Translation-happy readers often consider self-publishing, and its funny half-brother, digital publishing, the saviors of independent literature, but not all would agree. At The Guardian, Alan Skinner muses if the so-called “revolution” is a reactionary phenomenon, after all.
In terms of changing reading habits, there’s no bigger word than Amazon. The Seattle behemoth sure gets a lot of (well-deserved) flack in the lit world, and this week reminded us why. Literary nonprofits grapple with the ethics of accepting financial support from the business giant, and publisher Hachette stands to lose in its anti-Amazon scuffle—here’s a close reading of Amazon’s anti-publisher statement. Meanwhile, decidedly non-indie bestselling author James Patterson donates a hefty sum to independent bookstores all across the United States.
On the heels of McSweeney’s Latin American Crime Stories issue, June marks 2014’s International Crime Fiction month. And in Iran, where dancing along to Pharrell’s “Happy” can cause arrest, reading is still not a crime—though different governments may encourage the public’s changing habits.
Speaking of crime, while some Americans are miffed to discover that classic tomes of American lit are being left out of the United Kingdom’s GCSE examinations, at her blog, Arablit, blog (and children’s-lit-reader) contributor M. Lynx Qualey wonders why Saudi-Iraqi writer Abdelrahman Munif has been left out of the so-called (and duly capitalized) “Canon Of World Literature.” Greek mythology is practically ubiquitous in college Humanities courses, but what about Finnish myths?
Lots and lots of translation prizes this week. The German-language version of the Best Translated Book Award, the HKW Translation Prize, has announced its shortlist, and the French-American Foundation’s translation prizewinners include Adriana Hunter (for Hervé Le Tellier’s Electrico W), and Alison Dundy, and Nicholas Elliott (for The Falling Sky by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert). And the Austrian-New York Translation Prize is being revived, as announced this week at BookExpo America: hooray! Chinese author Yan Lianke has snagged the supposedly-Nobel-foretelling Franz Kafka Prize, joining the likes of Haruki Murakami, Harold Pinter, and Elfriede Jalinek.
Finally, on good old American Schadenfreude.