All 2 entries tagged Short Story

Dalkey Archive's Best European Fiction 2010

Writing about web page http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00q9lzl

One of the most exciting titles published this year, at least for literary writers and readers (or, OK, just for me), has to be the Dalkey Archive's 'Best European Fiction 2010' anthology of short stories.

Dalkey's aim was to create a version of what has existed in the US for ages - an annual 'best of' compilartion for the European short story, which, (unlike in the UK, if you believe most of what I've read), is a thriving US prose form. They've managed to draw in a tremendous jigsaw of funding from various European cultural sources to produce the first of these, published in January 2010, and a tremendous collage of writers from thirty-five European countries.

I'm excited mainly for the fact that it showcases a whole load of names that I've never heard of, and new work by a handful I have. To boot, it's coming from a publishing house I trust blindly, not only for drawing their name from a Flann O'Brien novel, but for putting out some seriously intelligent, exciting, original and experimental literature. Not that I 'get' all of what they do, but they've built up a reputation over the past few decades that demonstrates their consistent quality as editors. They also publish The Review of Contemporary Fiction, which, despite the dry title, furthers their mission to grow the readership for this kind of exciting writing.

Anyway, more to the point, editor of the BEF2010, Aleksandr Hemon, was just on Radio 4's Open Book recently, talking about the anthology. You can listen to the show here. (Relevant content kicks in about 10min30secs.)

Here's some more info about the anthology, from the Dalkey webpage.

Contributors:

Ornela Vorpsi
Antonio Fian
Peter Terrin
Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Igor Štiks
Georgi Gospodinov
Neven Ušumović
Naja Marie Aidt
Elo Viiding
Juhani Brander
Christine Montalbetti
George Konrád
Steinar Bragi
Julian Gough
Orna Ní Choileáin
Giulio Mozzi (AKA Carlo Dalcielo)
Inga Abele
Mathias Ospelt
Giedra Radvilavičiūtė
Goce Smilevski
Stephan Enter
Jon Fosse
Michal Witkowski
Valter Hugo Mãe
Cosmin Manolache
Victor Pelevin
David Albahari
Peter Krištúfek
Andrej Blatnik
Julián Ríos
Josep M. Fonalleras
Peter Stamm
Deborah Levy
Alasdair Gray
Penny Simpson

About the Editor

Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, and The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008. Born in Sarajevo, Hemon visited Chicago in 1992, intending to stay for several months. While there, Sarajevo came under siege, and he was unable to return home. Hemon wrote his first story in English in 1995. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and a “Genius Grant” from the MacArthur Foundation in 2004. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter.

George Ttoouli : 02 Feb 2010 16:00 |  Tags: BBC Dalkey Archive Listen Again Publishing Short Story |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Maureen Freely story on Radio 4

Writing about web page http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pzhcp

Maureen's short story, 'City of Two Continents', was read by a camp actor on Radio 4 last week. Still available on Listen Again. Maureen tells me it's based on two side-characters in her current novel in progress, and how they cope with the end of the world. I took it in a metaphorical sense when she first said that, not thinking that people (as in, non-mad-cultists) actually believed the end of the world might actually be happening to them. Then again, with the Hadron Collider experiments, possibly the end of the world should be a little more plausible in my head than as some kind of 2012 apocalypse-fest.

Meanwhile, in his review of Orhan Pamuk's latest novel, 'The Museum of Innocence' in January's issue of 'Prospect', Julian Evans had some nice things to say about Maureen's translation:

To emphasise the poet in Pamuk is just to underline his magnificent gift for constructing sentences, matched in the English edition by Maureen Freely's superb gift for transparent translation.

Personally, I think Evans could have laid it on a bit thicker, as anyone who's read pre-Freely translations of Pamuk's work would attest to.

George Ttoouli : 24 Jan 2010 21:22 |  Tags: Maureen Freely Short Story |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem