fwriction

Sam Jordison over at the Guardian Books Blog echoes our sentiments about the importance and power of translated works:

One thing I am wondering, however, is if we in the English-speaking world are becoming better at understanding the value of good translated literature. In that earlier article, I noted that “although around 60% of all translations are taken from the English language, English readers take only around 2-3% of their books from other languages”. I haven’t been able to find contradictory figures, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the imbalance is becoming less marked. Stieg Larsson continues to sell by the bucketload; Roberto Bolaño is ever more revered; new imprints such as Gallic Books, focusing exclusively on translation, are thriving. In the meantime, the exemplary New York Review Books has brought out so many translations of such high quality that a serious reader could take in nothing else for years and still feel entirely satisfied.

Yes. What a steal. Not a huge fan of books on Kindle, but I can in no way pass this up.

(Source: millionsmillions)

from The Book Beast:

Dan Chaon’s intent in his chilling new short-story collection is clear. In the opening line, “Gene’s son Frankie wakes up screaming.” We learn that Gene is a UPS deliveryman trying to escape his past, and his son’s bloodcurdling screams are reminders that “something bad has been looking for him for a long time, he thinks, and now, at last, is growing near.” In these haunting tales, Chaon writes about the tragic fallout of broken families; the loss of a child, parent, or spouse often drives the narrative. In one story, a foster child moves in with a couple and sleeps in their dead son’s bed. As he grows older, his traumatic childhood catches up with him, chipping away at his grip on reality until his demons come eerily into view. Chaon excels at inciting a gripping sense of foreboding; just as the reader realizes there’s a monster in the closet, its shocking revelation only stirs the imagination further. While the notorious severed hand from his 2009 novel, Await Your Reply, is absent from this new collection, the author’s fans will delight in discovering a few stray fingers and other signature motifs.

patricksomerville:

To me, the penultimate paragraph is the most interesting part of the review, and I will end this empathy ramble there, noting that fiction writers, I think, should pitch a tent within these temporary episodes if they want to write well and continue to understand characters:

At the core of this deceptively simple book is the question of the nature of cruelty. In the last and most philosophical chapter Dr. Baron-Cohen discusses situations in which an individual who is not otherwise lacking in empathy may behave cruelly. Citing the philosopher Hannah Arendt’s term “the banality of evil,” and discussing the work of Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo in which ordinary people exhibited cruel behavior, he acknowledges that in most of us empathy may be suspended temporarily, under certain circumstances.

At fwriction : review, we love scrappy journals. What a fantastic list (PANK! Electric Lit! Unstuck!) and shout-out in The New York Times!

Consider the literary magazine. Cloaked in pointy-headed obscurity, it almost always loses money. And now, with printed media on the endangered list, it may seem especially at risk to go extinct (or online-only). But these scrappy journals are actually enjoying something of a renaissance in print, buoyed by on-demand publishers like Lulu and CreateSpace — which make them cheaper than ever to produce — and print fetishists who treat them like sacred art objects. (Some, like the hand-bound, screen-printed Birkensnake, undoubtedly are.) Travis Kurowski, who covers lit mags on his blog, Luna Park Review, estimates that there are now as many as 2,800 magazines. What distinguishes these 10 is that they’re not only intello-chic statements for your side table. They’re also really good reads.