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THE INTERNATIONAL SECTION

February 19, 2008

One of the novel's most original stylists, Alain Robbe-Grillet, has died. (Robbe-Grillet was also, as one can see in this 2003 Bookforum interview, one of literature's most interesting thinkers.) More from the literary counter-culture: a LOOK magazine photo-spread of cartoonist Charles Addams (of New Yorker and Addams Family fame) posted by in crowd. Rachel Donadio writes for the Sunday New York Times Book Review on recently much talked about Paris Review forefather Doc Humes. Trouble at a more modern lit mag: Oxford American operations manager charged with embezzling $30,000. (And on her blog Kelly Spitzer reminds some people that many lit mags have never even seen that kind of cash.) Donadio also takes the NYTimes outlook to international literary magazines with great acclaim of Bidoun, a Middle Eastern focused publication. The English language Icelandic Review has launched an online book review section. Also overseas, a both stylish and newish English literary magazine based in Hungary, Pilvax. Over at Three Percent, they reflect on the recently released PEN/Ramon Llull "To Be Translated or Not To Be" report on the state of literary translation worldwide (along with additional commentary by Words Without Borders) [links obtained via LitKicks]. The Rattapallax blog writes on the poetry and power of French hip-hop sensation MC Solaar. While The Millions blog may have no worries about the state of the short story, Zadie Smith certainly does, and Larry Dark disagrees with Smith's Willesden Prize decision. Kenyon Review lists the most literary YouTubes around. On the topic of voyeurism--aren't The Believer interviews just more interesting than, well, any others? Here's one from the newest issue with Maximum City author Suketu Mehta, along with two bonus blasts from the past: Chip Kidd interviewing design superstar Milton Glaser (also of Push Pin Graphic magazine fame) and Zadie Smith interviewing her literary hero, Ian McEwan. Finally, trying to keep pace with the primaries, Boldtype releases their political issue of book reviews, and Darryl Pinckney writes for the New York Review of Books possibly one of the best pieces yet on Obama.

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BOLAÑO LITERATURE IN THE AMERICAS

February 15, 2008

FOUND IN BOOKFORUM: "THE FABULOUS SCHIAFFINO BOYS," AN EXCERPT FROM ROBERT BOLAÑO'S NOVEL NAZI LITERATURE IN THE AMERICAS

FOUND IN VIRGINIA QUARTERLY REVIEW: AN EXCERPT FROM ROBERTO BOLAÑO'S NOVEL NAZI LITERATURE IN THE AMERICAS

Chilean novelist and poet Roberto Bolaño is one of the most critically acclaimed writers in America today. Literary critics in nearly all (if not all) of the nation's biggest literary papers have written long and laudatory articles regarding Bolaño's life and literary talents: The New York Times Book Review (written by James Wood), The New Yorker (written by Daniel Zalewski), Bookforum (written by Alex Abramovich), and The New York Review of Books (where Francisco Goldman titles his essay simply, "The Great Bolaño"). In their most recent assessment of the "Intellectual Situation," n+1 editors lnked such overwhelming praise for Bolaño's work to "a thirst for the minor and literarily self-aware." Sadly, nearly all American praise of Bolaño's work came after his untimely death in 2003.

Either way, enthusiam for Bolaño's writing is more than well-deserved. His novels and short stories to date that have been translated into English are enthralling displays of plot and character pyrotechnics; they are an attractive combination of both the familiar and the foreign. (Even some of his poetry is finally receiving the attention of American publishers.) The beginning to his novel The Savage Detectives is now famous for its humor, simplicity, and compelling mystery. "I’ve been cordially invited to join the visceral realists," the book begins. "I accepted, of course. There was no initiation ceremony. It was better that way."

Bolaño's most recent novel to be translated into English, Nazi Literature in the Americas, is also receiving significant critical applause, and is largely regarded as the book which sealed Bolaño's literary fame. For Bolaño fans or those unfamiliar with his writing, both Bookforum and the Virginia Quarterly Review recently excerpted sections of the novel--and, as Nazi Literature was composed as segments of a fictional Latin American literary history, these excerpts read not as previews, but stand alone as autonomous literary works.

[Full disclosure: this site stole its name--Luna Park--from a Belgium literary magazine referenced in Bolaño's story "Vagabond in France and Belgium," from his book Last Evenings on Earth.]

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