“I can’t even guess when I last read a book. But I’d watch movies all day if I could. Especially Marvel ones.”

Overheard on a URochester Shuttle

“In the last decade, she says, history has toppled from the king of disciplines to a numbing data set: a litany of trackable moments, the realm of machines.”

—Same Bed Different Dreams, Ed Park

I’ve been struggling with this piece for over two months now. Originally conceived of as a data-driven essay, it became unwieldy, a four-handed mess that pivoted over and again, yearning for a point to be made, a Big Idea to land.

Re-reading—and lightly editing—Enrique Vila-Matas’s Montano’s Malady (my favorite Vila-Matas, my favorite malady) has provided a structural solution that’s also a return to form. For better or worse, I don’t write essays. I don’t know how to categorize what it is that I do write, but this Vila-Matas novel that takes the form of a diary about writers who write diaries and who are literature-sick, infected with graphomania à la Fresán and the ex-writer in his “Part Trilogy,” endlessly referencing books, authors, living his life through literature, is more or less the spirit that has always inhabited this blog.

This attitude can come off as a bit elitist and a lot out of touch—par for the course when you read incessantly and the rest of the world generally doesn’t—but hopefully in the end all this handwringing about what these posts are or what their value is results in a momentary respite from the insanity of modern-day life, an intellectually stimulating journey through a journal. So here goes.

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Over the past few months, I’ve been asking as many people as I could: “How many books did you read last year? Include anything and everything. Books you listened to. Graphic novels. I’m just curious as to how many books you consumed in 2023.”

I didn’t get a ton of responses (twenty-three to be exact, which may lead to small sample size problems, but let’s go with it anyway), with total numbers ranging from 7 to 152 and averaging out at a smidge over 55.

I don’t know what I expected—and as you’ll hopefully see, the actual number doesn’t really matter. I’m chasing a different whale here.

But, but the sake of nerdy numberness, feeding my statistical-mania, I want to point out that the mode of my data set was 40, the median 43. And, once again, the mean of my dataset was 55.2, with a standard deviation of 36.4. So 67% of the people I surveyed read between 18.8 and 91.6 books last year. That’s a huge difference—reading less than one book every two weeks, versus almost reading two each week—yet, to be honest, most probably captures the reading habits of all the people you and I know. The booksellers, editors, tweeters, general readers, family.

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I’m still not sure this is the best way to start this post, but like I alluded to above, it’s a piece I conceived of as having four big beats, each overlapping a bit, creating a Venn diagram about reading (or not reading). As such, any starting point is valid, since there is no real logical development. Nothing truly linear.

For example, on December 29^th, 2023, I tried to start this piece from the exact opposite place: the semi-recent report from National Endowment for the Arts on “ in 2022.”

In the style of Montano’s Malady, I can tell you the exact situation in which this journal started being written. I was in River Falls, WI, at Kaija’s house, in front of the fireplace, ignoring Domino, our corgi, as he whined for yet another dinner before destroying yet another stuffed object. I had been reading Paul Auster’s Moon Palace, which Kaija had gifted me as part of a newfound ritual of gifting books neither of us have read for the holidays so that we can spend Christmas Day reading something “at random.”

I don’t know what I think of Paul Auster. I met him a couple times, including during his visit to Rochester back around 2011 when he told me two of the greatest baseball stories I’ve ever heard. His brand of post-modernism—coincidences and the novel as metaphor for the novel, for writing—was the shit when I was really into in college and for a few years thereafter. The New York Trilogy is a feat, ��it’s super fun to read and a book that asserts it’s bookness at almost every turn. It’s not unimportant to note that the three volumes that constitute the trilogy, and the trilogy itself, were first published by Sun & Moon Press (victory for the independent presses of America), run by Douglas Messerli and a series of “employees” I’m not sure ever really existed.

Nowadays, almost three decades on, aspects of Auster’s vibe seem pat, too cute. I’m not sure if that’s because the world was a simpler place back in 1995, or I was. And then there was that aggro James Wood takedown—which “Was it Fair? Was it Deserved?,” a great podcast about vicious reviews and whether they’re warranted, will be covering in an upcoming episode—sure did harsh my Auster interest, but, to be fair, reading him again in 2024, I have to admit, his books sure do go down smooth, and there’s something to be said for that. He’s fun to read, and his novels feel conventional, yet veer off down Lynchian paths but ways that are jouncy, filled with life-enhancing synchronicities rather than space-time foldings around ideas of evil. (Like Bob. Like Judy, whom we don’t talk about.)

The other time I met Paul Auster was when he did an event with Enrique Vila-Matas at the Cervantes Institute in New York for the release of Bartleby & Co. (Most people’s favorite Vila-Matas, possibly because it was first to be translated. It’s the prequel to, or flipside of, Montano’s Malady.) Declan Spring of New Directions was selling Vila-Matas’s books, the on-stage conversation about erasing the line between real-life and fiction because fiction, words, literature is a core part of the real-life of these two writers and many of us, was brilliant. There was Spanish wine. Everyone had a great time. (And my hotel accidentally charged me $5.45 for my stay instead of $545. I didn’t say a word. I’m sorry, Sohotel. I owe you one.)

Although your mileage with Auster, Vila-Matas, Fresán may vary, but there’s something comforting about slipping into a book where the narrator is an over-read intellectual thinking only in books and quotes. This sort of character—a consummate reader—is both a mirror and an aspiration; I read a ton, I get the references, but I don’t get all of them, we can’t read everything. Well, most of us, anyway.

And in America? Most people don’t read at all. As illustrated in that National Endowment for the Arts semi-recent report on “ in 2022” mentioned above.

I’ll let these statistics speak for themselves. According to Figures 8 & 9, the percentage of Americans who read a book in the previous year has gone from 54.6% in 2012 to 48.5% in 2022. With only 37.6% of those surveyed having read a novel or short story collection last year. Which, to be fair, totally dwarfs the paltry 9.2% of Americans who read a poetry collection. (I personally didn’t.)

What I found interesting about this report, which I came across after setting down Moon Palace for the night, alone in front of the fireplace, surrounded by woods, loving the silence yet craving connection, a connection that felt so distant at that time, a very bleak one in my life, the latest in a string of mental health disasters that end friendships and leave me trashed and frantic, the interesting thing about the NEA study was how unsurprising it all was. And, given the paucity of coverage of the study and its depiction of modern life—sure, I was on a hand-wringing episode of “Connections” on NPR’s WXXI, and I know others fretted after hearing these stats, but the overall shock and awe expressed at earlier iterations of this study was definitely muted this time around—it’s as if all it generated was a big shrug. Yep, people don’t read as much as they used to. What did you expect?

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In my last post, I wrote out eleven suggestions for what scheme could define this blog for the next year. None of which I’ve actually pursued. That said, as a sucker for programs and rubrics that last a calendar year—to be honest, anything cyclical speaks to me—I decided that over the course of 2024, I would read all of In Search of Lost Time (at a rate of 10 pages a day) and all twelve volumes of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time (at a rate of a book per month beginning March 2024, ending in February 2025, based on the fact that the set I own starts with “Volume 1: Spring” and it’s most definitely still winter here in Rochester). Plus I want to finish Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet, which bears mention her. I only have Summer left to go, and I’m saving it for when I need it. I know it will be brilliant and consume my thinking in the best possible way. It’s nice to have things to rely on.

I started writing this post for the third time two weeks ago, immediately after finishing Swann’s Way in Lydia Davis’s translation. Lydia Davis, who, for anyone unaware, was Paul Auster’s first wife. I sketched out a plan to write seven articles this year: each one appearing a day or two after finishing a volume of Proust’s epic. They would build on one another, using December’s “hoarding” post as the launching point, spiraling out into all my usual touchstones: why do we read what we read?, how have MFA programs and Amazon algorithms changed our relationship to literature?, what is value?, how should we judge success?, etc.

Part of every article, or post, or whatever, would be a reading journal with stray quotes from Proust, ideas his work inspired, funny reactions—a sort of real-time reading in the vein of the Two Month Review.

��But, to be honest, in reading Swann’s Way I took no notes. I sent along a few quotes to someone who could appreciate them and how they related to our lives, but for over half the book, I didn’t underline anything or fold over any pages, wanting my version of Swann’s Way to remain immaculate, as if the goal was to read it without leaving a trace.

That aside, quoting Proust at length in a blog post is Max Masturbatory. I could cite all the passages that, for me, reframed and annihilated jealousy. Swann’s Way contains beautiful ideas about memory, about how reputation and expectations determine reality. It’s brilliant and very quotable. As they say, it’s a damn good book.

The thing about Proust though, that I’ve become most fixated on, is how funny his gargantuan novel really is. There’s Marcel’s aunt, lying in bed, eternally unwell, very high maintenance, absurd in all her obsessions and concerns. Also, this volume includes an extended party scene where a costumed woman runs her bohemian salon from a throne, overseeing her guests, which include a doctor who can’t read human beings (a bit on the nose about the doctoring profession, if you ask me) and is never sure if they’re being sarcastic or not. His solution?: walk around half-smirking, ready to laugh if others laugh, scowl if they scowl. He creeps out everyone. And the conversations throughout! So French, so very very French. But with a hint of mockery.

Which I don’t remember from the first time I read Swann’s Way. (And then promptly stopped with his pursuit of lost time. Instead, I put off reading the rest to that mythical “someday.”) I was in awe of literature like this back when I was in my 20s. Proust was Big Literature with Big Ideas and Loads of Difficulty. A rite of passage. Not a beach read. And who has time for that?

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This is the first year I’ve ever paid attention to the Oscars. I have no time for movies given that I read approximately 120 books a year? But since I’ve seen Barbie and Poor Things and American Fiction (all adaptations of pre-existing texts, which tracks) I feel a bit more invested than usual. The fact that Oppenheimer and The Zone of Influence and Killers of the Flower Moon are also book-based adaptations is a bit of a thirst trap. That and my friend Lisa has seen almost all of them, and being able to talk to someone else about media you experience is always enjoyable. One could argue that art is less fun when you can’t tell anyone about the ending of The Curse. (Or, the only person you can talk to about it experienced the show only through written recaps.)

Although it’s getting down to the wire, the only thing preventing me from watching every “Best Picture” nominee is me. Most of the ones I haven’t seen are streaming, the others are running at the local theater I can walk to. If my heart was in it, I could be fully versed on the Oscars by March 10^th. It’s totally doable. Which is not true of the National Book Awards.

The five longlists for the NBAs are traditionally announced mid-September with finalists revealed at the start of October and winners about six weeks later. With ten titles per category, there’s almost no possibility you’ll be able to read the longlisted titles—30 if you ignore poetry and young people’s literature, which I do, because I’ll never sleep with a poet and I don’t believe in the concept of literature written exclusively for minds incapable of understanding the “real stuff,” the “adult” literature—before the finalists are announced two weeks later. Thirty books over even twenty-one days is a no go.

If you only consider the fifteen to twenty-five finalists and spread them out over six weeks . . . that’s maybe doable! Those ten poetry collections and picture books will take like 14-20 days max, and you’ll have 22 or so days left for the 15 books in the “premier” categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Translation. Hmm. That’s a book every 1.47 days. Which extrapolates to a rate of 248 books per year.

*

In 2023, 496 titles were submitted for the National Book Award for Fiction. Overall, across all five categories? 1,931. Based on the last estimates I’ve seen—50,000 works of poetry and fiction a year from traditional publishers, 1,000,000 books via self-publishing every year—this is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what’s being published.

Awards have biases based on the biased nature of the books submitted. But more importantly, no one human is going to read all 496 of those submissions. Even if you break it out over five judges, that’s almost a hundred titles each. Which is a lot.

There were 301 feature films submitted for the Oscars this year. Although it would be exhausting, in some ways, to watch that many movies, you could do it and still have a summer vacation.

If we assume that the average movie is 2 hours long, the average book 300 pages (which takes about 7.5 hours to read), the Oscar Academy is looking at a max time commitment of 602 hours to consume everything eligible versus 3,720 hours spent for the NBA fiction judges to do the same.

But you clearly don’t need to read a full book—or watch a full movie—to know if it’s great or trash. I’d bet you don’t need more than 40 pages to dismiss 400 of those 496 NBA-submitted titles. If you spend an hour a piece on those 400 eliminated books, you still end up at 1,120 total hours of reading, or almost double what an Oscar judge could spend seeing everything.

As a non-judge (for the National Book Award at least, although episode four of seven of this year’s Three Percent posts is about the award I do help judge), I aspire to “having a handle” on various art forms every year.�� Cinema, TV, books, music. Which, in three of those four areas, is impossible.

I’m arbitrarily setting this as the threshold, but I think you need to be familiar with at least 25% of the output for a particular art form before you can claim to “know” it. If you look at all the movies, all the books, all the albums for a given year, that’s beyond unrealistic. But if you see a movie a week throughout the year—you’re pretty solid. You’ve seen around 1/6 of the movies submitted for the Oscars, and, given the “power law of buzz” (see parts of episodes 3, 4, and 6 of this series of posts) by the time the “Best Picture” finalists are announced, you’ll likely have seen 67-75% of them.

If you were to read 52 books in a year—which is more or less what all of you, on aggregate, do—you’ll know a bit about the books that came out in 2024. A bit. Dedicate yourself to this year’s translations only and if you read 52, you’ll have read about 1/8 of all of them. Or, leaving translations behind, you’ll have 1/1,000 of all the fiction books that came out.

*

I didn’t follow up with anyone I surveyed. But if I had my druthers, I would have asked for a complete list of each book read by each person who responded. I would look at the crossover, the themes, the metadata.

Even though this is all small sample size and assumption, I truly believe that the overlap between readers as to what books they’ve read/are reading is a fraction of what it is for movies or television.

Of the 55 books the average reader surveyed read, it’s pretty unlikely that five other survey respondents read five of the same books they read. We read across decades, we read by impulse. Every so often everyone gravitates toward a book—be it 2666 or Harry Potter—but for the most part, we drift. We pursue lines that are individual and idiosyncratic. We read D. H. Lawrence or Kathy Acker. We join book clubs, we try to convince others that these books are worth spending time on. We can’t always articulate why.

*

Two Month Review is an explicit, wear your heart on your sleeve, attempt to find community in literature. When you’re literature-sick, when you see yourself through all the books you’ve read, when you feel alone in front of the fire, reading, while everyone else is living their lives, together, free from “eating pages” for a living (like coaches “eat tape”), you seek company.

But, given the numbers, finding company is unlikely.

*

Episode II Coming Soon!: Will Chad find solace? Are there readers out there? Can AI help? Is ChatGPT a better NBA judge than Nick Buzanski? This and more as soon as I finish In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.

( associated with this post is copyrighted by .)

Rochester, NY—Open Letter Books at the URochester has been approved for a $40,000 Art Works grant to support Open Letter’s Emerging Voice project. This project will result in the publication and promotion of six works of literature in translation from authors with no more than one title already available in English. Overall, the National Endowment for the Arts has approved 1,187 grants totaling $27.3 million in the first round of fiscal year 2020 funding to support arts projects in every state in the nation, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

The Art Works funding category supports projects that focus on public engagement with, and access to, various forms of excellent art across the nation; the creation of art that meets the highest standards of excellence; learning in the arts at all stages of life; and the integration of the arts into the fabric of community life.

“The arts are at the heart of our communities, connecting people through shared experiences and artistic expression,” said Arts Endowment chairman Mary Anne Carter. “The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support projects like Open Letter’s.”

“It’s impossible to overstate just how important the support from the National Endowment for the Arts is to Open Letter,” said the press’s publisher, Chad W. Post, recipient of the 2018 Ottaway Award for the Promotion of International Literature. “Thanks to the NEA’s ongoing support for international voices—not just through this grant for Open Letter, but also the grants awarded to fellow presses like Deep Vellum, Transit, Restless Books, Archipelago, Graywolf, Coffee House, etc.—book culture in 2020 is much richer and more diverse than it was a decade ago. Being able to introduce readers to four authors who have never been translated into English before (and two with one title available each) is an incredibly exciting venture—and one that’s only made possible through support like this.”

As part of this project, Open Letter Books will translate, publish, and promote six diverse works of international literature from underrepresented authors, including novels, short stories, and nonfiction. The six titles included are: The Teacher by Michal Ben-Naftali, translated from the Hebrew by Daniella Zamir (Israel, novel); Cars on Fire by Mónica Ramón Ríos, translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers (Chile, stories); Bluebeard’s First Wife by Ha Seong-nan, translated from the Korean by Janet Hong (Korea, stories); Four by Four by Sara Mesa, translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore (Spain, novel); The Adventures and Misadventures of the Extraordinary and Admirable Joan Orpí, Conquerer and Founder of New Catalonia by Max Besora, translated from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem (Catalonia, novel); and Foucault in Warsaw by Remigiusz Ryziński, translated from the Polish by Sean Bye (Poland, nonfiction).

For more information on projects included in the Arts Endowment grant announcement, visit��

“It is energizing to see the impact that the arts are making throughout the United States. These NEA-supported projects, such as this one to Open Letter Books, are good examples of how the arts build stronger and more vibrant communities, improve well-being, prepare our children to succeed, and increase the quality of our lives,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “At the National Endowment for the Arts, we believe that all people should have access to the joy, opportunities and connections the arts bring.”

“There are few things as gratifying as receiving an NEA grant,” said Chad W. Post, publisher of Open Letter. “It’s thanks to grants like these that we’re able to bring international voices to American readers, and it’s especially gratifying this year, since we decided to focus our entire project on publishing women from around the world. Less than a third of the books published in translation over the past decade have come from women writers, and that’s pretty appalling. Thanks to the NEA, we can help make a little bit of a difference in changing this.”

Specifically, this project will consist of the publication of six works by women writers, all in translation: by Madame Nielsen, translated by Gaye Kynoch (Denmark), by Xiao Hong, translated by Howard Goldblatt (China), the easiness and the loneliness by Asta Olivia Nordenhof, translated by Susanna Nied (Denmark), and American Fictionary by Dubravka Ugresic, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać and David Williams, and Celia Hawkesworth and Ellen Elias-Bursać, respectively (Croatia/Europe), and Night School by Zsófia Bán, translated by Jim Tucker (Hungary).

For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.

“The arts are for all of us, and by supporting organizations such as Open Letter Books, the National Endowment for the Arts is providing more opportunities for the public to engage with the arts,” said NEA Chairman Jane Chu. “Whether in a theater, a town square, a museum, or a hospital, the arts are everywhere and make our lives richer.”

“It’s always an honor to receive a National Endowment for the Arts grant,” said Open Letter publisher Chad W. Post. “Their support goes a long way in helping us to make these amazing works of international literature available to an English-reading audience. Thanks to the NEA, readers have access to far more voices from around the world than they otherwise would. This support allows us to take more risks, both in terms of acquiring titles and in the sorts of promotions we’re able to undertake for these books.”

The six titles included in this grant are The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fresán, translated by Will Vanderhyden (Argentina); The Brahmadells by Jóanes Nielsen, translated by Kerri A. Pierce (Faroe Islands); Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller by Gudbergur Bergsson, translated by Lytton Smith (Iceland); Her Mother’s Mother’s Mother and Her Daughters by Maria José Silveira, translated by Eric M. Becker (Brazil); The Island of Point Nemo by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès, translated by Hannah Chute (France); and The Owls’ Absence by Bae Suah, translated by Deborah Smith (South Korea).

All these books will be published in 2017, and several of the authors will tour the United States in support of their books. These titles—as well as the rest of the Open Letter backlist—are available at better bookstores everywhere, and through the

Open Letter was established in 2007 at the URochester to support the university’s literary translation programs, and to publish a line of high quality, lasting literature in translation. In addition to publishing ten works of international literature every year, the press runs the which is home to the world’s only Translation Database and the Best Translated Book Awards. Additionally, the press organizes the Reading the World Conversation Series, which brings renowned authors and translators to Rochester for an evening of conversation.

For more information on projects included in the NEA grant announcement,

From the press release published by the Ģ����ý:

“The $60,000 grant will support the publication and promotion of several books in 2015, including Rochester Knockings, a novel based on the Rochester-based religious movement of Spiritualism and the famous Fox Sisters.

‘We’re extremely grateful to the NEA for this generous award,’ said Open Letter Publisher Chad W. Post. ‘To be awarded the third largest grant in the literature category is one of the highest honors a nonprofit publisher can receive. But even more importantly is that this award allows us to introduce English readers to six amazing new books.’

The press was one of 55 organizations to receive a grant in this year’s literature category. In 2014, the NEA received more than 1,400 applications for Arts Works grants, requesting more than $75 million in funding.

. . .

In addition to supporting the publication of Rochester Knockings (translated by Jennifer Grotz, associate professor of English at Rochester), the grant will support the publication of five additional books: Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven (translated by J.T. Mahany ’13); Traces of Time; Rock, Paper, Scissors; So Much, So Much War; and Loquela (translated by Will Vanderhyden ’13).”

For the full release and more information, go .

For more information on the NEA and its work, go .

As the Grants Management Specialist (Literature), you will be responsible for the following tasks:

Review, organize, and process organizational grant applications from the Literature field, and follow these applications through the complete review process from receipt to final report.

Use expertise in the Literature field to serve as liaison between the Agency and field concerning applications, grants, guidelines, and related policies and issues affecting that field.

In consultation with the Grants & Contracts Office, monitor grantee performance through review of progress, interim and final reports, amendment requests, conversations with grantee, etc., to assure that the grantee is functioning in accordance with the terms and conditions of the grant.

Counsel applicants and prospective applicants about proposed projects in context of published guidelines and with knowledge of field activities and trends as well as agency funding history of specific projects.

Manage items related to special projects that arise. Duties might include managing meetings and convenings, webinar development and management, and other work items as they occur as well as processing cooperative agreements, interagency agreements, contracts, and other government documents.

The posting for this job is only open until MONDAY, AUGUST 18TH, so if you’re interested, you need to get on this right now. Also, according to Literature Director Amy Stolls, if you apply you HAVE to follow the directions exactly or everything will go awry. (Having submitted a fair share of NEA grants, there are probably more opaque directions than necessary. But still.)

Here’s a bit about the collection from NEA Director of Literature, Amy Stolls:

Translation is an art. It takes a great deal of creativity and patience to do it well, not to mention a deep knowledge of a writer’s language, place, and oeuvre. But it also takes fortitude, for translators are notoriously underpaid and underappreciated, their names often left off the covers of the books they create. In fact, we owe a good deal of thanks to a good number of hardworking people and organizations who are (and were) responsible for making translated work available, accessible, and visible to us among the fray, most notably the publishers who take the financial risk to publish and promote these books in an increasingly crowded market. Over the last 15 years, I’ve seen more and more of these advocates of translation enter the game, promoting literature in translation not just from across
the borders, but from within our own communities. [. . .]

Our goal for this book was simple: to illuminate for the general reader the art and importance of translation through a variety of points of view. Each essay tells a different story; each story adds to our understanding of this little-known art form. And in case you read through these passionate essays and find yourself inspired to make the next book you read a work in translation, we’ve asked each of our contributors to recommend three books. These are not necessarily the quintessential, canonical, must-read translations from an academic point of view, but rather three books that they simply loved and wished to share.

If you haven’t already downloaded it from the link above, I think you will after reading this table of contents:

“Hearing Voices” by Angela Rodel
A translator’s journey begins with a love of Bulgarian music.

“Choosing a Twin” by Gregory Pardlo
On kinship, mental yoga, and the rebirth of a poem.

“Work of Purpose, Work of Joy” by Charles Waugh
Giving voice to the invisible and forgotten in Vietnam.

“Living with Translation” by Howard Norman
A writer’s deep and enduring immersion in the joys of translation.

“The Collaborative Approach” by Sylvia Li-chun Lin and Howard Goldblatt
A married couple explains how two translators make one work of art.

“By the Light of Translation” by Natasha Wimmer
How the slowest kind of reading leads to an act of seeing.

“An Act of Imagination” by Philip Boehm
The commonalities between a translator and a theater director.

“Daring and Doubting” by Russell Scott Valentino
The translator’s claustrophobic, questioning mind.

“The Sharable Rightness of Meaning” by Esther Allen
An ode to the magnificent Michael Henry Heim.

“The Myth of the ‘Three Percent Problem’” by Chad W. Post
What the statistics on translated books in America really tell us.

“A Universe of Layered Worlds” by Olivia E. Sears
The unexpected journey from the exotic to the universal.

“Recovering the Culture” by Nicolás Kanellos
Reaching the Latino community in two languages.

“The Value of Publishing Translation” by John O’Brien
How one publisher found support from other countries.

“Toward an Understanding of Translation” by Rainer Schulte
A reflection on how we communicate and translate in modern-day life.

“Engaging the World” by Susan Harris
The value of writers’ firsthand perspectives.

“Brokers of Babel” by Edward Gauvin
An argument against fidelity.

“A More Complex Occasion” by Pierre Joris
Enriching poetry through the imperfect nature of languages.

“Carrying Words Through Time” by Kazim Ali
The transformation of a poet who translates.

“The Art of Empathy” by Johanna Warren
Learning how to listen.

And for those of you out there who teach, this is a perfect—and free!—book to use in a class on international literature and/or publishing and/or translation.

You can read the whole announcement and descriptions of all the projects but below is the list of the winners and a few projects that caught my eye.

First, this year’s recipients:

Rosa Alcalá
Douglas Basford
Wendy Call
Enriqueta Carrington
Alexander Cigale
Jennifer Croft
Bruce Fulton (in collaboration with Ju‐Chan Fulton)
Katherine M. Hedeen
Cynthia Hogue
Jawid Mojaddedi
Philip Pardi
Sarah Ponichtera
Jacquelyn Pope
Barbara Romaine
Adam P. Siegel
Yvette Siegert
Steven J. Stewart
Niloufar Talebi
Jeffrey Yang
Andrew Zawacki

And a few projects:

Jennifer Croft, Tiffin, IA ($12,500)
To support the translation from the Polish of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Runners. Runners was awarded Poland’s most distinguished literary prize (the Nike) in 2008. It intertwines travel narratives and reflections on travel with observations on the body and on life and death, offering thoughts on such topics as travel‐sized cosmetics, belly dancing, maps, relics, the Maori, Wikipedia, Cleopatra, and the effects of airports on the psyche. Born in 1962, Tokarczuk recently founded her own digital publishing house in an effort to encourage Poland’s creative younger generation.

Bruce Fulton (in collaboration with Ju‐Chan Fulton), Seattle, WA ($12,500)
To support the translation from the Korean of a compilation of multigenre literary works by Ch’ae Man‐shik. One of the great talents of modern Korean literature, Ch’ae Man‐shik (1902‐50) is known as a master storyteller who gleaned material from everyday life. His command of idiom, realistic dialogue, and keen wit produced a unique fictional style. His subject matter is couched in a particular period in Korea’s turbulent modern history – the Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to1945. This compilation will include six stories (including his debut story); one novella; two sketches; one travel essay; one personal essay; one critical essay; one children’s story; two plays; and two roundtable discussions involving writers and critics. Ch’ae Man‐shik is currently represented in English translation by only a few stories and a single novel, currently out of print.

Cynthia Hogue, Phoenix, AZ ($12,500)
To support the translation from the French of Joan of Arc by experimental French poet Nathalie Quintane. This serial poem, composed of fifty untitled prose poems on the subject of Joan of Arc, raises questions about the embodied experience of the actual peasant girl who lived a short life and came to a violent end in 15th‐century France. Quintaine (b. 1964) writes a feminist corrective of an iconic national heroine, written in the margins of the dramatic, inherited myth of Joan of Arc. Quintaine is at the forefront of a generation of contemporary writers whose works interrogate French capitalist, colonialist, and nationalist narratives. This project will make Quintane’s work available to English readers for the first time.

Yvette Siegert, New York, NY ($12,500)
To support the translation from the Spanish of the collected poetry of Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik. Born to Russian‐Jewish immigrants in Argentina, Pizarnik (1936‐72) was one of the leading avant‐garde writers of 20th‐century Latin American literature. This collection will focus on the several radical stylistic transformations Pizarnik’s work underwent, from the spare, luminous lyrics of her early poems to the dense, anguished prose poems of later works, and finally to the more dialogic, sometimes absurdist structures of the work she produced before she committed suicide at the age of 36. By that time, critics had already likened the scope of her literary influence to Arthur Rimbaud’s or Paul Celan’s.�� ��

Steven J. Stewart, Rexburg, ID ($12,500)
To support the translation from the Spanish of House of Geishas, a collection of microfictions by Argentine writer Ana María Shua. Shua (b. 1951) has published over 80 books in a multitude of genres and won numerous national and international awards. House of Geishas is her second book of microfictions, which are short narrative pieces that are typically less than half a page each. Many of the pieces appear as fables or dreams, while others provide quirky retellings of familiar stories drawn from history, mythology, and fairy tales. The pieces in the collection explore such themes as the way we deal with otherness, the weight of expectations imposed on us by our roles in life, and the problematic nature of memory.

Niloufar Talebi, San Francisco, CA ($12,500)
To support the translation from the Persian of selected poetry, prose, and interviews by Iranian writer Ahmad Shamlou. Nominated for the Nobel Prize, Shamlou (1925‐2000) was a poet, writer, encyclopedist, translator, journalist, editor, and human rights activist. He published more than 70 books, including novels, screenplays, children’s books, volumes of poetry, short stories, and essays. His translations into Persian include the work of Mark Twain, Langston Hughes, and Anton Chekov. Elegies of the Earth: An Ahmad Shamlou Reader will be a representative and comprehensive volume of his work throughout his 60‐year career. It will include a biography, timeline, and list of his works.

Jeffrey Yang, Beacon, NY ($25,000)
To support the translation from the Chinese of City Gate Open Up, a lyrical autobiogaphy by poet Bei Dao. The recipient of numerous international awards and shortlisted for the Nobel Prize for many years, Bei Dao is the author of seven poetry collections. This project aims to translate the lyrical prose memoir of his childhood and adolescence in Beijing, where he was born in 1949. It is a book not only of the poet as a child, but of the wondrous metropolis itself, coming alive through the luminous memories of its neighborhoods and residents, gardens, and temples, schools and music and vibrant ways of life. Since the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, Bei Dao had been living in forced exile, moving from countryto country, forbidden by the Chinese government to return to his homeland. The compulsion to write this book began in 2001, when Bei Dao was allowed back into China to see his sick father.�� ��

Daniel Brunet
Central Square, NY

To support the translation of experimental plays by German playwright Dea Loher. The writer and producer of 20 plays, Loher’s subject matter ranges from small-town life to international events as she explores themes of race, love, violence, and family. Though Loher is one of Germany’s most celebrated playwrights with plays translated into 27 languages, her work is virtually unknown in the United States.

Christian Hawkey
Brooklyn, NY

To support the translation of Austrian writer Ilse Aichinger’s collection of short fiction, Bad Words. In these 22 prose pieces, normative reality is taken apart and reconstructed to create a language that uses only the “second best words,” as the title proclaims. Linguistically experimental and thematically absurd, Aichinger’s body of work has garnered more than 20 literary prizes and is vastly underrepresented in English. This translation will be the first to focus on her work from the 1960s.

Sylvia Lichun Lin
Boulder, CO

To support the translation from Chinese of The Lost Garden, a novel by Taiwanese author Li Ang. Exploring the interconnected themes of politics and gender, the novel chronicles a Taiwanese gentry family from the early days of the Nationalist government’s rule under Chiang Kai-shek to the present. Published in 1990, only three years after the lifting of martial law, The Lost Garden was the first novel to successfully portray a fictional account of the White Terror Era. Ang is considered one of the most prolific, daring, and innovative writers in the contemporary Chinese-language literary community.

Matthew Reeck
Brooklyn, NY

To support a new translation from Urdu of Paigham Afaqui’s first novel, The House. Since its publication in 1989, Afaqui’s account of a young female landlord, Neera, and her predatory tenant, Kumar, has been a staple on reading lists in schools and universities across India. Literature in Urdu is particularly patriarchal, and Neera’s story draws a sharp contrast to that tradition and to the stereotypical roles placed on women in Indian society. In addition to writing and founding the Indian Academy of fiction, Afaqui is deputy commissioner of the Delhi Police.

Katherine Silver
Berkeley, CA

To support the translation from Spanish of three works of contemporary fiction by Daniel Sada. Born in Mexico in 1953, Sada died in the fall of 2011 only hours after being awarded Mexico’s most prestigious literary honor, the National Prize for Arts and Sciences for Literature. His writing is infused with a passion for experimental storytelling, but the most pervasive theme in his work is language itself, specifically the viability and limitations of the Spanish language in contemporary Mexican culture.

Johanna Warren
Hudson, NY

To support the translation from Spanish of short fiction by contemporary Salvadoran author Claudia Hernández. These four short story collections, published from 2001-07, explore the brutal impact of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war and focus indirectly on the themes of displacement, desensitization, and fear. Garnering international praise, Hernández was the first Central American artist to win the Juan Rulfo Prize for short stories. In 2004, she was awarded the prestigious Anna Seghers prize, an annual award given to young authors in Germany and Latin America.

Charles Waugh
Logan, UT

To support the translation of an anthology of short fiction by young Vietnamese writers, New Voices from Vietnam. All 19 authors included in this project are under the age of 35, and their work represents a culture and aesthetic that differs radically from previous generations of Vietnamese writers, reflecting stories from a vibrant culture racing through changes wrought by rapid modernization and globalization. There is a lack of contemporary Vietnamese prose represented in English, and this project offers an unprecedented collection.

Congrats to everyone!

NEA: What do you hope to accomplish while you’re at the NEA?

SILVERBERG: My goal is make sure our grantees in literary publishing—the non-profit presses and journals—are set up for the new digital age. There is a great deal of technical assistance needed to be a good publisher these days. Many of our grantees have grown up more as curators of great art—but getting it out in a difficult and changing publishing environment is a new part of the challenge. I hope that’s where the literature department can make a difference in the next few years.

NEA: What are you most proud of accomplishing in your career to date?

SILVERBERG: Seeing the first copy of a book I’ve edited or represented as an agent always provokes a feeling of great pride. Working with great writers for so many years still provides a great thrill. What could be better than helping get their words out into the world? Having three clients—Adam Haslett, Christopher Sorrentino, and René Steinke—nominated for the National Book Award in fiction has been a thrill; seeing former child soldier Ishmael Beah hit number one on The New York Times bestseller list was one of the most emotionally satisfying moments in my life; and helping to secure publication in The New Yorker for clients like Gabe Hudson, David Bezmozgis, and Sam Lipsyte always makes me feel triumphant.