Not only has Esquire greatly reduced the print space alloted to literary fiction, but their short-lived Books Blog ground to a halt at the end of January. Still, it’s worth checking out their recent posts, which take a traditional service-mag approach to experimental fiction, small presses and self-publishing. Their survey of the top five literary magazines has some good choices, including Guernica, whose February issue offers several great works in translation, including poems by Ales Steger translated by Brian Henry, Umberto Saba translated by George Hochfield and Leonard Nathan, and a story by Sergio Ramírez Mercado, translated by David Unger.
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This past Saturday the Guardian published a beautiful account of a Sebald-led walking tour of the Holderness Coast by Will Self. The author’s editor, Bill Swainson, who was also Sebald’s editor, provided partial encouragement for the task, and Self, who already felt an affinity for Sebald through The Rings of Saturn, was surprised to find the seemingly altered fictive world in real existence, and upon his return, found in additional reading his own thoughts expressed, exclaiming to the page, íYou know exactly what I mean!ë
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Upcoming Events:
Melville House and Three Percent invites the public to the annual Best Translated Book Award ceremony, at the Melville House Bookstore in DUMBO, February 19, at 7pm, 145 Plymouth St, at Pearl St. The ceremony will be hosted by Francisco Goldman. Awards will be given for fiction and poetry, and there are ten nominees for each category. Complete details here:
http://www.mhpbooks.com/event.php?id=197
From our friends at PEN America Global Correspondences: A Benefit Reading for PEN America, PEN’s award-winning magazine, featuring Andre Aciman, Anthony Appiah, Lydia Davis, Deborah Eisenberg, Francine Prose, and many others. Tuesday, February 24th at 7pm, The Great Hall at Cooper Union 7 East 7th Street, New York, NY Full details are available here: