Nelson Mandela’s passing highlighted his indelible legacy across the globe, and his inheritance is remarkably literary. At n+1: on what Mandela and Tolstoy have in common (which is more than you might think!), while the Los Angeles Times reflects on Mandela’s undeniable effect on the theater inside and outside of South Africa. In case you’re interested, Mandela’s inauguration speech has resurfaced, and it’s worth a checking out—as is his only feature-film appearance. At Asymptote, we’re inclined to remember Mandela the best way we know: through his books. READ MORE…

It’s that time of year again. If you’ve got a pulse and an Internet connection, chances are you’ve caught sight of the New York Times’ 100 notable books of 2013 list (or its more selective 10 best books of 2013 list). If you’re sick of a format that’s become journalistic junk food, you might have tested NPR’s addicting 2013 Book Concierge app instead. And if you’re craving a more global bent, The Independent rallies the best-translated fiction of 2013. These roundups are nice, but Scott Esposito’s survey of contenders for the 2013 Best Translated Book Awards over at Three Percent is more our style, featuring work by Asymptote contributors Mircea Cartarescu and Laszlo Krasznahorkai.

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“Competitive translating” may sound absurd—but it’s happening (and I wish it had been around in my high school gym class). Translators spar in competitive translation duels put on by London’s Free Word Centre. This week, translators Ollie Brock and Rosalind Harvey went head-to-head with a selection by Mario Vargas Llosa, competing for recognition in a field where invisibility is the supposed ideal. Translation is still scary at Harper’s, where journalist Duncan Murrell muses on misinterpreting his interpreter. (Meanwhile, in case you missed it: our own Aditi Machado thinks hard about translating, bilingual publishing,  and reading “across the gutter”). READ MORE…

This week reminded us that the Internet coins a gonzo language of its own—and the “real world” should take note. Contrary to Strunk, White, and intuition, “because” seems to be evolving. Grammarians consider the word “because” a subordinating conjunction, but linguists and Internet addicts have noticed another usage: called the “prepositional-because,” this “because-noun” adaptation is 100% flippant Internet wit. In related news, the eponymous spawn of the smartphone, the “selfie,” has won the 2013 Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year. Non-descriptivists, don’t despair (yet): the word has not yet been inserted in Oxford’s dictionaries, though it is being considered for inclusion… READ MORE…

New York. You’re hard-pressed to find a French writer who inspires as much nostalgia and anguish as Marcel Proust. In celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the publication of À la recherche du temps perdu (known in English as In Search of Lost Time), the New Yorkais rose to the occasion: Ira Glass, Rick Moody, and Paris Review editor Lorin Stein joined forces in a citywide nomadic reading project this November 8-14. Each of the seven reading sessions was illustrated, à la Marcel’s own secret doodlings.  (Psst: if you remember Proust’s epic tome as Remembrance of Things Past instead, you’ve got translator Scott Moncrieff to thank).

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Albert Camus continues to prompt discussion, even in his 100^th year. The literary Internet commemorated the passing of Camus’ centenary this week: in The New York Review of Books, Susan Sontag suggests that a literary Camus is “the ideal husband of contemporary letters,” the Irish Times examines the world as Camus saw it,  and The New Republic re-releases a review from 1948 in which reviewer Nicola Charomonte posits that Albert Camus’ thinks that life is meaningless. But in Camus’ native Algeria and France? Seems as if the anniversary has passed without much hullabaloo. Tant pis.

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