Posts filed under 'booker'

Weekly News Roundup, 16 October 2015: Extra! Extra Money!

This week's literary highlights from across the world.

First things first: our brand-spankin’ new October issue is hot from the digital presses, and it’s more than worthy of your weekend perusal. With heavyweights like Yves Bonnefoy, Sjòn, and Yasutaka Tsutsui (among so many others!) you can’t go wrong, but in case you’re feeling overwhelmed, we featured five of our favorite pieces on the blog yesterday—check it out!

This week also marked the announcement of this year’s Man Booker Prize—and for the very first time, the award went to a Jamaican writer. Marlon James snagged top honors for his novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings. Often poised as an “imitation-Man-Booker,” the prestigious German Book Prize was awarded to Frank Witzel’s Die Erfindung der Roten Armee Fraktion durch einen manisch-depressiven Teenager im Sommer 1969 (deep breath). The award was a surprise, but deserved—and we’re crossing our fingers for a quick and successful translation to hit English markets soon. 

But while American National Book Awards have announced its shortlisted finalists, we’re altogether more interested in the American Translation Award shortlist, posted this week over at ALTA, and the list includes several friends of the blog and journal! 

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Weekly News Roundup, 31st July 2015: Book the Booker & Submit to Our Emerging Translators Contest

This week's literary highlights from across the world

Weekly News Roundup, 17th October 2014: It’s All Dutch to Me

This week's literary highlights from across the world

The biggest news this week is Asymptote’s hot new issue launch. We know time is limited, but it’s worth taking a peak at our (best yet?) video trailer or the blog’s own highlights feature for tips on where to start (and stay tuned for even more issue coverage in the coming weeks). Really, you can’t go wrong with such a wealth of literary gems at your virtual fingertips.

Last week, the literary world was abuzz with news of its latest Nobel laureate—French writer Patrick Modiano. Perhaps “abuzz” is too misleading a term, since many English-language readers were mostly clueless as to his existence, which begs the question: what does it take for an author to be (respectably and thoroughly) translated into an English? (An aside: here’s a great primer to Modiano via Slate and pure chance). Speaking of prizes, the Man Booker’s decision to include American Anglophones in its entry pool caused quite a stir for those not of the United States, but didn’t stop Australian author Richard Flanagan from snagging the prize. Still, there are naysayers, including twice-winner and Australian author Peter Carey, who thinks the inclusion undermines the particular “Commonwealth culture” of all Anglophones outside the fifty states. Some prizes are still United States-exclusive, though, like the National Book Awards, which just released its nominations—here’s a handy guide to the nominees, via NPR. Or we could switch continents and take a look at the just-released shortlist to the “Russian” Booker.

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Weekly News Roundup, 25th July 2014: Bookin’ it, Icy lit

This week's literary highlights from across the world

The Man Booker Prize decision to include all English-language pieces of fiction (not just those in the Commonwealth or Ireland) caused quite a stir last year. Since the longlist has been announced, take a look at what it means to include writers from the United States among the Bookish. That being said, the English novel as we know it is dying, or dead already (for better or for worse: doesn’t this mean new opportunities for translated lit)? And another English-language prize, longlisted: the so-called “International” Dylan Thomas Prize has announced those in the running for the 30,000-pound award. READ MORE…