“Intellectual Bestseller” may sound like a contradiction in terms for the U.S. book market, but Russia’s literary tradition of complex allegory and existential musing is still going strong. Cheap romance novels and Lord of the Rings knockoffs haven’t faltered (whatever happened to censorship?) – but Russian book prizes are what make or break many of…Continue Reading
Jealousy, Hope, Love, Frustration, Pinochet & the PLO Craftsman, plumber, brick-layer, ironware merchant, script writer, filmmaker, and now novelist, Nan Aurousseau has hewed his vast trove of on-the-job tales into a thrilling novel called Overalls. Like so many beleaguered artists, the adroit Frenchman wrote the autobiographical bestseller (not a memoir, mind you) while down and…Continue Reading
PEN Draws Droves, Caruso in Siberia, Sie ist ein Berliner Who says Americans don’t love literature in translation? The jam-packed events surrounding the PEN World Voices Festival last month suggest that editors will be scrambling to find the next José Manuel Prieto or Adam Zagajewski faster than one can say cross-cultural-post-national-poly-lingual-extravaganza. Billed as “a confluence…Continue Reading
