The Rachel Shihor Interview
Graphs, Maps, Trees
Where's Soft Skull headed now that Denise Oswald has taken over for Richard Nash? Over at The Quarterly Conversation I talk to her about the press's future, which, Oswald says, will definitely include translations.
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The End of Oulipo? My book (co-authored with Lauren Elkin), published by Zero Books. Available everywhere. Order it from Amazon, or find it in bookstores nationwide.
Lady Chatterley's Brother. The first ebook in the new TQC Long Essays series,
 called “an exciting new project” by Chad Post of Open Letter and Three Percent. Why can't Nicholson Baker write about sex? And why can Javier Marias? We investigate why porn is a dead end, and why seduction paves the way for the sex writing of the future. Read an excerpt.Available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and direct from this site: Ever wonder what English is missing? Called "a fascinating
 read" by The New Yorker, Translate This Book! brings together over 40 of the top translators, publishers, and authors to tell us what books need to be published in English. Get it on Kindle.
 The Quarterly Convers- |
A group read of the book that either "engenders awe and despair" or "[goads] the reader with obscenity and bigotry," or both. Info here. Buy the book here and support this site.
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With the recent English-language publication of books like Yu Hua’s Brothers and Wang Gang’s English, Western readers might perceive a thaw ongoing in China. After all, these books and others like them were originally published in China, and they offer a frank portrayal of some of the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Make no mistake, however, not all Chinese writers are free to write and publish what they please. That point was driven home on April 29, 2009 when the PEN American Center honored the Chinese poet and . . . continue reading, and add your comments The Dalkey Archive Press has closed a deal to become a client publisher of WW Norton, which will distribute and sell Dalkey's books. This is similar to the arrangement that Norton already has in place with literary publishers New Directions and Verso. Martin Riker, Associate Director of Dalkey, characterized the deal this way: We remain an autonomous entity; we do our own editorial, production, design, and marketing/publicity. It will get our books into more stores and into more countries. We're all excited to be working with a place as wonderful as Norton, and to be in league with independent . . . continue reading, and add your comments (This story is also available at The Quarterly Conversation.) Later this year, Penguin U.K. will publish a "complete Cosmicomics." The volume will bring together short stories by Italo Calvino which had previously been spread our across several volumes, or which were untranslated. According to Rachel Love, Editorial Coordinator at Penguin Classics and Reference, the forthcoming book, titled The Complete Cosmicomics, will include: The 12 stories that appear in Cosmicomics 7 newly translated by Martin McLaughlin (first time in English) The 11 stories that comprise Time and the Hunter (published in the . . . continue reading, and add your comments Last week I reported on a new volume of Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics, purporting to collect 7 stories previously untranslated. I noted that although a UK edition is imminent, there was no mention of a U.S. edition anywhere. I've gotten in touch with one Rachel Love, an editorial coordinator with Penguin Classics and Reference in the UK, and she has confirmed that there is currently no U.S. edition of this book forthcoming from Penguin. The Wylie Agency has the rights, meaning that there probably will be a U.S. edition eventually, although who knows. I'm still trying to track . . . continue reading, and add your comments Ted Striphas is an assistant professor of media and cultural studies and director of film and media at Indiana University. His book, The Late Age of Print, has just been published by Columbia University Press. Scott Esposito: Your overarching argument is that books—their production, consumption, and dissemination—have been developing alongside capitalism, and in fact are very emblematic of capitalism. And just as we’re in what's known as "late capitalism" we're also in the "late age of print." Could you briefly explain what you mean by the late age of print? Ted Striphas: “The late . . . continue reading, and add your comments I've just heard from Graywolf that they've acquired the rights to Mexican novelist Daniel Sada's book Casi Nunca ("Almost Never"). The book is scheduled for U.S. publication in 2010 or 2011. You can read a review of Casi nunca at Letras Libres. This is great news, as it marks the first English translation of a major contemporary Mexican author, a man often compared to the likes of Juan Rulfo and even Roberto Bolano. Sada was among the authors selected for Dalkey's recent anthology, Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction, and I found Sada's contribution . . . continue reading, and add your comments Advance review copies seem to be one aspect of the book business that has a lot to gain from the increasing digitization of publishing. After all, ARCs are meant to be disposable (all those "not for resale" warnings), and every publicist I've ever talked to has had the experience of shipping them out by the hundreds with little actual result. So, when I discovered a new service that wants to make electronic galleys available to reviewers, journalists, librarians, and other people, I wanted to know more. To find out, I conducted this interview with Fran Toolan of NetGalley. (for . . . continue reading, and add your comments David R. Godine: Looking around at the scene in Boston, and especially at what seems to be happening at Houghton/Harcourt, I would say the scene is gloomy. But I suspect much f the problem there derives from the pressures coming from the Irish owners, and not from the sales of books per se. I very much doubt that with a backlist as strong as Houghton's and Harcourt's', not to mention the excellence of their respective children's divisions, that some formula could not be worked out for their survival. . . . continue reading, and add your comments Allan Kornblum: Publishing is in a huge state of flux right now, but then again, it has continually changed since the days of the oral tradition. While the distant past may not be germane, we do have to go back to the middle years of the twentieth century. At that time, publishing was certainly a business, as it is today, but it was a business that had accepted a low rate of return on investment, in exchange for the thrill (and it is a thrill) of being part of the cultural life of the country, and indeed, the world. But in the 1980s and 1990s, bigger publishers began gobbling up smaller publishers, and then multinational corporations swallowed up the bigger publishers. Suddenly these houses needed to service the debt involved in buyouts, on top of the relatively modest six-to-eight percent return on investment that Bennett Cerf and Alfred Knopf had once been happy to receive. . . . continue reading, and add your comments |
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