The shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 has been announced. This list features Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo, and three other books by Spanish and Norwegian authors.
Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced
SRSLY PHENOMENAL
We live in a truly marvelous time. By that, of course, I mean we live in an age when students at the London School of Economics can hand in 98-page (PDF) dissertations about LOLCats.
First Murakami Collection in Almost A Decade
Haruki Murakami will publish his first short story collection in nine years this spring. Men Without Women will feature five previously published stories (including the controversial “Drive My Car”) and one new story. The book comes out in Japan in April, but there is no word on when we’ll see an English translation.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Dovlatov, Wolitzer, Moore, Sickels
2012 could be the year that we get to know Sergei Dovlatov, and our own Sonya Chung may have played a role. Her 2009 piece on the forgotten Russian humorist helped land one of his stories in PEN America. Soon we started seeing Dovlatov mentioned everywhere, and last year, Counterpoint published The Suitcase, and now The Zone will be released this week. Other new releases this week: An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer, Heft by Liz Moore, and The Evening Hour, a debut novel by Carter Sickels.
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A Malpractitioner By Any Other Name?
What can we make of the fact that members of the Guantánamo Bay medical staff have adopted Shakespearean names in “an attempt to avoid being held liable for any mistreatment of detainees?” Globe Theatre artistic director Dominic Dromgoole and Guantánamo detainees lawyer Clive Stafford Smith ponder the question.
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Archipelago Interview
Bibi Dietz interviews Jill Schoolman, founder of Archipelago Books, about “the archipelagic quality of book translation, the spiritual quality of discovering a great text, and the best bookshops from here to Buenos Aires.” So, basically everything we would ask Jill Schoolman about if we got the chance. The full interview up at BOMB Magazine.
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