page. Students will always complain; help them see why what you are doing in class has significance.

6. Often in literature, method is more important to learn than meaning.

7. There is more to a student’s world than your classroom.

8. It is never your job to stop a student from writing.

9. You can dislike William Shakespeare, but your students still need to read him.

10. This is the Humanities. You are showing them possibilities of being human.

11. Don’t try to teach anyone other than your students. Standing in front of a captive audience each day can inflate your sense of self. You are not your spouse’s teacher. Don’t lecture the cashier at the supermarket or your neighbor.

12. Each student is someone’s child.

13. Always prepare them for what comes next. It is tempting to make your students experts at impressing only you.

14. School is not a business.

15. Get some sleep. Naps are divine.

16. Before you respond to an email from a parent, administrator, or student, wait. You teach communication; do it well.

17. Help them see.

18. “When I teach creative writing, I always speak about how you have to learn how to read your work; I don’t mean enjoy it because you wrote it. I mean, go away from it, and read it as though it is the first time you’ve ever seen it.” — Toni Morrison

19. “I try to make writers actually see what they have written, where the strength is. Usually in fiction there’s something that leaps out — an image or a moment that is strong enough to center the story. If they can see it, they can exploit it, enhance it, and build a fiction that is subtle and new. I don’t try to teach technique, because frankly most technical problems go away when a writer realizes where the life of a story lies. I don’t see any reason in fine-tuning something that’s essentially not going anywhere anyway. What they have to do first is interact in a serious way with what they’re putting on a page. When people are fully engaged with what they’re writing, a striking change occurs, a discipline of language and imagination.” — Marilynne Robinson

20. Morrison and Robinson capture the same concept: when a student feels invested in her writing and reading, she will surprise you. She will excel.

21. Help students earn confidence, but realize that confidence is temporary. Humility lasts.

22. If objectives are your only objective, you have become an object.

23. Have students read local words. Find the best articles from your local newspaper. Ask your students: is this how you see the world? Find out what is important to their parents. What are the words used in their home?

24. One single sentence from your mouth, positive or negative, might stay with a student forever. You can joke, but never make a student feel like a joke.

25. Hide metafictive messages in handouts to make sure students are paying attention.

26. If students trust that you care about them, they will often rise to your expectations.

27. Course failure reverberates beyond your course. Have you done everything possible to help them? Forget your pride when it comes to student failure.

28. Political parties are parties that you should crash. They will sell you out, use you as a pawn.

29. If students don’t love stories, make them love pages. If not pages, then paragraphs, sentences, words.

30. Help them explain why they love the stories — films, shows, songs — that they love.

31. Annotations build confidence. They help students talk with a text. Students will resist the practice at first, but make the holding of a pencil while reading a habit.

32. Teach now, not in the past.

33. Some days, all you need to accomplish is to get students to read beautiful sentences.

34. Burn textbook worksheets.

35. If they say you give them too many handouts, they are really thanking you.

36. Read a few sentences of James Baldwin aloud at the start of the course. Read those same sentences again at the end. See if students listen a bit more closely.

37. Teaching is not containment. Embrace the uneven moments.

38. Thank your best former teachers. Forgive your worst.

39. Laugh with them.

40. Students want to hear stories about you, but do so sparingly. You are a performer, but the show is not about you.

41. Give them the “The Ladder of Abstraction” by Roy Peter Clark. Students live and breathe details; show them how those details can transform their writing.

42. You can probably read well, but students need to hear literature read in their own voices.

43. Teach students how to read your comments on their essays. Messy handwriting is fine. Make them work for it. But make sure the work is worth it.

44. If you don’t want to grade it, they probably didn’t want to write it.

45. Remind them what it means to feel wonder.

46. In the grand scheme of literature, novels are novel. Your students don’t need to slog through big books.

47. They are not reading them anyway. They are reading someone else’s misreading of them.

48. If you think you were better than them when you were a teenager, you are wrong.

49. Find your writing from high school. What would have helped you? It will also help them.

50. There are far more dangerous professions than teaching, but few are more difficult.

51. Summer is always coming soon.

52. Have students read to each other. One-to-one. Literature is another level of living. Some days they will drone on.

53. But you know they only need one day, sometimes one minute, for that other world to open. For all it to change.

54. Show students how you think. Write an essay, but show them your notes, plans, drafts, and edits. The mixture of fallibility and expertise will make them trust you.

55. Be good to them.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

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| 3 books mentioned 3 5 min read
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The Most Anticipated Literary Adaptations of 2007

Lists Screening Room
January 9, 2007 | 3 books mentioned 7 4 min read

Since several others have covered the most anticipated books of 2007, I thought I’d fill everybody in on which of their favorite books are going to be ruined by Hollywood in the coming year. Since almost every movie made is based on some previously existing material (can we count Spider Man 3 as an adaptation?), I thought I’d separate the kids movies and the horror/comic adaptations from the “literary” adaptations. Feel free to point out the movies I missed.Kids flicks. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (IMDb) will dominate the box office in July. The latest installment of the juggernaut will feature a script by Michael Goldenberg (who is also penning the adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are (IMDb)) and direction by David Yates, who is best known for his HBO movie The Girl in the Cafe. I’ve never read a Harry Potter book, and I’ve never seen any of the movies either. It’s safe to say the phenomenon has completely passed me by, so I leave it to you to decide whether this movie will be better than the ones that Chris Columbus directed.His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass (IMDb), which has been discussed before on this blog, will no doubt own the holiday season. After some turbulence during development and production, the first part of Phillip Pullman’s trilogy will hit theaters on December 7.Finally, Bridge to Terabithia (IMDb) will get a new coat of paint, courtesy of Rugrats veteran Gabor Csupo. It’s a live action version of the book, starring Zooey Deschanel, Robert Patrick, and a bunch of child actors with whom I am not familiar. No telling whether this will replace the vaunted 1985 TV adaptation as the definitive Terabithia for the screen.Gore filled fun-fests. Dominic West, better known as hard-drinking detective Jimmy McNulty on the greatest show ever to air on television, has a hand in two bloody adaptations this year. In Hannibal Rising (IMDb), he’ll be playing Inspector. I can only assume that this Inspector is a hard-drinking Eastern European detective, but not having read the book, I can’t say. The folks over at Slow Match are debating the merits of Thomas Harris’ latest this month. Maybe they have the answer.In 300 (IMDb), adapted from a Frank Miller graphic novel, West will play Theron, the hard-drinking Spartan warrior. I wasn’t that excited about either of these films before I found out West was in them. Now I’m planning on camping out, Star Wars-style for tickets.Mainstream Literary Adaptations. Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake (IMDb), directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair) will debut in March. Kal Penn, of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle fame, has the lead role. Here’s hoping he has more lines than he did in Superman Returns.April will bring us showers, a new baseball season, and The Nanny Diaries (IMDb), starring Scarlett Johanson, Laura Linney, and Paul Giamatti. I’m sure the studio is hoping to hit the same market that made The Devil Wears Prada a huge success, but I’m skeptical. DWP had a tour de force performance from Meryl Streep (Don’t you just get the feeling she’s going to get snubbed for the Oscar, by the way?) and a generally likable cast. The Nanny Diaries has ScarJo, who I detest. Tough call.Also in April comes Atonement (IMDb). Directed by Joe Wright, whose version of Pride & Prejudice was almost universally lauded, Atonement features a bit of controversial casting. Yes, traditional English heavyweights Brenda Blethyn and Vanessa Redgrave have parts, but the lead role of Cecilia will be played by the skeletal remains of Keira Knightly. Fans of the book are less than pleased.In September, I will certainly be seeing Feast of Love (IMDb), adapted from the Charles Baxter novel. The cast features Selma Blair, Morgan Freeman, and Greg Kinnear (Tangent: Isn’t Greg Kinnear having one of the most sneaky-successful careers of the last ten years? Who would’ve predicted it during his “Talk Soup” days?). It’s an odd choice for an adaption. I’ve read the book, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it, it didn’t strike me as terribly cinematic.November will see John Burnham Schwartz’s novel Reservation Road (IMDb) adapted starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Connelly. This is the prototypical small-ish novel adaptation, along the lines of The Ice Storm. It could go either way, turning into another In the Bedroom or another We Don’t Live Here Anymore.Also in November comes the granddaddy of all literary adaptations, Beowolf (IMDb). Robert Zemeckis directs a script from Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery. Beowolf features my favorite bit of casting for the year – Crispin Glover as Grendel. How perfect is that?And finally, in late December, comes Charlie Wilson’s War (IMDb), starring Tom Hanks as the eponymous Texas congressman. Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams are also aboard for this spy drama of which much is expected. Mike Nichols directs a rare film script from Aaron Sorkin, which means there will be lots of walking-and-talking scenes and probably too much pontificating, but hopefully no sketch comedy.Several literary adaptations of note, including the highly anticipated The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (IMDb), The Corrections (IMDb), and Motherless Brooklyn (IMDb) are all slated for release in 2007. My advice is don’t hold your breath for any of them. Until I see an actual release date, I’m not buying it. 2008 sounds about right for all of those. Until then, you’ll have to settle for Rush Hour 3, Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Ocean’s 13: The Baker’s Dozen.

Lists Screening Room
| 3 books mentioned 7 4 min read
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94 comments:

  1. Barthelme = "Bartle-may" not "Bar-THELM" as I had originally heard. Michael Silverblatt solved that one for me.
    Chabon = "SHAY-bun" not "Sha-BON" like my friend has said.
    Ummm…oh..
    Pynchon = "PIN-chawn" not "PIN-shin" or "PIN-chin" etc. etc.
    …and for kicks here are two German oldies that need some respect…
    Rilke = "RILL-kuh" not "RILL-kee"
    and
    Goethe = "GOO-tuh" not "GARE-tuh" like we smarmy Americans like to think it is. I have heard it as "GO-thee" and all kinds of botched up ways, but yesterday I asked a German woman who is a Lit. major and she straightened it out. Apparently, here in the states we overemphasize the umlaut to an R when it isn't as harsh as that. So I am told. Anyway. Those are a few. If I think of more I will post them.

    Kyle Winkler.

  2. Ngugi Wa'Thiong'O, Kenyan author whose latest book "Wizard of the Crow" just came out this month.

    Seamus Heaney, nobel laureate.

    Eoin Colfer, children's author.

  3. The "G" in W.G. Sebald stands for Georg (no e). I think that's pronounced something like Gayorg (hard Es). What thinks ye, Mr. Max?

    Also, don't think you ignore the r sound altogether in Goethe

  4. I agree on Ngugi Wa'Thiong'o – I am afraid to even say his name out loud.

    Seamus Heaney is pronounced SHAY-mus HEE-knee.

  5. Eoin = "Owen"
    And I have always heard Heaney pronounced
    "HAY-nee" even by many Irish people, when I visited.
    I can't help with the African name, although I will try to find someone who can.
    And that's interesting about that Chicago street name…

    Kyle

  6. This was a fun excuse to Google curious sources such as the BBC Pronunciation Unit blog. More Chicago lore: Buildings in the Carl Sandburg Village condo complex are named for James, Faulkner, Alcott, Cummings and other authors. Tell the cabbie, "Clark and GO-thee."

  7. Bud: I think I'll just stick with "WG" so as not to worry about such things.

    Steve: I always wondered about that Carl Sandburg Village but never knew that the buildings are named after literary greats… Perhaps I can do a little research and put together a post on the place.

  8. I guess I should pitch in a bit as well.

    Isn't Rainer Maria Rilke's first name pronounced oddly as well: RYE-ner, not RAY-ner?

  13. "
    Goethe = "GOO-tuh" not "GARE-tuh" like we smarmy Americans like to think it is. I have heard it as "GO-thee" and all kinds of botched up ways, but yesterday I asked a German woman who is a Lit. major and she straightened it out. Apparently, here in the states we overemphasize the umlaut to an R when it isn't as harsh as that. So I am told. Anyway. Those are a few. If I think of more I will post them."

    This isn't really correct. You don't pronounce it GOO, like sticky stuff, tuh.
    It is a more gutteral sound, but if you need to simplify the pronunciation "GUH-tuh" would be closer than "GOO-tuh"

  14. Vladimir Nabokov: Vla-DEEM-eer Nuh-BOCK-off. Not NAB-uh-kov, like in The Police's "Don't Stand So Close To Me."

  15. Also, P.G. Wodehouse is WOOD-house. It doesn't rhyme with Patrick Swayze's greatest accomplishment, Roadhouse.

  17. how do you say Cervantes? and whats the correct way to say Don Quixote?

    is it Don 'KEE-OH-TEE' or 'QUICKS-OTT'

    theres a word in English, Quixotic, which is pronounced 'QUICKS-OTIC'

  19. I saw Ngugi wa Thiong'o last week at the Edinburgh Book Festival – I'm not much good at phonetic spelling but his name seems to be pronounced un-goo-gee wah thee-ong-go (hard 'g'in Ngugi, and actually a cross between 'in' and 'un' for the first syllable).
    He was a great speaker – terribly articulate in English but a terribly thick accent; I'm quite sure, unfortunately, that I missed some parts of his talk.

  20. don quixote is pronounced: don kee-HO-tay

    maud, i've heard ngugi's pronounced similarly: en-goo-gee wa-thyon-go

  24. OO ELL BEK, but it'll sound like "WEL BEK" to most English speakers because the "OO ELL" is pronounced so quickly.

    (The H is silent, and "ou" in French is like English "oo".)

  25. Michael Critchon–I was told is pronounced CRY ton.

    Great info! Thanks!

    Lynne AKA The Wicked Witch of Publishing

  26. I'm a librarian… the most mispronounced author name I hear is Annie Proulx.

    Proulx, according to my French friends is a very very very old spelling. The "l" and the "x" are both silent. You pronounce it PROO (rhymes with "new".

    Don Quixote in SPANISH is pronounced Don Kee-HOH'-teh. The "Don" rhymes with "Tone." I think the other pronunciations derived from French people mis-pronouncing the name. Americans needn't be too ashamed of how we mispronounce foreign words. Have you heard the BBC reporters say "Nicaragua"? Ha! It's a hoot. They say "Nick-uh-RAG-yoo-ah." It is properly pronounced more like "Nee-ka-ra'-wa."

  28. Don Quixote: above poster (hephaestion) is correct. And yes, quixotic is derived from his name, pronounced quiks-OD-ik, as Spanish already has its own "quijotesco" (kee-ho-TES-ko).

    Cervantes: ser-VAN-tes. ser has soft "r", almost like "sed", van not like the vehicle, like "yawn", and tes as in "test", omitting the last "t".

  30. The guy got Nabokov's first name right, but in interviews he has said the "bok" rhymes with "smoke" and the "ov" rhymes with "of." He also said once the "bok" rhymes with "gawk," which I think is only correct if you're thinking of a British pronunciation of the word (which I think would then rhyme with "smoke" only with more of a curl in it, making the pronunciation more Russian-sounding, if that makes sense).
    I would transcribe it something like–Nuh-bowk-of.

  31. concerning matthew kneale, author of ENGLISH PASSENGERS. Is the correct pronunciation neil oder neilè, which I seem to remember to have picked up somewhere. Thanks

  33. DON QUIXOTE…. In the period in which the story was written the 'X' would have been pronounced like 'SH'. So, actually, you would say "kee-sho-tee". Modern Spanish is where "kee-ho-tee" comes from and "kwiks-ott" is pretty laughable (although it has been used for ages).

  37. Actually, the suggestions are almost right, except that the "ng" in Thiong'o should be a soft "ng" like in "sing". "Ngugi" should be pronounced with just an "n" sound, not an "un", before the "goo gee". If you can't manage that, then start with the "ng" in "sing" and go from there to the hard g sound. Also, my understanding is that in Gikuyu his name would have short vowels where there are ~ marks, such that u would rhyme with "good", etc., but the long-vowel pronounciation is so common in the States I'm sure he's used to it.

  40. I have lived in Old Town in Chicago for 13 years and everyone I know pronounces Goethe as Guer-tuh, which may be the smarmy American way, however I have never heard it botched to the point of Go-EE-the.

  41. I am new, I stumbled upon this site by chance when I was researching the proper pronunciation of various literary names. I am not sure if it has already been noted or not, but I also found a site called http://www.howjsay.com. It is a website that has a collection of over 2,000 English words (including authors, and commonly used phrases). All you do is type in the author name(i.e.; Albert Camus) and the pronunciation is given. (I read that the pronunciation is researched from a collection of various dictionaries, and other sources). I hope this helps.. or at least you find the site interesting. :) thanks.

  42. John Proulx, Jazz Singer & Pianist is always mispronounced. It is pronounced "Proo" Like "Shoe". Some people have called him John Prowl like the "Owl" This is incorrect. Thank you

  44. Bless you!! I love this site. Annie Proulx is one of my favorite authors, but I'm always afraid to say her name out loud. (I have been saying it correctly- thanks to my junior high school French.)

  46. I have been trying to find out how to pronounce robert L Cvornyek’s name and also Elliot Cuff and also Prince Vuyani Ntintili. If any one can help me out thak you. I dont have an e mail of my own but i would appreciate it if some one would call me back at 1-240-603-9284 with the pronounciation of these words please and th ank you.

  48. According to my African Literature professor, whose “The River Between” we just read and knows him personally and speaks Kikuyu/Gikuyu, Ngugi wa Thiang’o is pronounced, “NYOO-gee (hard g) wah TEE-ongo”.

  49. It’s not “GOO-tuh”, and I’m not saying your German lit professor was wrong, I’m saying you misheard some subtleties or you did not correctly phonetically spell it out. Pronouncing the German “oe” or umlaut is very hard for some Americans. There is still an ‘R’ there it just gets kind of swallowed by the preceding noise, we just don’t recognize it, and trying to explain how it’s not GOO is kind of difficult, check out Wikipedia’s entry for Goethe and click the “listen” function to the right of his name.

  51. Answering my own question:
    According to a 1997 interview with Robert Crais in the Baltimore Sun, his name is pronounced like “face.”

  52. How do I pronounce Louis de Bernières? I get Louis = Loo-ey, but the surname?

    I need it for a wedding I’m doing on Saturday – the couple has chosen a reading from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

    Thanks
    Anita

  53. Pingback: How to Pronounce Unpronounceable Author Names – The Blogs at HowStuffWorks

  55. I’d love to kow the correct pronunciation of Don DeLillo’s last name. Is it actually “duh-LIL-lo” as I’ve heard?

  57. Goethe: ‘GOO-tuh’ is completely wrong. Anonymous 25 August 2006 is right. The Germans pronounce him ‘GER-tuh’.

  59. If you live on the Westbank in New Orleans and happen to live on Socrates Street, the pronunciation there is So-Crats. See the wonderful book, “Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children”- these are all street names.

  60. Thanks for this valuable list. To tweak one of the additions: Chabon is actually “SHAY-bon” not “SHAY-bun” (he’s helpfully described it as Shay as in Shea Stadium, Bon as in Bon Jovi).

  61. Pingback: Literary Names and How to Pronunce Them - World Literature Forum

  63. Yeah, I can confirm that in Chicago I’ve never once heard Goethe pronounced anything than “Gerta.”

    To the people arguing that “No, it’s GER-tuh” “No, it’s GOO-tuh” – I’m pretty sure it’s neither. The umlaut is a sound that most americans don’t know how to pronounce, so it more like something in between the two. So American though of us to only be able to think of it in American terms.

  64. Pingback: How Do You Pronounce That Writer’s Name? « BIG OTHER
  65. Pingback: How Do You Pronounce That Writer’s Name? « BIG OTHER

  66. It is frustrating when authors like Paul Theroux mispronounce their own last name… Thor-EW?

    Maybe he should visit French Canada (Quebec) and see how the 99% of the Theroux’s there (some of whom are probably related to him) PROPERLY pronounce it.

    I swear that some authors just like to be difficult.

  67. The pronunciation for the last name Barthelme is exactly how it is spelled .
    Barth-el -me. Nothing fancy as you can see it is my last name and people try to make it sound more glorious than it is .

  68. Merriam Webster lists the pronunciation of Mr. Pynchon’s name as “\ˈpin-chən\.” I’m inclined to trust Merriam rather than themillions.com, barring any further evidence.

  69. I once had an embarrassing experience pronouncing ‘Goethe’ as ‘Go-ETH’ in front of my English class – in my defence I’d never said it out loud before..and it sounded fine in my head! So to avoid this in the future – does anyone know the definitive pronunciation of ‘Chinua Achebe’?

  70. Quick note about Don Quixote. The use of ‘kwicks ote’, though harsh to our ears, was the pronunciation used when the story appeared in England. It’s incorrect in light of Spanish, but for anyone reading the English translation who wants to speak of the text in its initial, serial form, ‘kwicks ote’ is the way to go. A holdover from this is in the word quixotic.

  71. What about Jodi Picoult? I’ve heard “pi-COLT,” and “pee-COO,”
    but I think it’s “pi-COE.”

  72. So now I need to know. How is Mahala pronounced? I found this in my genealogy and thought it was either ‘muh hall uh’ or ‘muh hay la’ but wasn’t quite sure. And is Mahalia Jackson’s name pronounced the same or different?

  74. How do you pronounce John Lescroart’s last name. We work in a public library and we want to pronounce author’s names correctly.

    We really enjoy this site.

  75. I’ve heard that “Mainwaring” (as in the Barbara Pym character) is pronounced “Mannering.”

  78. I’m bilingual, English/German. Goethe is tricky for Americans especially. “Gerta” or “Girtuh” are close, but don’t pronounce the “r” sound! Like in British “posh” English, the word “girl” sounds more like “gull” , but lengthened and very slightly nasalised.

  79. Great discussion! Please forgive a non-author related question, but I’ve seen many Dutch names that begin with ” ‘t “. Anyone have any idea how to pronounce this?

  80. I see the name Alcott at the top of the list. In Concord, Massachusetts, where she lived, Louisa May Alcott’s surname is pronounced AWL-cut, not AL-cot, like the tennis player’s.

  81. The g’s in Borges’ name are phlegm-ish. Just FYI. Not pure “H” sounds. Closer to a Dutch g but not quite so “cough up a hairball” as that. All due respect to Dutch speakers (I’m a huge BLØF fan).

    Fun stuff. I struggle with the names of some of my favorite authors all the time.

  83. English uses the diaeresis mark (the double dot) in words such as naïve to tell you that the vowels do not form a dipthong but are to be pronounced separately. I think it’s the same with Anaïs. My guess is a-NAY-is.
    Mostly the mark is dropped now; e.g. it used to be commonly used for daïs, and Zoë, and so on.

  84. The Chicago street is & always has been pronounced “Go-thee”!
    A few people did say “Go-Ee-Thee”, but they were a rarity.
    What’s totally absurd is the automated voice on buses here says “Gare-ta” with the next stop being Burton, both sound similar.
    The only reason the bus is “Gare-ta”, is that the previous head of the Chicago Transit Authority was of German descent & demanded that pronunciation.
    But no one here says that, just as we pronounce “Buena St.” as “Bew-enn-a”!

  86. C. Max McGee and Michelle Barthelme:

    I would never presume to tell anyone how to pronounce his or her name. However, I will say that Michael Silverblatt doesn’t pronounce it Bartle-may OR Barth-el-may. He pronounces it Barth-el-mee. Check out his interview with Dave Eggers here, minute 7:07. And as he says, Donald Barthelme was his friend and mentor, so he’d probably know:
    http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw050210dave_eggers

  87. Thor-ew for “Thereux”? I know it’s still an Americanized pronunciation, but where are they getting the “o”? Plus, in French names, syllables do not end in consonants. I don’t know if there’s meant to be an accent there, but if there is, in French it would be tay-roo; if not; teh-roo. The Americanized version would be the-roo, (soft th) not tho-roo.

  88. How do you pronounce David Baldacci?
    I’ve heard both Baldachee as well as Baldakee and I don’t which is right.

  89. Where are you getting an “o” sound in Thereux? In French it would be Théreux, which sounds like tay-RUH (where the “uh” sound is like the u in “put.” The Americanized version would be more like thuh- (th sound as in “thistle) ruh (same “u” as in”put” or thuh-ROO. Not tho-roo.

  90. The childrens’ author Rick Riordan. The surname is pronounced Ryer-dan and not Rhee-or-dan as I once thought.

    Great post!

  92. Henry David Theroux. Kinfolk and followers near Walden Pond say THOR-oh. Most Americans say Tha-ROH.

  93. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s name is pronounced NGOO-gee (the NG is the same as it is in anger, and the second part is the same as ghee) WAH Thee-ong-oh (the TH as it is in ‘this’, and the ng is a soft one, as in bang).

    There is no “IN” as suggested by Judson. I should know, I’m Kenyan

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Lists

Book List: 10 overseas writers we should be reading

Lists
June 29, 2005 | 3 books mentioned 2 min read

The recently awarded international Man Booker prize (given to Ismail Kadare of Albania) inspired critic John Carey to announce in the Guardian: “If you speak Spanish or French or Italian or German or any of a dozen other languages, and walk into your local bookstore, you will … find what is being imagined in China, what stories are being told in Korea, how the novel is being reinvented in Spain and the Scandinavian countries. But if you live in England you will find no such abundance.” The same is true of the US, so I was happy to see that the Guardian had some experts put together a list of “10 overseas writers we should be reading.” As a supplement to the Guardian’s list, here are some of the books by these authors that appear to be available here in the StatesHarry Mulisch – Netherlands – The Discovery of Heaven, The Assault, Sigfried, The ProcedureStefan Heym – Germany – The Wandering Jew, The King David ReportCees Nooteboom – Netherlands – The Following Story, Roads to Santiago: A Modern-Day Pilgrimage Through Spain, Rituals, All Souls Day, In the Dutch MountainsMarcel Benabou – Morocco – Jacob, Menahem, and Mimoun: A Family Epic, Dump This Book While You Still Can!, Why I Have Not Written Any of My BooksHalldor Laxness – Iceland – Under the Glacier, Independent People, Iceland’s Bell, Paradise Reclaimed, World Light, The Fish Can SingJuan Goytisolo – Spain – State of Siege, The Marx Family Saga, Marks of Identity, Juan the Landless, Landscapes of War: From Sarajevo to Chechnya, The Garden of SecretsJaan Kross – Estonia – Professor Martens’ Departure, Czar’s MadmanMarie Darrieussecq – France – Pig Tales: A Novel of Lust and Transformation, My Phantom Husband, Undercurrents, Breathing UnderwaterShen Congwen – China – Imperfect ParadiseDubravka Ugresic – Croatia – The Culture of Lies: Antipolitical Essays, Lend Me Your Character, Thank You for Not Reading: Essays on Literary Trivia, The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, In the Jaws of LifeLooks like an interesting, eclectic list. I’m intrigued by Ugresic in particular. For more Man Booker International Prize coverage check out the Literary Saloon.

Lists
| 3 books mentioned 2 min read
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