Festival of Writers in Prague

Beginning June 5 in Prague, the twentieth annual Festival of Writers will examine the writer's role as a societal heretic and political rebel.

Herta Muller, Gao Xingjian, and Derek Walcott, all Nobel Prize laureates, will attend the conference, in addition to eleven other writers from various countries celebrated for their heterodox writings and views.

Peter Matthiessen, a U.S. novelist, will receive the Spiros Vergos Prize for Freedom of Expression, named for the Greek poet who exiled himself from his country during a military dictatorship in the late sixties and early seventies in order to fight for the restoration of democracy.

Paul Harding wins Pulitzer for his first novel

The winners of the 2010 Pultizer Prizes were announced yesterday. The Pulitzer Prize is one of the most important yearly writing awards in the United States. Only Americans may win the awards, and their work must be about distinctly American issues.

In fiction, Boston area writer and professional drummer Paul Harding won for his first novel, Tinkers. A bittersweet, exquisitely detailed story of epilepsy, aging, mortality, and fatherhood, the novel was published by Bellevue Literary Press, a small publisher that specializes in medical and scientific writing. This is the first time in almost three decades (since A Confederacy of Dunces, published by the Louisiana State University Press, in 1981) that the winner has not been a large release from a major publisher.

In drama, the musical Next to Normal by Brian Yorkey (book, lyrics) and Tom Kitt (music) won. A musical has not won in the best play category since RENT in 1996.

In poetry, veteran poet Rae Armantrout of San Diego won for her collection Versed.

No news, just reviews

Some of the more interesting book reviews and interviews I've read this weekend:

At SFGate, Carolina de Robertis reviews Sudden Fiction Latino, a comprehensive Norton anthology of flash fiction and microfiction from Latino writers throughout North, Central, and South America--from the internationally acclaimed Gabriel García Márquez to writers barely known in the United States, like Rodrigo Rey Rosa of Guatemala.

Robert McCrum of The Observer presents an amusing interview with Lorrie Moore, the American novelist and short story writer known for her brevity and tragicomic tone. Her latest novel, A Gate at the Stairs, offers a glimpse into the lives of Americans in the years between September 11 and the United States invasion of Iraq and has been longlisted for the Orange Prize.

Shabnam Minwalla of The Times of India provides some context for the latest Stieg Larsson craze, offering a biographical sketch of the best-selling, deceased, Swedish crime novelist and providing reviews of his Millennium Trilogy--The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

A Saudi Arabian novel about divorce, sexual oppression, and superstition during the first Gulf War has recently been translated by Anthony Calderbank and published by the American University Press. Munira's Bottle by Youssef al-Mohaimeed and its translation are reviewed by Amany Aly Shawky at AlMasryAlYoum.

William Skidelsky of The Observer details the life and works of David Mitchell, a young British novelist whose complex, experimental, diverse novels have become a bestselling, postmodern sensation.

Chinese writer withdraws her denunciation of Pearl S. Buck

Pearl S. Buck was born to Presbyterian missionaries in 1892 in West Virginia, but at three months she relocated to China, where she grew up learning both the local language and the tongue of her parents. Despite two separate periods in the United States where she received her college education and her Masters degree, Buck spent almost all of her young life in China. A progressive-minded, intelligent, and passionate woman, she challenged racism and sexual discrimination, championed adoption and children's rights, and was outspoken on topics of war and immigration, issues which all shined through her writing. In 1930, despite numerous rejections from publishers who considered China a topic in which American writers would be thoroughly uninterested, Buck released The Good Earth, a best-selling epic of the Chinese peasantry which would later win the Pulitzer Prize. In 1938, she became the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize.

Despite having inspired an admiration and respect for the Chinese and their culture in millions of previously ignorant Americans and despite having spent most of her life in China, teaching at a Chinese university and fighting for Chinese rights, Buck was targeted as an American imperialist during the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the sixties. Her books were banned, her character was vilified, and when she attempted to accompany United States President Nixon on his famous diplomatic visit to China in 1972, her access was famously denied by the politically aspirant wife of Chairman Mao. Buck died a year later at her home in Pennsylvania, and she never received a chance to return to her childhood home, a situation which left her heartbroken.

In 1971, fourteen-year-old Anchee Min was required to write an essay denouncing Buck as a detestable cultural imperialist despite knowing nothing about the writer or her work. Only years later, while on a United States book tour promoting her memoir Red Azalea, did the Shanghai writer receive a copy of the once forbidden book from a fan who claimed that the novel was what had first made her love China.

Despite a lifelong prejudice against the American writer, Min was moved by the emotional weight of the novel. According to an article from NPR:

Min read that paperback copy of The Good Earth on the airplane from Chicago to Los Angeles. When she finished, she says, emotion overcame her.

"I couldn't help myself, and I broke down and sobbed because I have never seen anyone, including our Chinese authors, who wrote our peasants the way Pearl Buck did, with such love, affection and humanity. And it was at that very moment Pearl of China was conceived."

Pearl of China, released in the United States by Bloomsbury on March 30, is a fictionalized account of the life of Buck, seen from the eyes of a loyal Chinese friend. Buck committed her life to representing and supporting Chinese women; with this brief novel, Min hopes to return the favor.

Edith Grossman and the Importance of Translation

Renowned translator Edith Grossman, whose works have included Don Quixote, Love in the Time of Cholera, and The Feast of the Goat, is the subject of an interesting examination from thestar online. Her new book, Why Translation Matters, part of the Why X Matters series from Yale University Press, was published yesterday, March 30. The book details the artistic skill required to capture a writer's rhythm and style while remaining true to his or her words and intent, a talent that is often overlooked in a publishing and reading world where translators are poorly paid and largely ignored.

Translation can take as long, or longer, as writing the original book. The art, Grossman and others will say, is more than finding the appropriate word. Translation is about words and music, fidelity and feel, the balance between getting too caught up in the literal meaning and improvising so freely that the author’s voice is lost entirely.

In Why Translation Matters, Grossman writes of taking on the opening phrase of the first chapter of Don Quixote, among the most famous words in Spanish literature: “En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme,” which in an earlier English-language edition was translated into, “In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind.”

Grossman worked on the phrase by reciting the Spanish to herself, “mantralike.” She reached for the right mood and rhythm, to recapture how it struck those who read Quixote centuries ago. She pondered the word lugar, which can mean either village or place. The words came to her, like lyrics to a song: “Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember.”

The article explores the pitiful status of literature in translation in the United States, where as little as 3% of books published come from international writers--a percentage drastically smaller than that in other nations. The article presents the cultural factors underlying this underrepresentation and examines the circumstances which have allowed foreign success stories to overcome the low demand.

West Texan novelist dies at 83

Elmer Kelton, a Plains novelist and writer of modern westerns, died on August 22 at age 83.

A survivor of the harsh droughts of the 1950s, which killed, defeated, or cast off many ranchers and farmers from West Texas, Kelton became an advocate of self-sufficiency and stoic resilience. The Time it Never Rained, published in 1973 and winner of both the Spur Award and the Western Heritage Award, is perhaps his greatest novel, an account of one rancher's battle against crippling elements.

Kelton won seven Spur Awards from 1957 to 2002. He also won three Western Heritage Awards, and in 1977 won the Owen Wister Award for lifetime contributions to Western literature, an honor he shares with Louis L'Amour, Dee Brown, and John Ford.

Bill Bishop of The Daily Yonder writes about his life and contributions:

Elmer Kelton died last week. He was 83 years old, and in his time he wrote the best books about the treeless land and the work that men and women faced when they moved beyond the 98th meridian.

Elmer Kelton was born at Horse Camp in Andrews County, Texas, to Mr. and Mrs. R. W. “Buck” Kelton. He grew up on the McElroy Ranch in Upton and Crane counties where he learned to do ranch work. Early on, Kelton realized he lacked cowboying talent. "I was the oldest of four boys and by far the worst cowboy," Kelton said. "I rode a horse like all the rest, just not as well, so I took a lot of refuge in reading. Westerns were my heritage. . . . By eight or nine, I decided if I couldn't be a cowboy, I would at least write about it."

...

Self-sufficiency was the recurring political theme in Kelton’s stories. Charlie Flagg warned about taking anything from government. Wes Hendrix, in The Man Who Rode Midnight, stood in the way of a lake planned by the town of Big River. The town saw a future in ski boats and vacation homes. Hendrix thought a life built on cattle and sheep was just fine, and the two, the rancher and the town, settled into a prolonged battle over the meaning of progress.

''When other people can ruin your life, it doesn't matter if it's big government or big business,'' Kelton told me once. ''Above all, I cherish freedom.”

Larry McMurtry may retire from novel writing

Claiming his well of fictional inspiration may be running dry, 73-year-old Texan novelist Larry McMurtry has stated at a recent gathering that his new book--to be released on August 11--will probably be his last novel.

Rhino Ranch will be the thirtieth novel in a corpus that includes Terms of Endearment, The Last Picture Show, and Lonesome Dove, which won a Pulitzer Prize in 1986. Centering around an attempt to protect the endangered African black rhinoceros by importing it to the United States, Rhino Ranch will be the fifth installment in a series of novels set his native North Texas which began in 1966 with The Last Picture Show. Most of McMurtry's novels, which are often labeled as modern westerns, are set in Texas.

In addition to being a novelist, McMurty is a screenwriter--he co-won an Academy Award for his screenplay to Brokeback Mountain--and an avid reader and book collector. His collection of over 300,000 books can be perused and purchased at Booked Up in Archer City, Texas.

From the Dallas Morning News:

"It's a finite gift, for sure," he says of novel writing. "I'm about at the end of it. I can write certain things. I don't think I can write fiction any more. I think I've used it up over 30 novels. That's a lot of novels."

McMurtry made the remarks during a recent visit at his home in Archer City. He huddled almost an hour with invited guests from the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, which is sponsored by the author's alma mater, the University of North Texas.

"Most great novels are written by people between 40 and 60, or 35 and 60," he says. "Not too many great novels are written by people over 75. Hardly any. Maybe Tolstoy."

Hemingway tried to spy for the Soviets

New evidence examined in Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (co-written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev) suggests that Nobel Prize winning American author Ernest Hemingway was an unsuccessful spy for the Soviet KGB in the 1940's.

According to The Guardian:

Its section on the author's secret life as a "dilettante spy" draws on his KGB file in saying he was recruited in 1941 before making a trip to China, given the cover name "Argo", and "repeatedly expressed his desire and willingness to help us" when he met Soviet agents in Havana and London in the 40s. However, he failed to "give us any political information" and was never "verified in practical work", so contacts with Argo had ceased by the end of the decade. Was he only ever a pseudo-spook, possibly seeing his clandestine dealings as potential literary material, or a genuine but hopelessly ineffective one?

The Revenge of Print

Publisher Eric Obenauf, writing for The Brooklyn Rail, muses on the possible near death and hopeful rebirth of the book and print media market in the modern United States:

Such efforts expose a key fundamental flaw within the mindset of modern corporate publishing: the perceived role of the book in today’s society. In the past, because of the necessary evolution required to actually create one, coupled with an ambition to deliver a valuable artifact to the world, a book was imagined by publishers as a means to both inspire and inform culture. Now the opposite is occurring. In a flagrant attempt to compete with Internet culture, to crash books into the marketplace on hot button topics from steroids to celebrities, from political scandal to political ascension, corporate publishers aim now to meet immediate demand. If a book about teenage vampires becomes a bestseller, then the hustle is on to find and market a series about pre-teen vampires. And because of this constant rush to the market with books that have the shelf-life of a bruised tomato—in hardcover, with supplemental cardboard cut-outs that stand in chain store windows and usher customers down narrow sales aisles—this ideology has influenced the ebb and flow of the industry. A worthy book that has been crafted over several steps and patiently delivered with care is outshined by a gossip memoir by a B-list celebrity’s cat-sitter.

EC Osondu wins "African Booker"

The £10,000 Caine Prize for African Writing, called the African Booker, was awarded to EC Osondu for his short story "Waiting," a sparse and resonant tale about a young boy in a refugee camp.

Osondu, a Nigerian native who now lives in the United States, published the story in Guernicamag.com in October, 2008. In addition to the prize money, he will receive a one-month residency at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, US, with all expenses paid.

The prize, in its tenth year, recognizes the best English-language short story written by an African author. Patrons of the award include Chinua Achebe, Nadine Gordimer, and Wole Soyinka.

Twittergate!

Alice Hoffman, the author of Practical Magic and the more recent The Story Sisters, blasted critic Roberta Silman for her unfavorable review in the Boston Globe. Writing on her Twitter account (in a post that has since been removed), Hoffman mourned the days when books were once reviewed by writers, calling Silman a "moron" and asking, "My second novel was reviewed by [Anne] Tyler. So who is Roberta Silman?"

Silman's fiction, however, has been published in The New Yorker. She has released three novels and a collection of short stories. And Hoffman's outburst has provoked only amusement from
Silman, a flood of support from readers, and an apology from Hoffman.

Silman's anger-inducing review praised Hoffman's earlier work while calling the latest novel "tired" and improvisational, a bit messy. Overall, the review was not very harsh or entirely negative.

Book Review: Shanghai Girls

Set in an extravagantly pseudo-Chinese neighborhood of Los Angeles in the 1930s, a "China City" that catered to white tourists by showcasing the most cutesy (and usually inaccurate) of oriental curiosities, Shanghai Girls by Chinese-American novelist Lisa See documents the hopes and disappointments of two sisters who flee Japanese war atrocities in Shanghai only to meet alienation and prejudice on the "golden mountain" of the United States.

Robert Fulford of the National Post reviews the novel, praising it for its cross-cultural examination, exploration of identity politics, and readability while criticizing its "unremarkable" prose.

Fulford writes:

Her female characters alternately support and resent each other, in ways that suggest she's tapped into the rich vein of narrative uncovered in recent decades by Chick Lit authors. At the same time, she serves as advocate and analyst of the Chinese experience; she writes Identity Fiction, running parallel to Identity Politics. She knows precisely how hard life on this continent was for the Chinese and how to spell out the damning historical evidence. Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, while sometimes called a West Coast equivalent of Ellis Island, appears in Shanghai Girls without a trace of sentiment: It's depicted as the place where Chinese would-be immigrants were harshly imprisoned while bureaucrats tried to send them back home.

Michael Thomas wins Dublin Literary Award

A debut novel about a financially-strapped, African-American Harvard graduate has won its author the most lucrative literary prize, the 100,000 euro Dublin Literary Award sponsored by IMPAC. Michael Thomas, competing against Pulitzer Prize-winning Junot Diaz, three other Americans, and writers from France, India, Norway, and Pakistan, is only the second American to ever win the wealthy prize, which is managed by the Dublin City Libarary association and nominated by public library systems throughout the world.

The first American to win was Washington, DC native Edward P. Jones for The Known World.

The prize has been awarded yearly since 1996 and supports the enjoyment of reading.

Thomas's book, Man Gone Down, was published by Grove Press in December of 2006 and is set in his native city Boston, though he currently lives in New York. The book previously received top ten status from The New York Times in 2007.

Call of the Wild adapted into 3D film

Jack London's famous novel about sled dogs in the Yukon, Call of the Wild, has been updated, geared toward teens, and made into a 3D film starring Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) and directed by Richard Gabai (2005's Pop Star with Aaron Carter).

The movie, filmed in Montana, will open Friday in that state, Utah, Minnesota, Iowa, and Romania.

Though advance reviews are few, a screening by Deseret News critic Jeff Vice is particularly negative:

However, the rest of the movie is a real mess.

Director Richard Gabai and screenwriter Leland Douglas misuse the other cast members — who include veterans Wes Studi, Joyce DeWitt and Veronica Cartwright.

And an anti-smoking message — while appreciated — is delivered with such a heavy hand that the film starts to feel like a "Truth About Tobacco" infomercial.

London's naturalistic novel has been filmed at least nine times in the past 101 years, with a 1935 version starring Clark Gable considered the most successful.