Böll — Nobel Prize in Literature in 1972 — would have turned 100 yesterday, & if the German papers are honoring him, though with rather distant & at times skeptical homages, internationally there doesn’t seem to be much noise about this centennial. A forgotten writer? He who was maybe the first contemporary prose writer I & my school mates enthused about, age 12/13, in high school when we read … Read more HEINRICH BÖLL
Just heard from his close friend, the poet Habib Tengour, that the great Algerian writer Nabile Farès died on Wednesday. A brief bio-note (revising the Wikipedia entry) for those who don’t know Farès or his work, followed by a little essay I wrote some years ago: Born in Collo, Algeria, Nabile Farès participated, during the Liberation war, in the strikes of the high school students in 1956, before joining the ranks of the National … Read more Nabile Farès (1940-2016)
via the always excellent Arab Literature (in English): BY MLYNXQUALEY on DECEMBER 4, 2015 • ( 1 ) In what sort of language can an author write about something as banal and contested as menstruation? Should a character pee in colloquial Arabic or Modern Standard? In the first part of a two-part interview, Rachael Daum discusses urinary-tract infections, menstrual blood, and language with acclaimed Lebanese novelist Alexandra Chreiteh: By Rachael … Read more Alexandra Chreiteh on Writing About Menstruation in Modern Standard Arabic
via the great Arab literature (in English): BY MLYNXQUALEY on AUGUST 11, 2015 • ( 0 ) Laila Lalami and Rabih Alameddine were the two headliners on the 2015 Arab-American Book Awards winners’ list. Both their winning novels have already taken major laurels: Alameddine’s acclaimed An Unnecessary Woman was a finalist for the US’s National Book Award, while Lalami’s The Moor’s Account was a Pulitzer finalist, a winner of the American Book award, and is currently longlisted for the … Read more 2015 Arab-American Book Awards Go to Much-lauded Novels
via Jan Herman’s ever so valuable Straight Up blog & : June 8, 2015 by Jan Herman In his latest podcast at realitystudio.org Jed Birmingham zeroes in on the immensely talented Carl Weissner and his cut-up novel The Braille Film. Birmingham, who met Weissner in New York and Paris, talks about what made him so memorable and how he bought the book at auction some years ago for $75, … Read more Carl Weissner Gets Stellar Notice in Book Podcast
Via Arabic Literature (in English). BY MLYNXQUALEY on JANUARY 20, 2015 • ( 2 ) Iraqi novelist, poet, and translator Sinan Antoon has won the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for bringing his own novel, The Corpse Washer, into English: The 2014 prize was awarded to Antoon for his translation of hisThe Corpse Washer, originally titled The Pomegranate Alone and published by Yale University Press in 2013. Meanwhile, Paula Haydar got a “highly … Read more Sinan Antoon First to Win Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Self-translation
Today is the 100th B-day of the great Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal (1914-1997) &, by a quirk Hrabal would have approved of, yesterday the post man brought Hrabal’s Harlequin’s Millions, translated by Stacey Knecht & published by that ever excellent press, Archipelago Books. One of the most subversive figures of Czech — actually of East European, & even plainly of European mi-century literature — Hrabal is the ultimate gabber, … Read more Happy Hundredth Hrabal!
I am, as readers of this blog will know, not the most ardent consumer of novels, for questions of time & form. But from time to time a book in novel form comes along that does grab my attention. Here is one, a rare thing, something to be pointed to & out, to be shown, thus a monstrum, a monster of a book — coming out soon, but the … Read more Marginalia on Casanova