Three Percent - article

Latest Review: The Great Weaver from Kashmir

Chad W. Post — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:12:50 GMT

It seems fitting that we run this review of Iceland’s only Nobel Prize winner right after the Le Clezio announcement, and while Bragi Olafsson (our Icelandic author) is on his reading tour.

Larissa Kyzer—who reviewed The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo for us last month—wrote this review of the first Halldor Laxness book to be published in translation in quite some time. Published by Archipelago Books, The Great Weaver from Kashmir is considered Laxness’s “first major novel,” and it’s great that this is now available to English readers.

Over the past week, Bragi’s talked about Laxness quite a bit, about how incredibly funny his works are, and how contemporary Icelandic writers struggle to get out from under his shadow of influence. A few of Laxness’s other books are available in paperback—including Independent People—but for those who haven’t read Laxness, this seems like a great place to start.

Adonis on Charlie Rose

Chad W. Post — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:29:58 GMT

Perennially picked as a Nobel Prize favorite, Adonis is a Syrian poet and essayist, who appeared on the Charlie Rose Show earlier this week.

It’s an interesting segment, and it’s always great to see fellow Rochester-based publisher BOA Editions get some serious national attention. They published Adonis’ Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs, translated by Adnan Haydar and Michael Beard, earlier this year.

Twin Cities Book Festival

Chad W. Post — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:58:52 GMT

One of these days I’ll be able to a) sleep in and b) write some posts . . . Right now I’m in Minnesota for tomorrow’s Twin Cities Book Festival.

Bragi Olafsson will be speaking with Bill Holm tomorrow at 11:30am, and for a complete list of readings and events, click here.

The list of exhibitors is pretty extensive as well.

For anyone in the area, the festival is taking place at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College. Directions are available here.

Nobel for Literature

NJF — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:30:54 GMT

As reported everywhere in the damn world, French novelist Jean Marie Gustave le Clézio has been awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature.

So says the Swedish Academy: “[He is an] author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

Of course, this year the Prize for Literature garnered some extra attention due to some comments from the Academy’s Horace Engdahl, suggesting that the U.S. is too culturally insular. Some people got a little peeved, to say the least.

Avoiding comment on le Clézio himself, I do enjoy that the award then went to a Frenchman. As we all know, there is nothing more patently anti-American than that.

The International Literature Evangelist

NJF — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:09:20 GMT

I’ll tell ya, it seems like forever since we posted a video of Chad. Luckily, Publishers Weekly has just published a lovely article-slash-interview with our director. It’s all about things like Open Letter, the books we publish, our websites (such as this one), and literature in translation. Also, there is an accompanying web video.

I especially enjoyed the article’s title: “The International Literature Evangelist.” Not only does Chad spread the good news (of sorts), but it seems like only yesterday that we were philistines.