Open Letter has posted a list of 25 contenders for the best translated book of 2008 (into English), which makes a fine guide to recently-published literature from around the world. Ten finalists will be named in late January 27, with the winning titles announced on February 19th at a party at the Melville House offices.Open Letter
Works In Translation
Muted Prospects for Bestseller in Translation
“No. 1 French bestseller” does not necessarily guarantee a novel sales, or even publication, in English-speaking parts of the world, as the Guardian notes: “Fiction in translation is not an easy sell to us Brits, and French fiction is perhaps the hardest sell of all.” The subject is small UK press Gallic Books’ release of Muriel Barbery’s THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG. (It’s published by Europa Editions in the US.) “Barbery’s novel, which takes as its unprepossessing subject an ugly, plump concierge and a 12-year-old girl who plans to commit suicide on her 13th birthday, has spent 102 weeks on […]
Full Version of Solzhenitsyn's First Circle in English
Harper has announced that next year they will issue “an uncut edition of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s THE FIRST CIRCLE a highly praised and controversial novel published 40 years ago and heavily edited because of its story of a Soviet prison camp,” the AP reports. A shortened version had been published in English in 1968 “despite objections by the author, who believed his work was being exploited for profit, and by scholars who feared that the book’s release could jeopardize his safety.”AP