Category Archives: international literature

January 05, 2016   mhoogland   censorship, gratitude, international literature, media, Mike H, publishers  
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Five publishers have disappeared

Nearly a year ago I wrote about censorship in China’s publishing industry in this blog post. Now five people have disappeared in recent months—all of them employees of Mighty Publishing House, which is known for publishing books critical of the Chinese government. Don’t worry though, according to a cryptic letter one of the missing persons is “fine.”

If it turns out that the Chinese government is responsible, state-sanctioned kidnappings are on a whole different level than censoring  certain passages in a book. In a weird way, could this be a positive sign that the Far East’s freedom of speech battle is gaining momentum if the government is responding so drastically? I have no idea, but I do know that it’s a lot easier to work in this industry when you don’t need to worry about such things. And for that, I’m grateful and as Lee Greenwood would say, proud to be an American.

July 30, 2014   Miriam   bestsellers, fiction, fun, international literature, Miriam, too many books  
6

Have book, will travel

For me the hardest part of packing for a trip is making sure I have all the books I’ll need to get me through airport delays, long flights, pool lounging, and, of course, for bedtime reading when I’m too tired from a day of strenuous vacationing to fall asleep.  Then, there’s the tricky part:  leaving enough room in my bulging carry-on for the books I will be buying while abroad.  We all have these problems, right? Right?

Well, when I set off for France two weeks ago, I had the equivalent of my bedside table pile on my Kindle, the galleys I got at BEA five years ago of Jonathan Tropper’s This Is Where I Leave You, and a couple of back issues of the Oprah magazine. I congratulated myself on my light packing.

While in the beautiful Aquitaine region, I finished the Tropper and Jo Jo Moyes’ One Plus One (for my neighborhood book club) and I had queued up the Lily King novel that’s been getting so many raves for the flight back home.  Then, it was time to head back to the States.  We had five hours to kill in London and a large W.H. Smith store to browse in.  And they were having a “buy one get one ½ price”  sale on books that had made the British bestseller lists.  So…

Books

Having already logged quite a few miles that day and anticipating an exhausting journey home (frankly, the worst part of international travel is getting on the Van Wyck Expressway to and from JFK airport—it calls itself a road, but it’s really a parking lot), I opted for the lighter seeming of the two books to start.  And so, I dug into Letters from Skye, which feels like a cross between The Notebook and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and was not disappointed.  It’s a lovely, easy read with just the right mix of romance and sadness to keep you turning pages.  And, I’m really looking forward to diving into the Wyld book, which appears to be much darker and literary (a bit Gaiman-ish).

The best thing, though, is finding new voices as a result of my travels that I might not have ever stumbled on while on this side of the Atlantic.   Turns out both of the books I picked up in London are available in the U.S., but they were not on my radar.  The fact that they were prominently displayed and discounted at a busy airport store made it easy for me to part with the last of my Euros and take home what is to me the perfect souvenir of my European vacation.

How do you handle books and reading on your trips?  Are you literary over-packers?  Do you have to go into any bookstore you pass—whether in North Carolina or Marrakesh?  Do you jointly archive experiences, scenery, and the narratives you were immersed in while on the road?  What did you read on your last vacation?

 

June 13, 2014   Lauren   fun, international literature, Lauren, sports  
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World Cup World Cup World Cup

If you don’t have World Cup fever, you might want to look away from this post.  (You might also want to reconsider, because not having World Cup fever is just wrong.)  I probably already love soccer too much—the 2010 World Cup reignited a passion I’d let dissipate a bit before it, and I’ve been in annoying-people-about-soccer mode ever since.  But with the tournament kicking off yesterday and how excited I am for the rematch of 2010’s finale that will be happening at 3 p.m. EST between Spain and the Netherlands today, I wasn’t sure how I’d manage to write a blog entry without writing it about soccer.

Happily for me, the fine folks at The Three Percent have made my job easy: with their 2014 World Cup of Literature I can combine the two things I love most in the world, books and soccer.  I like their strategy: books published after 2000 to eliminate the old guys who wouldn’t get called up for the squad and in some way capturing the spirit of the team.  Even if their David Foster Wallace/USMNT explanation stings just a bit.

It turns out I haven’t read any of the books in question, so I’ll just be pulling for the same “teams” here as I am in the World Cup itself: US, England, and Spain.  Which book do you think deserves the victory?

I’ll be watching Spain v Netherlands later with one of the refs—I mean, judges—so if anyone wants to offer her a bribe to honor the spirit of FIFA, please let me know ASAP.

January 14, 2014   John   advice, international literature, John, subsidiary rights  
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Big in Japan (and Germany)

A career in publishing typically involves a lot of twists and turns, both for the professionals like editors and agents, as well as for writers themselves. This weekend, the Times magazine shared the amusing story of David Gordon, a (sorry, David) midlist author who suddenly found that his novel The Serialist was a huge hit in Japan, culminating in a trip to Tokyo where he got the royal treatment from an adoring press.

Reading Gordon’s story, it put me in mind of an author I used to work with at Putnam, Royce Buckingham. Like The Serialist, Royce’s debut novel, Demonkeeper, did well enough to get a second book signed up, but for some reason, the book became a huge hit in Germany. In fact, Royce was commissioned to write two sequels for Random House Germany, which they duly translated into German–at their cost.

So, what’s the takeaway here? Well, for one, I hope it explains why we agents fight to retain foreign rights as much as we can. But I think the larger point is that for authors, you never know where you might find an audience, and in the age of Globalization, it’s a good idea for authors to have the international market in mind–even if the results might feel a little Spinal Tap-ish at times…

 

November 05, 2013   sharon   international literature, recommendations, Sharon, technology  
1

From Sea to Shining Sea

I like to listen to podcasts on my morning commute. I’m a big fan of Book Riot, Bookrageous, Books on the Nightstand, NPR: Books…oh, did I mention they’re all bookish podcasts? Don’t worry, the newest one to the rotation doesn’t even have “Book” in the title:  The Readers (gotcha!). I enjoy this one because a) one of the hosts is British, and British accents are a pleasant thing to hear when you’re jammed on the subway too early in the morning and b) they often discuss books that aren’t on my radar.

For the most recent episode, Simon and Thomas made lists of the ten books that they felt most represented their countries. Their discussion was lots of fun – I happen to think Thomas had the rougher task, considering how much larger the US is than the UK. But I found Simon’s list the most interesting, because I tend to picture Britain in very broad strokes – London, Dublin, and Edinburgh,  Heathcliffe wailing on the moors and Hugh Grant in Notting Hill. I never think about the unique personalities of Bath, Bristol, Manchester, let alone the truth vs. the stereotypes of those reasons. So it was fascinating to hear Simon describe various regions of his country and the books he loves that speak for each.

And, of course, it was fun to analyze and second-guess Thomas’ list of books to for the United States. Sure, there’s some fantastic choices on there, but also some glaring oversights. Hello, Middlesex by Geoffrey Eugenides is not only a classic Detroit book, but also a searing portrayal of the 20th-century immigrant experience! And I don’t know how you can pick two books for California without including John Updike. But I suppose we would all have lists that look very different, because we each have our own unique set of connections to our homeland.

What book best represents your part of the country?

Do you know of an awesome podcast I should add to my lineup?

September 24, 2013   John   contest, fun, international literature, John, opinion, prizes  
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The Americans are coming! The Americans are coming!

Well, I guess it’s karma that after ignoring poor Jim Crace for all these many years, I’m now mentioning him in two blog posts in a row (though I still haven’t read HARVEST–bad, bad, bad). But of course, we must discuss the news that the Man Booker prize will be open to American authors next year—a move that Crace does not favor.

So, whaddaya think? Is it a good idea to include Americans and make it a truly international prize? Or, given the constraints we have on our own prizes like the NBA, should Booker remain closed to us Yanks?

I will say, it’s amusing to see so much hue and cry over the rules of a contest, much less who actually wins. And it seems like there’s a presupposition here that opening the doors to Americans means an American will win. Surely that’s possible, but can you really picture an American author beating a Brit on their home turf? To me, it seems more likely we’ll get a short-list nominee or two, and then a British author will gloriously be crowned the winner. In fact…maybe it’s all just a big plot to boost British literary self-worth at America’s expense?Very clever, Mr. Booker, very clever…

Okay, paranoid conspiracies aside, I’d love to know—should the USA be Man Bookers or not?

June 28, 2012   Jessica   Amazon, independent bookstores, international literature, Jessica, price wars  
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Not only do the French not get fat, understand the subtle arts of seduction, scarf-tying, gastronomy and most recently (per Bringing up Bebe) parenting,  it seems that even the Gallic booksellers are in a better spot than their American colleagues http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/books/french-bookstores-are-still-prospering.html?_r=1.  Although I am skeptical of the many hyperbolic  claims associated with French culture—Americans have a peculiar love hate relationship with the French (remember “freedom fries?”) that often renders the land of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité in a less than accurate light, it does seem that French booksellers, thanks to  legal price-fixing (no collusion charges here!)  and government subsidies, do enjoy a considerable advantage over our anemic and Amazon-eviscerated ecosystem. Depending on your politics, the French respect for/protection of booksellers epitomizes everything that’s right or wrong with government, but it does mean that the market for books has remained both stable and lively.  From my French clients—who send me photos of reading tours and well attended signings filled with well-dressed people— I get a glimpse of what seems a pre-lapsarian booksellers’ paradise.  Do I romanticize? Mais bien sur.

I’m not sure that given the present climate in the United States that there is really much likelihood that our model will borrow something from the French, but it is, however, interesting to look abroad at a very different literary landscape and indulge in some armchair travel.

February 09, 2012   Jessica   covers, international literature, Jessica  
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Cover Design

One of the pleasures of working with books is the opportunity to see how different publishing houses and language markets package the same project. Last week, I was admiring the German cover design of a young adult novel that Stacey represents. The US and UK covers were attractive and effective, but the fairytale/art nouveau/Aubrey Beardsley influenced jacket that the German publisher put together was exquisite. Wunderbar. I was ready to learn German just to dig in.

Further to this, the online journal the Millions again features a handy (albeit too brief) side-by-side comparison of US and UK covers for finalists in this year’s Tournament of Books.   Predictably, I find myself gravitating to the American aesthetic. Call me parochial, but cover designs can be more culturally specific than their contents. When I was an editor, the awfulness of UK covers was something of a running joke.   But perhaps that schadenfreude was misplaced. Here, the British designs for The Cat’s Table and the 1Q84 are (I think) far stronger than their American counterparts.

What say you? For those inclined to see even more examples of cross-cultural cover design on display, have a look at:

http://redroom.com/member/dale-estey/blog/different-book-covers-for-us-and-uk-markets

November 17, 2011   Jessica   adaptation, book fairs, international literature, Jessica  
2

Turkish Delight

I’m writing this post from Istanbul, where I was fortunate enough to participate, if only briefly and rather marginally, in the frenzy of bibliophilia that is the Istanbul Book Fair. Perhaps more a book bazaar than an international rights fair on the order of Frankfurt or London, it nevertheless provides an excellent immersion into this rich, energetic and fascinating language market. Indeed, I felt increasingly abashed that my knowledge of Turkish fiction begins and ends with Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk and Elif Sefak (whose books I have not even read, but plan to). Happily, at my request and over a dizzying array of mezze and kebab, a kindly Istanbul-based agent assembled a brief primer on contemporary Turkish fiction. She recommended that I check out the works of Mario Levi, İhsan Oktay Anar, Tezer Ozlu, and in particular the curiously titled The Garden of Departed Cats by Bilge Karasu. In addition to Turkish colleagues, I also met editors and agents from all over the world, and had an opportunity to compare notes on subjects familiar (the meteoric rise of the e-book, the role of Amazon.com) and less so (the fixed prices of books in many European countries). It’s always refreshing—and often reassuring—to see that despite the considerable challenges it faces, book culture is not only surviving, but adapting and thriving, throughout the world.

November 03, 2011   Jessica   historical fiction, international literature, suggestions, titles, Uncategorized  
15

Title Help

Since I am short on time and in need of assistance, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone, blog about what I’m working on, and enlist any help you might offer.
Right now, I am scouring the works of the Russian poets Pushkin and Lermontov in hopes of finding a phrase that might serve as a title for novel that I sold, an epic tale set in the Imperial Court of Russia. As I try out various phrases, it’s once again clear that finding a suitable title is tricky business. The book was originally published in French, but like so many direct translations, its title (All the Honor of Men), which is taken from a quote, does not quite work in English. It also sounds a bit too masculine for a work of historical fiction that has at its heart as star-crossed set of lovers as ever existed.

I’d like something that sings, zings, and otherwise announces itself as a humdinger of a title. Since I can’t ask that you read the book (well, not at this point anyway) I’d love to hear your nominations for recent terrific titles. Maybe your suggestion will inspire a breakthrough!

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