Category: publishing

Two years after a $100 million bequest fell unexpectedly into its lap, the formerly tiny and obscure Poetry Foundation has revealed just what it plans to do with the money. The group is planning “a host of projects, from a national recitation contest for high school students to ‘the biggest and baddest Web site for poetry out there.’ The projects are likely to comprise the most sweeping effort to promote poetry in the history of the United States or any other country. They may also make the Poetry Foundation a major force on the American cultural landscape.”

The Frankfurt Art Fair is broadening its horizons, inviting Arab writers to participate in what has traditionally been a near-exclusively European event. The idea is to promote translations of Arab literature, and the strategy may already be having an effect. “Some 50 titles have been translated into German this year, compared to between 12-15 in previous years.”

“Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie has won the £10,000 Forward Prize – the UK’s biggest annual poetry award. She took the best collection prize with The Tree House, a collection of poems embracing nature and spirituality. The award for best first collection was awarded to 29-year-old Leontia Flynn, from Fife, for her ‘strikingly original’ debut These Days.”

“Winning the Nobel prize turns writers into icons and takes best sellers far beyond their own culture, but there is a price to pay for often reclusive people whose work requires solitude; the media spotlight. Thursday, a writer somewhere who may be unknown to most of the planet or almost a household name will get a call from the Swedish Academy which has awarded the top accolade in the world of letters since 1901. The phone will not stop ringing.”

“Many popular Arab authors remain unknown in the West. That may change as the Frankfurt Book Fair invites the Arab League as guest of honor this year. But the nagging issue of censorship (in the Arab world) might not be touched upon at all.”

“This year’s Frankfurt Book Fair is focusing on the Arab world amid worries that the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and war on terrorism have warped Western perceptions of Arab culture.” Accordingly, the “guests of honor” at the world’s largest book fair will be a 200-strong delegation of Arab writers and cultural representatives.

When a well-known political figure pens a book, the automatic assumption is that all profits must go to charity. “But why this need to give away writing income at all?” wonders Erica Jong, who suspects the belief has something to do with the way we view writers and writing. “Of all natural resources, it seems, only literary talent needs disinfection, when what it really needs is nourishing.”

“The annual Nobel Prize in Literature, which is to be awarded in Stockholm on Thursday, assures the happy laureate a gilded place in posterity. Or does it? The Swedish Academy is so eccentric in its choice that the astonished winner often enjoys 15 minutes of fame and is quietly forgotten. No less bizarrely, the academy has overlooked some pillars of modern literature, like Proust and Joyce. Then there are those well-known writers who year after year are considered to be contenders only to be disappointed. This year the word in Stockholm is that it is time for a woman to win again…”

“Kirkus Reviews has long prided itself on being a sort of Consumer Reports for the book publishing industry, proclaiming its independence by steadfastly refusing to accept advertising and producing early, plain-spoken reviews that can amplify or smother a new book’s early buzz. Now, however, Kirkus is embracing a new spirit of commercialism,” offering to review any book for $350 in its new online publicatiion, and considering the possibility of selling ads in its main print edition.

“Two writers are suing the publishers of The Da Vinci Code, the biggest-selling adult fiction book of all time, claiming it was copied from their 20-year-old book. They claim Dan Brown, the American author said to have earned $A350 million from the book that has sold 12 million, ‘lifted the whole architecture’ of research for their non-fiction Holy Blood, Holy Grail.” The earlier book actually makes an appearance in DaVinci, with one of the characters pulling a copy off a shelf and positing that its conclusions are sound.