Rumor has it that the store will essentially be run by one part-time employee—good luck with that!

Oh, and in a further move of cost-cutting genius, the store will no longer carry books, but instead will specialize in selling quirky t-shirts with slogans about how “green Brown is” and about how there is no “Brown-style offense” in basketball, because, well, unlike Princeton, Brown isn’t an “athlete’s” school. In addition to t-shirts, iPads, and bumper stickers, they plan on selling bobbleheads of various administrators¹.

¹ This rumor is unsubstantiated.

“The Literary Conference”:http://www.ndpublishing.com/books/AiraLiteraryConference.html by Cesar Aira. Translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver. (Argentina, New Directions)

Another post, another project to catch up on . . .

Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten a copy of this book yet, so this is truly a “looking forward to reading this summer” sort of preview post. I have read all of Aira’s other books to make their way into English, generally liking each new title even more than the last. And based on what I’ve heard about The Literary Conference, I have pretty high expectations, especially after Ghosts, which New Directions brought out last year, and which quickly became a cult favorite and was a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award. (To be honest, it was a couple of votes away from winning . . .)

The Literary Conference is the fifth Aira book to make its way into English, and may be the most anticipated by everyone—not just me. The plot synopsis is absolutely wild: a translator who has fallen on hard times solves a puzzle, finds a pirate treasure, and decides to use his new found wealth to take over the world by cloning Carlos Fuentes.

As expected, Michael Orthofer has already reviewed this at the , giving it a B+ (solid!) and having this to say:

What’s particularly striking about The Literary Conference is the relatively matter-of-fact tone and straightforward narration. César’s account is precise and conventional, the events he describes often downright mundane. Yet the novella is full of the fantastical, inserting the very unusual (that Fuentes-cloning experiment goes really, really wrong, for one thing) in the very everyday.

The Literary Conference constantly keeps the reader guessing: Aira leads down one path, only to radically upset his premises and change route (or, arguably, to take things to their logical conclusion — though it’s not a readily recognizable and familiar logic . . .), while almost all the while maintaining his straightforward tone.

The Literary Conference is one of those books that truly is unlike anything most readers are likely to have encountered (even if they’ve read a few other works by Aira). César makes a point of emphasizing uniqueness; The Literary Conference certainly stands out among most works of fiction, its mix of convention and peculiarity particularly striking.

Another — from another member of the 2011 BTBA fiction committee — is this one by Scott Esposito in which he elaborates on one of the key passages in Ghosts to try and articulate Aira’s unique aesthetic:

At the very centre of Ghosts is one of Aira’s customary philosophical digressions, a 10-pager that ranges from architecture to the indigenous rite of gift-giving known as “potlatch” to the space of imagination in dreams. The point of this digression seems to be to examine the thought at the core of the book — how art can be both “made” and “unmade” at once — and at one point Aira laments that with most arts there is an insurmountable gulf between the idea and the artefact. However, Aira points out one important exception: “And yet it is possible to imagine an art in which the limitations of reality would be minimised, in which the made and the unmade would be indistinct, an art that would be instantaneously real, without ghosts. And perhaps that art exists, under the name of literature.”

Without attempting a rigorous reading of Ghosts, it seems fair to say that here Aira is elaborating his own theory of literature, as well as suggesting why he keeps his stories perpetually on the threshold of signification, forever forestalling an actual conclusion. He strives to embody that point in between the made and the unmade — to go back and revise would be to risk pulling his writing from this amorphous phase of creation. Instead he constantly runs forward, leaving behind works still burning with their formative fires.

Aira is one of the most interesting, unique Argentine authors writing today, and all of his books are definitely worth checking out.

Modeled in part after the amazing program in Omi, NY, is a relatively new residency program in India based around the belief that

assembling writers from various cultural backgrounds broadens the scope of each individual’s work. Exposure to regional and national trends in literature, to multiple political and economic obstacles and varied social and cultural milieus enhances each writer’s understanding of his/her work, as well as his/her own notions of identity and home.

The incredibly well-connected and always busy DW Gibson helps run both of these residencies, and he recently sent me a call for applications for the upcoming residency season that I thought some of you might be interested in. I’ve never been to Sangam House (though I’d love to go), but if it’s anything at all like Ledig House, it’s sure to be amazing.

You can download the word file linked to above to get all the details about applying for the 2010-2011 residencies, but here are the basics:

The Sangam House Writer’s Residency Program invites approximately 15-20 writers to live and work in community with each other. There will be two segments for the upcoming program.

The first half of the residency will take place from November 6, 2010-December 7, 2010 at Adishakti property outside Pondicherry, on the east coast of southern India. The second segment of the residency will take place from January 5, 2011- February 16, 2011 at the Nrityagram property outside of Bangalore.

Lodging (single rooms) and food will be provided free of charge. Each writer is responsible for travel costs to and from Pondicherry. However, travel funds and bursaries are available through various cultural organizations.

Residencies are structured in 2-10 week intervals, determined by individual needs. We recommend a residence period of no less than 2 weeks for each writer. Of the invited writers, half come from the South Asian subcontinent (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) and half from other countries around the world. Sangam House is open to writers in all languages and disciplines.

To apply you need to submit two letters of recommendation, a copy of a previously published book (or 25-page sample), and a one-page statement about what you plan on doing during your stay.

Deadline is June 30th. (More than two weeks from now! Plenty of time . . .)

Last month, the Susan Sontag Foundation announced that Benjamin Mier-Cruz won the 2010 award for his proposed translation of Modernist Missives of Elmer Diktonius, a collection of letters and poetry from the Finnish-Swedish avant-garde writer. Here’s the bio cribbed from the :

The letters originate during the Finnish Civil War in 1918, when Diktonius was just 22 years old, and conclude with his final correspondences in 1951. The exchanges reveal the private conflicts and travels of a vanguardist of literary expressionism. In the true spirit of modernism, Diktonius sought a new literature that reconciled antiquated art forms with the psyche of a changing Europe; one that represented and provoked revolt against political and economic establishments. [. . .]

Born in Helsinki in 1896, Diktonius, also a composer and fluent in Finnish, fervently sought to abandon the rigid structures of traditional rhythm in verse. He promoted literary expressionism in Finland by giving voice to man’s internal consciousness and social unrest as it came into modernity and confronted new technology. Diktonius’ poetry demonstrates his visionary aspirations for literature, the working-class, and the fate of his native Finland. His swaying political views can be seen throughout his writing, which ended in 1951. Diktonius died in 1961.

(For more info on Diktonius, I recommend checking out at the insanely complete “Books and Writers” site.)

And re: the translator:

Benjamin Mier-Cruz is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley. He received his B.A. in German Language and Literature from Arizona State University and completed his M.A. at UC Berkeley.

In case you’re not award of this award, it was launched a few years back as a way of encouraging translators under the age of 30 to continue in the profession. It’s a brilliant award and comes with a $5,000 cash prize. Past winners can be found .

This year’s honorable mention went to Salka Gudmundsdottir for her proposed translation of Icelandic author Steinar Bragi’s �鲹�ڴڱ����í�ܲ���ó����ò (or “The Rafflesia Flower”). Having met Steinar and read some short excerpts of his work, I’m really interested in finding out more about this project . . .

Tomorrow at 7pm at El Beit on Bedford and North 8th in Williamsburg, Josh Cohen (the author of the critically acclaimed ) will be leading a discussion about “Jakov Lind, absurdist literature, war, and Jewish writing about WWII and Europe.”

Josh is a bright guy, so I’m sure this will be really interesting. And Lind was an amazingly eccentric writer. We’ve published two of his books — and — and NYRB brought out .

We’ve posted Lind’s bio on here probably a half-dozen times, but it’s so interesting and strange that it’s worth restating. From the NYRB site:

Jakov Lind (1927-2007) was born Heinz Jakov Landwirth into an educated Jewish family in Vienna. After the 1938 Anschluss, Lind and one of his sisters were sent for safety to Holland, from where they were join their parents in Palestine; this proved impossible, and following the occupation of Holland, Lind, who was already fluent in Dutch, had no choice but to go into hiding. Taking the name of Jan Gerrit Overbeek—”sailing under a false self,” as he would later describe it—he worked on a barge traveling up and down the Rhine. When the Allies began to bomb the industrial cities of the Rhine, Lind/Overbeek moved to Germany, where he was employed by a Nazi government ministry in Berlin. The end of the war allowed Lind to join his family in Palestine, but it was not long before he returned to Europe, studying drama in Vienna and, in 1954, settling in London, where he began work on the stories that were published in 1962 as Soul of Wood. Lind’s other books in German include the novels Landscape in Concrete and Ergo and, in English, four volumes of autobiography, two novels, and numerous stories. Lind was also a playwright and film director, as well as a talented visual artist. In a eulogy delivered at Lind’s funeral, Anthony Rudolf described Lind as “A coyote, a trickster…. A wicked smile played around his mouth, while witty aphorisms and deep insights tripped off his lips. He emanated inner strength—and an electric intelligence that we all wanted to emulate.”

Another interesting thing about Lind is how much he looked like Georges Perec in certain pictures.

Anyway, this event sounds brilliant, and if I lived in New York, or if the high speed rail from Buffalo to NYC was completed (ha!), I’d totally be there.

One of the trademarks of is the ability to recognize and promote the literary greats of our time. Ten years ago, Skylight Books not only participated in the Harry Potter phenomenon with a midnight release party, but was the originator of the Thomas Pynchon midnight release party. The tradition continues at Skylight Books with our dedication to celebrating the literary talents of today with our second on August 4. Along with Pynchon, we will be hosting not one but two parties for (not a footnote of a party, a PARTY!), the effort of bibliophiles from around the world to read over the summer of 2009. has been a perennial bestseller at our store and also a staff favorite which is why we are the only independent bookstore in Los Angeles to host an event for his new book of photographs, These events are indicative of Skylight Books’ commitment to fostering cultural vivacity in our own community as well as the global literary community.

For years, people have speculated that the number of literary works in translation being published in the United States has been in decline. I say “speculate,” because the publishing industry — which is notoriously poor at market research and data gathering — didn’t really keep track of how many translations were being published here, instead relying almost entirely on wistful memories of days gone by and other equally questionable anecdotal evidence. Two years ago, I started a “Translation Database” at the Web site ThreePercent.com to finally quantify what’s going on with literature in translation, and although data for 2009 is still coming in, it looks like there will be a bit of a drop off this year — of as much as 10%.

On one hand, this is pretty easy to explain: it’s because of the economy. But in my opinion, we’re talking about two different economic problems causing this. Book sales are down, which really hurts commercial presses and makes them less likely to publish “expensive” books like translations. And at the same time, nonprofits and university presses (which publish the bulk of translations already), are struggling to find funding, what with foundations losing a lot of their endowments in the stock market, and individual donors struggling as well.

It’s a crappy situation, and unless a few rainmakers appear, 2010 will most likely see a further drop in translations being published in America . . . Just a little happy note to kick off your Friday . . .

Very cool. Very, very cool.

Ha Jin’s journey raises rich and fascinating questions about language, migration, and the place of literature in a rapidly globalizing world—questions that take center stage in “The Writer as Migrant,” his first work of nonfiction. Consisting of three interconnected essays, this book sets Ha Jin’s own work and life alongside those of other literary exiles, creating a conversation across cultures and between eras. He employs the cases of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Chinese novelist Lin Yutang to illustrate the obligation a writer feels to the land of his birth, while Joseph Conrad and Vladimir Nabokov—who, like Ha Jin, adopted English for their writing—are enlisted to explore a migrant author’s conscious choice of a literary language. A final essay draws on V. S. Naipaul and Milan Kundera to consider the ways in which our era of perpetual change forces a migrant writer to reconceptualize the very idea of home. Throughout, Jin brings other celebrated writers into the conversation as well, including W. G. Sebald, C. P. Cavafy, and Salman Rushdie—refracting and refining the very idea of a literature of migration.