Hard to Pronounce Literary Names

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

Related Books:

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

The Notables: 2010

Lists
November 25, 2010 | 3 books mentioned 2 min read

This year’s New York Times Notable Books of the Year list is out. At 100 titles, the list is more of a catalog of the noteworthy than a distinction. Sticking with the fiction exclusively, it appears that we touched upon a few of these books as well:

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte (our profile of Lipsyte, a most anticipated book)
Bound by Antonya Nelson (a most anticipated book)
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick (a most anticipated book)
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (our review, an all-female book club reads Freedom, taking down B.R. Myers’ take on Freedom, “Is Big Back?,” the Franzen cover of Time, a Millions Top Ten book, a most anticipated book)
Fun With Problems by Robert Stone (our review, a most anticipated book)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson (The Stieg Larsson takedown, a most anticipated book, a Millions Top Ten book)
Great House by Nicole Krauss (National Book Award finalist, a most anticipated book)
I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson (a most anticipated book)
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (our review)
The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (“20 More Under 40,” a most anticipated book)
The Long Song by Andrea Levy (Booker shortlister)
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli (Tatjana Soli’s writing at The Millions)
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes (“Is Big Back?“)
Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr (our review, a most anticipated book)
The Privileges by Jonathan Dee (The Millions interview)
Room by Emma Donoghue (our review, Booker shortlister, a Millions Top Ten book)
Selected Stories by William Trevor (a most anticipated book)
Solar by Ian McEwan (a most anticipated book)
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart (our review, a most anticipated book, a Millions Top Ten book)
The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee (a most anticipated book)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (a morning with David Mitchell, our review, a Millions Top Ten book, a most anticipated book)
To the End of the Land by David Grossman (our review)
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (our profile of Jennifer Egan, our review, a Millions Top Ten book, a most anticipated book)
What Becomes by A.L. Kennedy (a most anticipated book)

Lists
| 3 books mentioned 2 min read
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Book Previews Lists

April Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated (This Month)

Book Previews Lists
April 3, 2017 | 3 books mentioned 4 4 min read

We wouldn’t dream of abandoning our vast semi–annual Most Anticipated Book Previews, but we thought a monthly reminder would be helpful (and give us a chance to note titles we missed the first time around).  Here’s what we’re looking out for this month. For more April titles, check out the Great First-Half 2017 Preview, and let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comments.

Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout: “As I was writing My Name Is Lucy Barton,” said Strout, the New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner, of her 2016 novel, “it came to me that all the characters Lucy and her mother talked about had their own stories.” Anything is Possible was written in tandem to Lucy Barton. For Strout’s many devoted readers, this novel promises to expand on and add depth to the story, while exploring themes for love, loss, and hope in a work that, “recalls Olive Kitteridge in its richness, structure, and complexity.” (Claire)

Marlena by Julie Buntin: I was lucky enough to read an advance copy of Buntin’s remarkable debut novel, about an intense friendship between two young women in rural Michigan, and I agree with Stephanie Danler, author of Sweetbitter, who calls it “lacerating.” Aside from a riveting story and nuanced characters, Buntin has also delivered an important story about addiction and poverty in middle America. In its starred review, Booklist called it “Ferrante-esque.” (Edan)
 

American War by Omar El Akkad: El Akkad is an award-winning Canadian journalist, whose reporting has ranged from the war in Afghanistan to the protests in Ferguson, Mo. His brilliant and supremely disquieting debut novel opens in 2074, at the outbreak of the Second American Civil War, and follows a young Louisiana girl, Sarat Chestnut, as time and conflict gradually transform her from a child into a weapon. (Emily)

 

The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron: Our own Cameron returns with a new novel about two women separated by, oh, only 40,000 years: Girl, the eldest daughter in the last family of Neanderthals, and present-day archeologist Rosamund Gale, who is excavating Neanderthal ruins while pregnant. How these two stories echo and resonate with one another will be just one of its delights. Such an ingenious premise could only come from the writer who brought us The Bear, which O, The Oprah Magazine deemed “a tender, terrifying, poignant ride” and which People gave 4 stars, saying “it could do for camping what Jaws did for swimming.” (Edan)

No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts: A novel about a black family in North Carolina dealing with economic decline, outsourcing, and the legacy of Jim Crow. Watts’s debut has been pitched as a contemporary retelling of The Great Gatsby, but Ron Charles writes in the The Washington Post that Watts hasn’t done merely another reboot; she has written a “sonorous, complex novel that’s entirely her own.” (Lydia)
 
 

A Little More Human by Fiona Maazel: A new novel from the author of Woke Up Lonely, Maazel’s latest is a superhero story about a mild-mannered mind-reader slash nursing assistant from Staten Island dealing with personal and professional strife. It sounds as though Maazel has rifled deftly through genres to create something in a class entirely by itself. (Lydia)
 
 
 

Borne by Jeff VanderMeer: A much-awaited new offering from the author of the breakout hit Southern Reach trilogy (the first volume of which will be a movie later this year). The titular Borne is a small, living “green lump” adopted by a lonely young woman living in a post-apocalyptic city plagued by a roving bear and hazardous waste. Colson Whitehead calls Borne “a thorough marvel.” (Lydia)
 
 

The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch: In a new kind of world, we need a new kind of hero and a reimagined Joan of Arc from Yuknavitch seems like just the thing. Following her widely lauded The Small Backs of Children, this novel takes place in the near future after world wars have turned the Earth into a war zone. Those surviving are sexless, hairless, pale-white creatures who write stories on their skin, but a group of rebels rally behind a cult leader named Jean de Men. Roxane Gay calls it, “a searing condemnation, and fiercely imaginative retelling.” (Claire)

The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic by Nick Joaquin: The first U.S. appearance of one of the Philippines’ most distinguished writers, pegged to the centenary of his birth. Joaquin, who died in 2004, wrote in English and set much of his work — which included two novels and several collections of short stories in addition to essays, plays, and criticism — in post-WWII Manila, exploring themes of colonialism and liberation, Catholicism and folklore. An exciting introduction for uninitiated American readers into Joaquin’s oeuvre. (Lydia)

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah: This debut collection of short stories, which takes its name from a story published in Catapult in 2015 to wide acclaim — one that seamlessly blends magical realism and a kind of sci-fi, resulting in a one-of-a-kind dystopia — announces the arrival of a brilliant new talent. Don’t take our word for it: one story, “Who Will Greet You at Home,” appeared in The New Yorker and was a National Magazine Award finalist, and others are already drawing high praise from across the publishing community. These stories explore the ties that bind us together, but in magical, even subversive forms. (Kaulie)
 

Such Small Hands by Andrés Barba: The first offering from a new, Oakland-based, translation-focused nonprofit publisher Transit Press Books, this is the fourth of Spanish novelist Barba’s books to appear in English. The novel relates the story of a new girl in an orphanage, and the sinister game she invents with her co-residents.  The novel is translated by Lisa Dillman, with an afterword by Edmund White. In a starred review Kirkus warns, “Barba’s girls, and their game, will linger in the minds of his readers.” (Lydia)

 

Book Previews Lists
| 3 books mentioned 4 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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Book Previews Lists

May Preview: The Millions Most Anticipated (This Month)

Book Previews Lists
May 1, 2017 | 3 books mentioned 1 5 min read

We wouldn’t dream of abandoning our vast semi–annual Most Anticipated Book Previews, but we thought a monthly reminder would be helpful (and give us a chance to note titles we missed the first time around).  Here’s what we’re looking out for this month. For more May titles, check out the Great First-Half 2017 Preview, and let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comments.

Men Without Women by Haruki Murakami: The seven stories in Murakami’s new collection concern the lives of men who, for one reason or another, find themselves alone. In “Scheherazade,” a man living in isolation receives regular visits from a woman who claims to remember a past life as a lamprey; in “Yesterday,” a university student finds himself drawn into the life of a strange coworker who insists that the student go on a date with his girlfriend. (Emily)
 

Between Them: Remembering My Parents by Richard Ford: *SIREN* This is the first work of nonfiction by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the extraordinary Bascombe novels. The book, a memoir, explores the lives of Ford’s Arkansas-born mother and father as people and parents, and illustrates a kind of mid-century American life along the way. Ford recently appeared in The Guardian with this recollected gem, which we may assume is exemplary: “Where I was concerned, my mother at best only tolerated (reluctantly) my high school friends, and seemed to prefer I not have any. It was just simpler for her. She consistently disparaged them as if they were criminals (indeed, some were), and would often drive them out of the house because of something they’d said (or she thought they’d said) – usually without ever telling me why.” (Lydia)

Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki: Our own Lepucki has always had keen insight into the psyches of women — particularly so-called “difficult” protagonists. Her first novel, California, may have been about a family surviving the end of society, but it was really a post-apocalyptic domestic drama full of sharp wit and observations. Her sophomore effort is more grounded in reality but equally cutting. Lady is a writer struggling to raise her two kids and finish her memoir when she hires S. to help, but the artist becomes more than just a nanny for Lady’s eldest troubled son. (Tess M.)

No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal: Satyal’s novel takes place in a suburb near Cleveland and tells the story of Harit and Ranjana, who are both Indian immigrants experiencing loss. Harit’s sister has passed away and he’s caring for his mother; Ranjana’s son has left to college and she’s worrying her husband is having an affair. These two characters form a friendship amidst grief and self-discovery in a novel that is both heartfelt and funny. (Zoë)
 
 

The Purple Swamp Hen by Penelope Lively: Across her many wonderful books, Lively has ranged from low farce (How It All Began) to high feeling (Moon Tiger), from children’s literature to a memoir on old age. Now comes her fourth story collection, the first in 20 years. The title story draws on reliably entertaining source material: the meretricious lives of Roman rulers. Robert Graves turned to a stammering Claudius for his narrator, Lively to a less exalted personage: a purple swamp hen. Other stories involve trouble: a husband and wife working their way out of it, and a betrayed wife doing her best to cause some for her husband. (Matt)

A Good Country by Laleh Khadivi: This is a follow-up to The Age of Orphans and The Walking, which respectively tell the story of a conscripted Iranian Kurd during the 1920s, and his son, a young man who comes to California following the Revolution. A Good Country follows the latter’s son, a teen surfer in Laguna Beach who becomes radicalized through a complex process of alienation from his community, spurred by global and local events, and eventually travels to Syria with his girlfriend. (Lydia)
 
 

The Dinner Party by Joshua Ferris: The book after Ferris’s Man Booker shortlisted To Rise Again at a Decent Hour is a collection of short stories. The title story, first published by The New Yorker in 2008, is about a couple who invite a boring couple over to dinner (“even their goddam surprises are predictable,”) only to be surprised when the boring couple manage to surprise by not showing up. The collection pulls together stories that promise the, “deeply felt yearnings, heartbreaking absurdity, and redemptive humor of life,” for which Ferris is so well known. (Claire)

The Leavers by Lisa Ko. Ko’s debut novel has already won the 2016 Pen/Bellwether Award for Socially Engaged Fiction, a prize created and selected by Barbara Kingsolver. The contest awards a novel “that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships,” and Ko’s book certainly fits that laudable description. The novel is the story of Deming Gao, the son of a Chinese-American immigrant mother who, one day, never returns home from work. Adopted by white college professors, Deming is renamed and remade in their image — but his past haunts him. (Nick R.)

Kintu by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi: First published in Kenya to wide acclaim; now published stateside by Oakland-based newcomer Transit Books with an introduction by New Inquiry editor Aaron Bady. Kintu is a retelling of Ugandan history over centuries through a single family. A starred Publishers Weekly review calls it “a masterpiece of cultural memory.” Book Riot put it thus: “passionate, original, and sharply observed, the novel decenters colonialism and makes Ugandan experience primary.” (Lydia)
 

My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul: The editor of The New York Times Book Review has kept a “book of books,” or “Bob,” as she calls it, for twenty-eight years. This catalogue of things read has, naturally, taken on a life of its own, coming to serve as a reminder of where its author was in the world and in her career or personal life, and what a particular book had to say to her at that particular moment. Kirkus calls it “a thoughtfully engaging memoir of a life in books.” (Lydia)
 

Isadora by Amelia Gray. The endlessly inventive Gray (whose story “Labyrinth” from The New Yorker is a gem) creates a fictional interpretation of Isadora Duncan, once described as the “woman who put the Modern into Modern Dance.” A dancer who mixed the classical, sacred, and sensual, Duncan is the perfect subject matter for Gray; if a writer can expertly resurrect the Theseus myth at a small-town fair, then she can do justice to a life as inspiring — and tragic — as Duncan’s. (Nick R.)
 
 
 

One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul. Ah, the current frontrunner for Most Relatable Title of the Year. The Canadian writer’s debut essay collection is “about growing up the daughter of Indian immigrants in Western culture, addressing sexism, stereotypes, and the universal miseries of life.” Fans of her work online will be eager to see her on the printed page. Canadian journalist (and Koul’s former journalism professor) Kamal Al-Solaylee said of her writing, “To me, she possesses that rarest of gifts: a powerful, identifiable voice that can be heard and appreciated across platforms and word counts.” (Elizabeth)

Season of Crimson Blossoms by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim: Newly published in the United States by Cassava Republic Press, this debut novel won Nigeria’s largest award — the $100,000 NLNG prize awarded every four years. The novel received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, with the reviewer describing the book as an “excellent first novel [that] tells of the unlikely romance between a Muslim widow and a dope-dealing street tough amidst the troubles that each faces.”(Lydia)
 
 

Homing Instincts: Early Motherhood on a Midwestern Farm by Sarah Menkedick: An essay collection on motherhood, motherlands, and home from the editor of Vela, a magazine that publishes travel writing by women. Menkedick’s journalism has appeared in many outlets (read her latest on “The Making of a Mexican-American Dream” in Pacific Standard); these essays are written in a meditative, diaristic register, as she trades a peripatetic existence to return to her family farm in Ohio and prepare for the birth of her first child. (Lydia)

Book Previews Lists
| 3 books mentioned 1 5 min read
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Lists Notable Articles

Six Egyptian Writers You Don’t Know But You Should

Lists Notable Articles
June 24, 2011 | 3 books mentioned 17 4 min read

In Cairo, in March, the city had a surplus of intellectual energy. Literature, it seemed, might just be at the vanguard of Egypt’s social change. Novelists were writing columns for every significant newspaper; the opinions of fiction writers like Alaa Al Aswany were hotly debated on satellite news channels and in streetside cafes, over backgammon.

I spent an afternoon at the Cairo’s Diwan Bookstore, talking to writers about their hopes — and anxieties — about the future. Just across the 6th of October Bridge in the Zemalek neighborhood, Diwan had an extensive collection of contemporary Egyptian novels, essays, and short stories. I bought a half-dozen books.

When I returned to to Portland, Oregon — I noticed the conspicuous absence of these books on the shelves of my city. Even at Powell’s, arguably the greatest (and largest) independent bookstore in the country, I couldn’t find Mansoura Ez Eldin’s first novel, the critically acclaimed, widely read Maryam’s Maze.

More writers from Egypt made the longlist for the $50,000, 2011 International Arabic Prize for Fiction (IPAF) than writers from any other country. And now it was Egypt’s Arab Spring. Where, where oh where, was the work of these men and women, work that was a catalyst for the ongoing social transformation of the largest nation in the Middle East?

Even if you’ve read The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany, here’s a list of six Egyptian Writers you don’t know but you should.

(Hint: None of them is Naguib Mahfouz.)

1. Youssef Ziedan. It’s difficult to argue that there are more neglected Egyptian authors (in America) than the 53-year old Ziedan. Not only has he written fifty books — but he has also created a massive internet archive devoted to the translation and preservation of Islamic public memory. In 2008, he won the IPAF for his novel, Azazel, a highly-controversial reimagination of the life of a 5th-century Christian monk. The novel — which still has not appeared in English translation — angered Coptic Christian groups, who saw it as an attempt to Islamicize a segment of Christian history.

“This is my 54th book and I did not imagine it would trigger all this debate,” Ziedan told Egypt’s Dream TV, in an interview shortly after the novel’s publication.

Ziedan has dominated the bestseller lists in Egypt as of late. His nonfiction work, Arab Theology and the Roots of Religious Violence (2010), was one of the more widely read books in Cairo in the months before the January 25 Revolution.

2. Mansoura Ez Eldin. A journalist, activist, and writer, Ez Eldin has published two novels. One, the slender volume, Maryam’s Maze, is a masterpiece of imagination and literary form. Her story, “Déjà Vu,” was also featured in Emerging Arab Voices — the bilingual reader published by Saqi Books in April of this year.

Ez Eldin’s account of the first days of the revolution appeared in The New York Times, in late January of this year — weeks before Mubarak’s resignation. “Silence is a crime,” she wrote. “Even if the regime continues to bombard us with bullets and tear gas, continues to block Internet access and cut off our mobile phones, we will find ways to get our voices across to the world, to demand freedom and justice.”

Maryam’s Maze tackles the issues so central to the experience of modernity in a metropolis like Cairo: Isolation, pollution, bureaucracy, madness. Awakening — like Kafka’s Gregor Samsa — in a world that she no longer recognizes, Maryam struggles to regain any semblance of her former life. It is a haunting book.

3. Bahaa Taher. Arguably the greatest living Egyptian fiction writer, Taher is only now, at the age of seventy-six, gaining the international recognition he deserves. After a lifetime spent as a writer and translator — working on projects around the world — Taher’s novels are gradually trickling into English. AUC Press issued Love In Exile in 2004 — forty years after the publication of Taher’s first short story. And Taher’s novel, Sunset Oasis, won the IPAC in 2008.

After the translation of Sunset Oasis into English, the Times Literary Supplement said: “Taher’s voice is sombre, wise and lyrical.” And The Guardian echoed: “Bahaa Taher is one of the most respected living writers in the Arab world. At 73, he has weathered political purges and a lengthy exile from his native Egypt to carry off the Booker Prize for Arabic fiction. The recognition is long overdue.”

4. Muhammad Aladdin. A young lion of the Cairo literary scene, Aladdin began his career as a graphic novelist — publishing the youth-oriented, serial zine, Maganin (Mad People). Possessed of a mordant sense of humor — as well as an occasional passionate earnestness — Aladdin has begun publishing his work in American magazines.

His story, “New Lover, Young Lover,” appeared in The Cairo Portfolio in Issue 9 of A Public Space.

During the height of the revolution, Aladdin kept his friends apprised of his situation with his trademark wit: “Hello, am fine, just five rubber bullets in my leg but nothing serious.”

Only 31 years old, Aladdin has published five novels and over a dozen short stories.

5. Nawal el-Saadawi. It’s difficult to imagine an author having a more turbulent life than that of Nawal el-Saadawi.

The eighty-year-old Egyptian women’s rights advocate has written a memoir about female circumcision — as well as numerous novels dealing with religious fundamentalism, abortion, sexuality, child abuse, and women’s oppression. A doctor by training — getting her medical degree in an era of deep discrimination against female physicians — el-Saadawi was named as Egypt’s Director of Public Health in 1972 — only to be stripped of that post several years later because of outrage surrounding her writing.

In the 1980s, el-Saadawi spent time in jail, and then fled to the United States, where she taught at Duke University and the University of Washington. She returned from exile in 1996, and stood with the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square in February of 2011.

Her book, The Woman at Point Zero, has long been hailed as an exemplar of the modern Arabic novel. It has been translated into dozens of languages and published around the world.

6. Khairy Shalabi. The Time Travels of the Man Who Sold Pickles and Sweets is a strange and imaginative book, written by a master storyteller. It also has a fascinating title. A quirky appraisal of thousands of years of Egyptian history, Shalabi’s novel concerns a working-class contemporary Egyptian — and his endearing (if somewhat bumbling) travels through time. It’s a readable, enjoyable book.

And it’s not his first. In fact, the seventy-three year old Shalabi has published over seventy books in his lifetime — only three of which have thus far been translated into English.

And here the non-Arabic-speaking individual runs into the problem that looms over much Egyptian writing: Why, why oh why, does so little foreign literature appear in translation in the United States?

But that’s a different story for a different time.

Lists Notable Articles
| 3 books mentioned 17 4 min read
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