We’ve got an ambiguous relationship with today’s rosy-hued holiday. If you choose to partake without requisite romantic partner, express self-love by treating yourself to books! There’s nothing dreamier than cozying up with a reading list inspired by former Asymptote contributor and (according to Susan Sontag) “master of the apocalypse” Hungarian László Krasznahorkai. If a trip down memory lane with the likes of Kafka, Krudy, and Bernhard doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, don’t fret: you could catch up on Norwegian memoirist Karl Ove Knaussgaard’s musings anticipating the English-language release of the third installment to his epic autobiographical novel, My Struggle (and read a sneak peek here). Austrian author Stefan Zweig’s work has been largely overlooked, but that may change soon thanks to hipster filmmaker Wes Anderson’s upcoming The Grand Budapest Hotel. If none of these options sound sufficiently enticing, go on a literary date with nostalgia: before he was a big-name writer, Japanese author Haruki Murakami was proprietor of a swanky jazz club.
Our old-fashioned literary past never ceases to reconnect with our digital present. While enigmatic Viking runes dating back as far as 800 AD have been de-mystified, space fiction assumes new meaning as NASA partners with novelists to generate NASA-inspired literature. Even curses have humble origins: an angry abbot’s margin notes prove the earliest recorded instance of the F-word. American Ernest Hemingway’s packrat ephemera has been digitized—want to master prose like the notoriously sparse writer? There’s an app for that (though its editorial quality is debatable).
Memory lane, revisited: Vietnamese author Bich Minh Nguyen’s latest novel Pioneer Girl takes cues from 19th-century American pioneer Laura Ingalls Wilder. In the spirit of retracing pathways, a German college student has created On the Road for 17,527 Miles, an e-book outlining American author and beat legend Jack Kerouac’s eponymous literary trip. We’re all for rethinking classics, but not totally comfortable with this: what if Shakespeare’s Hamlet had been a real teenage dirtbag?
This week witnessed sad news of the execution of renowned Iranian poet Hashem Shabaani, condemned to death for being “an enemy of God” and threatening national security with his work. It goes without saying that the execution is a major human rights violation—here’s what it means for freedom of expression in Iran. In India, publisher Penguin withdraws a controversial history from its shelves: an American scholar’s rendition of Hindu history proved too controversial to abide widespread circulation. Meanwhile, Syrian author Khaled Khalifa dismantles the “barrier of fear” that confronts writing in and about his conflicted home country. In the shadow of the Arab Spring, Cairo’s 2014 International Book Fair is not without hiccups, but despite political turmoil the city is indubitably a global literary landmark.
Buzzfeed Books’ announcement a few months ago that it would forgo publishing negative book reviews (unsurprisingly) inspired quite a bit of dissent. Over at the New York Times, a debate: are negative book reviews productive? It’s clear that quality criticism begets quality work to Zimbabwean writer Tinashe Mushkavanhu: a call to arms to reclaim a national literary dialogue.
Finally, awards season: friend and translator Katy Derbyshire examines the nominees for the German-language Leipzig Book Fair Prize. Keep your eyes peeled for the rest of the Society of Authors’ International Translation Prizes to be announced later this week. Both the brand-new English-language Folio Prize as well as the more established International Prize for Arabic Fiction have announced their respective shortlists—check them out! And it looks like good news for Arabic translator Jonathan Wright, who documented his turmoil with Knopf Doubleday in an open letter on his blog: he’s finalized a settlement with Random House.
Finally, you’ve heard of The Onion, but have you tried The Hummus? A slightly different satirical news site.