Author: Larissa

by

Best Translated Book Award: The Longlist

Just weeks ago, the longlist for the Best Translated Book Award (BTBA) was released. The award, which started in 2007 as a small online celebration of translated literature, has expanded greatly in the last few years, even garnering substantial monetary support from Amazon.com in the form of a $5,000 cash prize.

Of course, with the higher profile has come expanded attention and even a little inter-small-press drama. Dennis Johnson, the co-founder of Melville House, took great issue last year with the new Amazon sponsorship, given, he said, that “Amazon’s interests, and those of a healthy book culture, whether electronic or not, are antithetical.” It is interesting to note that Melville House is boycotting the BTBAs now that Amazon is involved, despite the fact that  their own title, The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven, won the award last year.

Chad Post, the publisher at Open Letter Books, and one of the BTBA founders, has been very up front about receiving grant sponsorship from Amazon before. And while I understand that corporate sponsorship from an organization that challenges the viability of small independent bookstores might feel somewhat conflicting, I’m still inclined to agree with Chad and believe that Amazon’s sponsorship of this important prize can only benefit translators, non-English authors, and yes, small presses who are struggling to get their names and their books out there to larger audiences. I think it is a good thing that an online omni-selling giant takes some of their immense profit and uses it for good.

But I digress. (If you want to read more about this debate, The Guardian has covered it rather consistently. See this article from October 2010, when everyone originally went haywire, and their follow up from when the 2011 longlist was announced in January.)

Anyway, the point is that the BTBA nominees have been announced, which gives us all time to go out and do some preparatory reading. I’ve posted the list below, but check out the press release (which includes the delightful trivia fact that the list includes “authors from 19 countries writing in 12 languages”). I also suggest keeping up with the “Why This Book Should Win” reviews that are being posted here on Three Percent for each of the nominated titles.

I’ve read a couple of the nominated titles this year (which I find deeply satisfying) so where appropriate, I’ve linked to reviews that I wrote about those books.

***

The 2011 BTBA Fiction Longlist (in alphabetical order by author):

The Literary Conference by César Aira, translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver (New Directions)

The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz, translated from the Czech by Andrew Oakland (Dalkey Archive)

The Rest Is Jungle & Other Stories by Mario Benedetti, translated from the Spanish by Harry Morales (Host Publications)

A Life on Paper by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, translated from the French by Edward Gauvin (Small Beer)

A Jew Must Die by Jacques Chessex, translated from the French by Donald Wilson (Bitter Lemon)

A Splendid Conspiracy by Albert Cossery, translated from the French by Alyson Waters (New Directions)

The Jokers by Albert Cossery, translated from the French by Anna Moschovakis (New York Review Books)

Eline Vere by Louis Couperus, translated from the Dutch by Ina Rilke (Archipelago)

Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (New Directions)

The Blindness of the Heart by Julia Franck, translated from the German by Anthea Bell (Grove)

Hocus Bogus by Romain Gary (writing as Émile Ajar), translated from the French by David Bellos (Yale University Press)

To the End of the Land by David Grossman, translated from the Hebrew by Jessica Cohen (Knopf)

The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal (New York Review Books)

The Clash of Images by Abdelfattah Kilito, translated from the French by Robyn Creswell (New Directions)

Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico by Javier Marías, translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen (New Directions)

Cyclops by Ranko Marinković, translated from the Croatian by Vlada Stojiljković, edited by Ellen Elias-Bursać (Yale University Press)

Hygiene and the Assassin by Amélie Nothomb, translated from the French by Alison Anderson (Europa Editions)

I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson, translated from the Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund and the author (Graywolf Press)

A Thousand Peaceful Cities by Jerzy Pilch, translated from the Polish by David Frick (Open Letter)

Touch by Adania Shibli, translated from the Arabic by Paula Haydar (Clockroot)

The Black Minutes by Martín Solares, translated from the Spanish by Aura Estrada and John Pluecker (Grove/Black Cat)

On Elegance While Sleeping by Emilio Lascano Tegui, translated from the Spanish by Idra Novey (Dalkey Archive)

Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk, translated from the Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns (Tin House)

Microscripts by Robert Walser, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (New Directions/Christine Burgin)

Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss, translated from the German by Joel Rotenberg (Archipelago)

by

Real Murders

My most recent review is of the recently re-issued Real Murders which is the first installment in Charlaine Harris’ Aurora Teagarden Mysteries.

Many of you are no doubt familiar with Harris from her Southern Vampire series (which is the inspiration for Showtime’s True Blood). However, vampire fiction fan that I am, I have still not gotten around to the Sookie books. Instead, Harris hooked me in with a librarian protagonist–another weakness of mine. Based on Real Murders, though, I’m fairly sure I won’t be rushing off for another Harris book anytime soon. (Do any of you fair readers enjoy the Sookie Stackhouse books? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts…)

My review of Real Murders was published on Reviewing the Evidence. You can read it on their website, or see the full text below.

***

In the wake of the staggering success of Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire novels featuring psychic waitress Sookie Stackhouse, dedicated fans and new readers alike are being (re)introduced to Harris’ previous series, including her Aurora Teagarden mysteries. The first in the Teagarden series, Real Murders, introduces Aurora “Roe” Teagarden, a diminutive, bespectacled librarian in the small Georgia town of Lawrenceton. Roe nurtures a fascination with true crime stories—an interest shared by several other town residents—and together, these enthusiasts form the Real Murders club which meets once a month to discuss all manner of murder and mayhem. Among its members, the Real Murders club boasts a Lizzy Borden expert, a massacre and genocide specialist, and a man specifically interested in hate crimes. As Roe is soon to discover, however, Real Murders has also provided an unintended education for a vicious killer who has begun targeting club members using real life murder scenarios as inspiration.

For those readers with a somewhat gruesome sense of fun, this is an appealing premise for a crime novel—a sort of And Then There Were None puzzler in which neither victim nor reader is forced to suffer through much actual violence or emotional trauma. Unfortunately, while it is styled as a Southern cozy, Real Murders struggles from the start to strike a balance between light humor and a grim, almost fetishistic fascination with unsettling violence. Upon discovering the first murder—which abruptly takes place during the first 25 pages—Roe remarks that the victim was “so dead,” a statement that could be read as almost funny until the reader finds out that the murdered woman has been savagely bludgeoned, leaving “her head…the wrong shape entirely.” And while Roe’s initial reaction is as one would expect—disturbed, disgusted, and shocked—she quickly recovers, igniting not one, but two new romantic relationships, and taking part in her own personal investigation even as people closer and closer to her become the targets of the murderer.

Roe—and most of the other characters in Real Murders—are written not as Agatha Christie-esque caricatures, but as actual people. Throughout the course of the novel, we learn a fair amount about Roe and her life: her work at the public library, her non-existent dating life, her ambitious mother who has built an impressive real estate empire. Roe is, in effect, a “real” person. In general, one would praise an author for creating a multi-dimensional character, but in this particular case, Roe’s believability dissipates whenever the murder plot comes into play—which, as one might expect, it does frequently. Because even when Roe expresses the horror of what she is experiencing (and it’s worth noting that the crimes do, in fact, become increasingly and graphically horrific) she doesn’t appear to actually be feeling much of anything. To really be traumatized in the way that someone who has seen a personal acquaintance beheaded, for instance, really should be traumatized.

Writing about classic ‘Golden Age’ crime fiction, the masterful P.D. James has recognized that our favorite Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers books are “..novels of escape. We are required to feel no real pity for the victim, no empathy for the murderer, no sympathy for the falsely accused.” Such also appears to be the case for Real Murders. However, one has to wonder if such novels are not somewhat anachronistic for a contemporary reader, for whom real and graphic violence is a daily part of the morning’s papers. Harris would do well to take a page from any number of contemporary crime writers who are able to stage violent crimes with more than a modicum of empathy—P.D. James, Henning Mankell, Camilla Lackberg, and Patricia Highsmith all come to mind—rather than betraying quite so much glee at the scene of a crime.


by

Quentin Bates: Nautical Journalist Turned Crime Novelist

Although the rate of violent crime in Iceland remains mercifully low, the last few years have witnessed a rapid increase of crime fiction not only being written by Icelandic authors, but also Icelandic crime fiction being translated into other languages. An interesting statistic from an article published in The Iceland Review in 2008 notes that “Since 1997 over 70 crime novels have been published by Icelandic authors (relative to population, that’s the equivalent of 15,000 crime novels being published every year in the UK).” Given Iceland’s evocative landscape and relative isolation, it is perhaps surprising that there haven’t been more crime novels written by non-Icelanders. Perhaps, then, Frozen Assets by English author Quentin Bates (who has lived in Iceland for ten years and speaks the language fluently) is a sign of things to come. The novel is the first in a series of crime novels starring Officer Gunnhildur and centers around the discovery of a body in the harbor of a rural Icelandic fishing village.

The novel’s setting seems appropriate, given Bates’ experience working as “netmaker, factory hand and trawlerman” and his job as a “a full-time journalist [and] a feature writer for an obscure nautical trade magazine,” which is, he goes on to explain, “a dream job for anyone who gets a kick out of visiting industrial estates and tiny harbours miles from anywhere.”

Bodes for some entertaining reading very soon…

For more on Bates or his other writing projects, check out his website, Graskeggur (which means “Graybeard” in Icelandic).

by

The Babysitters Club: Where Are They Now?

I don’t think this really needs any preamble. Just too much fun: The Babysitter’s Club: Where Are They Now? Ten points to anyone who can remind me who this Shannon is, though…

This is also an excellent excuse to draw your attention to What Claudia Wore, which is (was? it hasn’t been updated in awhile) one of the best ideas for a blog ev-er.

by

Spontaneous Reads: Fables (Deluxe Edition)

There have been a number of spontaneous reads on my book list thus far in 2011. I generally like starting fresh in a new year, before my ‘obligatory’ (which does not mean not enjoyable) book list starts filling up. One of the surprise reads of 2011 is a graphic novel series called Fables, which I had the good luck of having suggested to me (thanks, Chelsea!) after the long-running series had started being collected in lovely ‘Deluxe’ editions. The series started in 2002 and is suffused with the creator Bill Willingham’s enthusiastic love of storytelling and yarn-spinning. I’ve quite enjoyed it, and while graphic and visual-based storytelling is not generally my bag, I think I’ll be making an exception for this series. Here’s a short ‘review’ of the first Fables Deluxe edition, including the “Legends in Exile” and “Animal Farm” plot arcs:

A friend of mine who is very immersed the graphic/comic world suggested that I would really enjoy this series, and brought me the Deluxe edition to get me started. I finished the first book in two nights, which is somewhat unusual for me, since even though reading a graphic novel may not actually take as much time as reading a text-based story, I generally go slower with visual storytelling. The first two arcs in the series are fantastic, though, and the artwork is not only beautiful and dynamic (including the fantastic cover art), it really leads you through the panels and the story in a natural, snappy fashion.

The general premise is this: some centuries before, a powerful force only known as “The Adversary” systematically went about invading and eradicating the mystical worlds inhabited by fable characters. First, the Emerald City was attacked, then Narnia. When those domains fell, the Adversary went about rounding up and attacking the rest of the fables, forcing the survivors–including the Big Bad Wolf (now known as Bigby Wolf), Snow White and Rose Red, the Three Little Pigs, Little Boy Blue, Prince Charming, Bluebeard, Brere Bear, Shere Khan and many others–to relocate to two new dwellings in upstate New York and Manhattan’s Upper East Side. A transition government has been established in Manhattan–ostensibly run by King Cole (the ‘merry old soul’ guy), but really overseen by Snow White and her deputy lawman, Bigby Wolf. Those magical creatures that can’t pass for human, however, are relegated to The Farm upstate, which eventually creates no small amount of chaos for all the undercover fables.

The plot lines are rich while not be terribly complicated, and since their unfolding is quite a lot of fun, I won’t spoil it for anyone. Suffice to say that in the first two arcs, there is a murder investigation, an assassination attempt, a planned fable coup, kidnapping, romances gone awry, and much other adventurous drama. I’ll definitely be continuing with this series.

by

Lucky Us: Lykke Per Now Available in English

Original artwork inspired by Lykke Per, courtesy “Tourist Near Paradise.”

Way back in October, it was brought to my attention that Danish Nobel Laureate Henrik Pontoppidan had been somewhat (facetiously) maligned in a New Yorker piece about the relative (un)importance of the Nobel Prize. As I mentioned then, Pontoppidan’s short stories “The Royal Guest” and “The Polar Bear” were largely responsible for my further investigations of Danish literature. Or rather, it was a combination of the limited availability of those short stories, as well as the almost complete unavailability of Pontoppidan’s novel, Lykke Per.

It’s seemed to me a very sad state of things that the most famous novel by a Nobel Laureate had fallen out of English translation, which is why I was delighted to find out that a new translation of Lykke Per was published in English in June 2010. The new translation was undertaken by Naomi Lebowitz,  a much lauded professor in Washington University, St. Louis’ Comparative Literature Department.

The book will set you back about $70 on Amazon, which you may not be entirely inclined to invest this soon after the holidays. Luckily, however, you can get a taste of the novel via an abridged lay translation that was done by fellow Danish language and literature enthusiast “Ventristwo” on his blog “Tourist Near Paradise.” Ventristwo generally blogs about life on the island of St. Croix, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. (It may surprise you to know that the U.S. Virgin Islands were colonized by the Danes in the late 1600s and were previously known as the Danish West Indies.) “An even-handedness comes through the work and a spirit of irrepressible youth, luck and determination fashion an honorable peace for all despite rigid adult certainties bent on suppression,” Ventristwo says of the book.

Ventristwo includes a number of long passages from throughout the novel on his site, so definitely check it out. It seems that great minds are thinking alike to finally bring us Lykke Per in English again. Lucky us!

by

Great House

My last review for 2010 (!) is of Nicole Krauss’ Great House. Having not read Krauss’ former novels (but also having received many a glowing recommendation for her last book, The History of Love) I was looking forward to the book without much in the way of preconceptions. I also thought the premise–four stories connected by one object–was rather elegant and intriguing.

As to my thoughts now that I’ve finished the book, I’ll let the review stand on its own. It was originally published on The Second Pass, and the full text is below.

***

The premise of Nicole Krauss’ highly anticipated third novel, Great House, is elegant in its simplicity: four stories connected by one object. The object is a writing desk — at turns inspiring and ominous — which has occupied cramped quarters in New York, Jerusalem, London, and Budapest. Imbued with the experiences, imaginings, failures, and losses of each of the people who have sat and worked at it, the desk is seen by one of Krauss’ five narrators as a “grotesque, threatening monster,” yet symbolizes “a kind of guiding if mysterious order” for another. It is an imposing piece, intrinsically metaphorical, and described as having “[n]ineteen drawers of varying size, some below the desktop and some above, whose mundane occupations (stamps here, paper clips there) hid a far more complex design…”

The desk has an autonomy and character of its own, but it doesn’t actually occupy much space in Great House. Krauss uses it as a point of departure — or sometimes a point of return — in the four stories that comprise the novel. While these tales are loosely connected by the desk, they run parallel more than they intersect, dipping in and out of the lives of powerfully voiced individuals. Krauss is virtuosic in her ability to create characters, to make idiosyncratic and completely unique lives for her cast: an isolated, desperate American author named Nadia; an embittered Israeli father writing unanswered letters to his estranged son; a widower discovering unimagined secrets about the reticent wife with whom he spent most of his life; and an antiques dealer who specializes in seeking objects confiscated from their owners during World War II. Each individual has his or her own speech pattern and quirky turns of phrase, which Krauss artfully juggles throughout.

Her skill with language extends to evocative images. She describes a son’s voice “unraveling like a ribbon dropped from a roof” as he plans the details of his mother’s funeral. The reader walks with her through a maze-like castle, winding down dark corridors and up twisting staircases until arriving in the drafty turret room of a young boy, “one of those animal burrows one finds in children’s books . . . only instead of descending down under the earth we had ascended into the sky.” Through the eyes of another character, we’re shown an “enormous, vaulted room” in Jerusalem where a grand piano is “hanging from the ceiling in place of a chandelier,” swaying just slightly. On occasion, Krauss’ evocative descriptions feel a bit over-determined and forced, such as in a passage where a man’s sadness “seeped out of him . . . blooming into the atmosphere the way the water around a harpooned seal fills with a cloud of blood.” But in most passages, her mastery of language — of rhythmic, descriptive speech — is stunning.

It’s somewhat disappointing, then, that the promise of the novel’s beginning falls short as the plot lines begin to converge in the second half. As characters from one story encounter those from another, as secrets are revealed and explanations offered, the result is anticlimactic. According to Krauss, in a recent interview with The Atlantic, she “…didn’t want to write a novel with any kind of easy connective tissue. I wanted to, in fact, do the opposite. I wanted to see how long I could hold these stories at a distance from each other so that the connections wouldn’t necessarily happen with easy plot choices.” This may be an admirable approach, eschewing the sort of artificially resonant last-minute links that can undercut an otherwise strong piece of fiction. But while each of the stories in Great House feels meaningful on its own, the connections between them continue to feel arbitrary in the end. Krauss connects her characters through the desk. More pointedly, they are similar in their loneliness, their isolation, and the looming specters of their memories. But aren’t most strangers?

 

by

Nordic Literature Prize Nominees Announced

The nominees for the 2011 Nordic Literature Prize were announced this morning. Here’s the list:

Denmark

Josefine Klougart

Stigninger og fald

Novel, Rosinante, 2010

Harald Voetmann

Vågen

Novel, Gyldendal, 2010

Finland

Erik Wahlström

Flugtämjaren

Novel, Schildts, 2010

Kristina Carlson

Herra Darwinin puutarhuri (Herr Darwins trädgårdsmästare)

Novel, Otava, 2009 (Swedish translation, Janina Orlov)

Iceland

Gyrðir Elíasson

Milli trjánna (Bland träden)

Short stories, Uppheimar, 2009, (Swedish translation, John Swedenmark)

Ísak Harðarson

Rennur upp um nótt (Stiger upp om natten)

Poems, Uppheimar, 2009, (Swedish translation, John Swedenmark)

Norway

Beate Grimsrud

En dåre fri

Novel, Cappelen Damm, 2010

Carl Frode Tiller

Innsirkling 2

Novel, Aschehoug, 2010

Sweden

Beate Grimsrud

En dåre fri

Novel, Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2010

Anna Hallberg

Colosseum, Kolosseum

Poetry Collection, Albert Bonniers Förlag, 2010

Faroe Islands

Tóroddur Poulsen

Útsýni (Utsikt)

Poetry collection, Mentunargrunnur Studentafelagsins, 2009, (Swedish translation, Anna Mattsson)

Greenland

Kristian Olsen Aaju

Kakiorneqaqatigiit (Det tatoverede budskab)

Novel, Forlaget Atuagkat, 2010

Åland Islands

Sonja Nordenswan

Blues från ett krossat världshus

Novel, PQR-kultur, 2009

The Sami Language Area

Kerttu Vuolab

Bárbmoáirras (Paradisets stjerne)

Novel, Davvi Girji OS, 2008

 

I must shamefully admit that I don’t know the work of any of these authors. That may have a great deal to do with their relative lack of availability in English, but I’ll still do some investigating, just in case. As ever, we can hope that at least the winner of the prize will make it into English in the coming years…

by

An Average of 552 Words a Day is Actually Not So Bad

November 2010 marked my first foray into the world of frenetic, “seat-of-your-pants” fiction writing. It also marks my semi-triumphant return to fiction writing in general, after a few years hiatus spent writing reviews, starting a library Master’s, and allowing my waning fictional inspiration to percolate a bit.

I didn’t undertake the goal of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which is to write 50,000 words, or 175 pages, in one month. Rather, I wanted to use the structure of the contest to challenge myself to think about and make time for more creatively-inclined writing again. November was a particularly busy month for me–I won’t bore you with the details, but trust me–so it seemed like a particularly appropriate time to undertake this challenge. If I can make time for writing fiction in the midst of a fairly chaotic schedule of obligations, deadlines, holidays, and social events, I should be able to make time for it always.

The result? 17,090 words in 30 days, or one non-fiction travel essay and the start of a Clue-inspired mystery set in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It didn’t make the official goal by half, and I fell short of the more modest goal of 20,000 words that I set for myself, and yet, I’m feeling pretty good about it.

And a big, super-duper shout out to my “not-really-a-writer” friend of friends in AZ, who not only met the daily quota, but exceeded the 50K word goal. Consider yourself an authoress, Lulu!