Now that the shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize has been released, I am taking a break from reading and reviewing translated fiction for a while. ‘How to be both’ by Ali Smith has been shortlisted for just about every major literary award in recent months including the Man Booker Prize, the Folio Prize, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and the Costa Book Awards as well as winning the Goldsmiths Prize and the more I have heard about it in recent months, the more I have wanted to read it. One half is set in fifteenth century Italy and tells the story of al fresco Renaissance artist Franceshco del Cossa. The other half is set in modern Britain and tells the story of a sixteen-year-old girl called George whose mother has recently died. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Literature
How to be both by Ali Smith
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The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Shortlist 2015
The official shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was announced this week:
- The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
- In the Beginning Was the Sea by Tomás González translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne
- F by Daniel Kehlmann translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway
- By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel translated from the Spanish by Jethro Soutar
- While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
We can also reveal our shadow jury shortlist:
- The Ravens by Tomas Bannerhed translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death
- The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
- Bloodlines by Marcello Fois translated from the Italian by Silvester Mazzarella
- The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
- Zone by Mathias Énard translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell
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Boyhood Island by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett, ‘Boyhood Island’ is the third instalment of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s ambitious six-book cycle of autobiographical novels known as ‘My Struggle’. Having explored some of Knausgaard’s later childhood in ‘A Death in the Family‘, the second volume ‘A Man in Love‘ jumped forward in time to concentrate on his experiences of fatherhood. As you may guess from the title, ‘Boyhood Island’ jumps back in time again to Knausgaard’s childhood. Continue reading
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While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier and The Last Lover by Can Xue
‘While the Gods Were Sleeping’ by Erwin Mortier and translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent tells the story of Helena Demont, a very elderly woman approaching her hundredth birthday who is reflecting on her experiences as a young woman living in Belgium at the start of the First World War. The story explores Helena’s relationships with her French mother, Belgian father, brother Edgard and her British husband Matthew with whom she has a daughter. Continue reading
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By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel
‘By Night the Mountain Burns’ by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel is the first novel by an author from Equatorial Guinea to be longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. It is also only the second book from the country ever to be translated into English and recounts the narrator’s childhood memories of living on the small remote island of Annobón in the South Atlantic Ocean where the inhabitants deal with various crises including a bush fire and a cholera epidemic. Continue reading
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Bloodlines by Marcello Fois
‘Bloodlines’ by Marcello Fois and translated from the Italian by Silvester Mazzarella tells the story of the Chironi family during the early twentieth century in Sardinia. Michele Angelo Chironi, a blacksmith and Mercede Lai are both orphans who marry seven months after they first meet at a church in 1889. While the early years of their marriage are happy ones, their lives are plagued with misfortune after the turn of the century. Continue reading
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The Giraffe’s Neck by Judith Schalansky
Longlisted for this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, ‘The Giraffe’s Neck’ by Judith Schalansky and translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside tells the story of Inge Lohmark, a biology teacher approaching the end of her career at a high school in a former East German country backwater. She has a firm belief in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution yet, somewhat ironically, she is highly resistant to adapting to change in her own life.
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The Investigation by Jung-Myung Lee
‘The Investigation’ by Jung-Myung Lee and translated by Chi-Young Kim is only the second book translated from Korean into English to ever be longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in its twenty-five year history. Set in Japan during the Second World War, it tells the story of Watanabe, a literature student and guard at Fukouka prison which holds anti-Japanese Korean rebels, intellectuals and dissidents. Watanabe is attempting to find the criminal behind the brutal murder of the much-loathed prison censor and war hero, Sugiyama. However, he is unconvinced by an early confession from one of the most notorious inmates and after taking over the role of prison censor himself, his investigation starts to unravel a very different side to Sugiyama. Continue reading
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In the Beginning Was the Sea by Tomás González
I have read a few French books translated into English by Frank Wynne including ‘Alex’ and ‘Irene’ by Pierre Lemaitre but I was unfamiliar with his translations from Spanish until now. ‘In the Beginning Was the Sea’ is Tomás González’s debut novel and was first published in 1983 by the owner of a Bogotá nightclub where he worked as a barman. Over thirty years later, it is the first of his books to be translated into English and has recently been longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Continue reading
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The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Longlist 2015
It’s been an interesting week for book award longlists. First, there was the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist announced on Tuesday followed by the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist announced late on Wednesday. The fifteen novels are:
- The Ravens by Tomas Bannerhed translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death
- The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
- Bloodlines by Marcello Fois translated from the Italian by Silvester Mazzarella
- In the Beginning Was the Sea by Tomás González translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne
- The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
- F by Daniel Kehlmann translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway
- Boyhood Island by Karl Ove Knausgaard translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett
- By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel translated from the Spanish by Jethro Soutar
- The Investigation by Jung-Myung Lee translated from the Korean by Chi-Young Kim
- While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel
- The Giraffe’s Neck by Judith Schalansky translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside
- Tiger Milk by Stefanie de Velasco translated from the German by Tim Mohr
- Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch
- The Last Lover by Can Xue translated from the Chinese by Annelise Finegan Wasmoen
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The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist 2015
This year’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist was announced today. The twenty novels are:
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The Faithful Couple by A. D. Miller
‘The Faithful Couple’ is very different from A. D. Miller’s first novel ‘Snowdrops‘, a crime thriller set in post-Soviet Russia which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2011. While the judges of the Prize that year were famously looking for books that were “readable” and “zip along”, ‘The Faithful Couple’ falls into the more familiar Booker Prize territory of traditional literary fiction. It tells the story of two British men in their twenties, Neil Collins and Adam Tayler, who meet at a hostel in San Diego in 1993 a couple of years after graduating from university. Although they come from very different backgrounds, they quickly strike up a firm friendship. However, a betrayal during a camping trip in Yosemite casts a shadow over their relationship over the next two decades. Continue reading
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V. by Thomas Pynchon
I can’t really explain what made me pick up ‘V.’ by Thomas Pynchon from the library shelf three weeks ago. It’s likely to have been a combination of recently seeing a trailer for the film adaptation of ‘Inherent Vice’ and coming across an old article in The Guardian by Ian Rankin about Pynchon as well as the weird and wonderful cover design of this Vintage Books edition. Moreover, although I’ve read a lot of enjoyable and thought-provoking books in the past few months, it’s been a while since I’ve read something that has properly challenged me. Continue reading
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Go Set a Watchman: The Inevitable Disappointment of Literary Sequels?
Until last week, the prospect of Harper Lee publishing a new book fifty-five years after ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ seemed about as likely as Donna Tartt churning out novels at the same pace as Stephen King or E. L. James winning the Man Booker Prize. But this is exactly what was announced by her publishers at HarperCollins last Tuesday.
Few details have been revealed so far other than that the book is about Scout Finch returning to Alabama as an adult twenty years after the events in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. ‘Go Set A Watchman’ was written before ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ but Lee was persuaded by her publishers to focus on Scout’s childhood instead. The original novel was subsequently lost before it was rediscovered last autumn.
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Four Novellas I’ve Read Recently
Long novels like ‘The Goldfinch‘ by Donna Tartt and ‘The Luminaries‘ by Eleanor Catton received lots of attention last year. But let’s not forget that conciseness in fiction is just as important and effective as the achievements of sprawling epics.
I’ve used the term novella quite loosely here to mean books which are longer than a typical short story but less than two hundred pages or fifty thousand words. Here are four short reviews of short works of fiction I’ve read recently which prove that less can be more:
1. Academy Street by Mary Costello
This is an excellent book which tells the story of Tess Lohan, a shy young woman who emigrates from Ireland to the United States in the 1960s. It has drawn comparisons to ‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Tóibín due to the similar setting, understated writing and introverted main character. The book spans Tess’s life from childhood to old age in less than 180 pages – it could have been twice as long with more detail about other aspects of her life, yet the devastating impact of the ending was so much more powerful due to its brevity without ever feeling rushed.
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New Books Coming Soon in 2015
2014 was a fantastic year for new books by some of my favourite authors including ‘Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage‘ by Haruki Murakami, ‘The Paying Guests‘ by Sarah Waters, ‘Us‘ by David Nicholls and ‘The Book of Strange New Things‘ by Michel Faber. 2015 is also shaping up to be a bumper year for long-awaited new novels from both established authors and debut novelists alike. Here are the ones to watch in 2015:
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The 2014 End of Year Book Survey
I do this survey every year so here it is again….
1. Best book you read in 2014? (You can break it down by genre if you want) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt was a great start to the year and The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber was another highlight. For non-fiction, H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald really stood out for its original blend of memoir, biography and nature writing.
2. Book you were excited about and thought you were going to love more but didn’t? As with The Rehearsal, the overly complex structure of The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton prevented me from enjoying it as much as I had hoped.
3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2014? It’s a very intense read but The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud was a pleasant surprise as I didn’t really get on with The Last Life at all last year. Continue reading
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9 Books I Read in 2014 But Didn’t Review
I review the majority of the books I read. However, mostly due to lack of time, I don’t blog about all of them. Here are my thoughts about nine other books I read in 2014 but didn’t review earlier in the year.
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Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St. John Mandel is a post-apocalyptic novel which opens with the sudden death of Arthur Leander, a Hollywood actor starring in a theatre production of ‘King Lear’. He collapses on stage and succumbs to the Georgia Flu, a pandemic which virtually wipes out the human race in a matter of days. The survivors form the Travelling Symphony, a troupe of actors and musicians moving across territories performing classical theatre and concerts, including Kirsten, a child actress who was with Arthur when he died. Continue reading
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Reading Women in 2014
This week, analysis of 40,000 active Goodreads users (20,000 men and 20,000 women) revealed that readers prefer books by authors of the same gender. The results found that women rate books written by female authors more highly than those written by men and 90% of the 50 most read books by men were written by men.
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