Best Translated Book Award Winners to Be Announced, via Full-Stop

 

 

The 2011 BTBA Fiction Finalists (in alphabetical order by author):

The Literary Conference by César Aira, translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver (New Directions)

The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz, translated from the Czech by Andrew Oakland (Dalkey Archive)

A Life on Paper by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, translated from the French by Edward Gauvin (Small Beer)

The Jokers by Albert Cossery, translated from the French by Anna Moschovakis (New York Review Books)

Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (New Directions)

Hocus Bogus by Romain Gary (writing as Émile Ajar), translated from the French by David Bellos (Yale University Press)

The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal (New York Review Books)

On Elegance While Sleeping by Emilio Lascano Tegui, translated from the Spanish by Idra Novey (Dalkey Archive)

Agaat by Marlene Van Niekerk, translated from the Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns (Tin House)

Georg Letham: Physician and Murderer by Ernst Weiss, translated from the German by Joel Rotenberg (Archipelago)

The 2011 BTBA Poetry Finalists (in alphabetical order by author):

Geometries by Guillevic, translated from the French by Richard Sieburth (Ugly Duckling Presse)

Time of Sky & Castles in the Air by Ayane Kawata, translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu (Litmus Press)

Child of Nature by Luljeta Lleshanaku, translated from the Albanian by Henry Israeli and Shpresa Qatipi (New Directions)

The Book of Things by Aleš Šteger, translated from the Slovenian by Brian Henry (BOA Editions)

Flash Cards by Yu Jian, translated from the Chinese by Wang Ping and Ron Padgett (Zephyr Press)

 

Best Translated Book Award Winners Announced Tomorrow | Full-Stop.net.

Neuroscience of Shakespeare, via Boing Boing

 

 

In the current Literary Review, University of Liverpool professor Philip Davis, author of Shakespeare Thinking, describes his ongoing collaborations with neuroscientists to study The Bard’s syntax and one of his favorite linguistic tricks: the functional shift. One kind of functional shift is the “verbing” of a noun — for example, “parenting our children.” Shakespeare frequently verbed nouns to great effect and Davis wanted to find out if the literary device could be understood with neuroscience. So he and his colleagues are using EEG and other methods to measure the brain’s response to Shakespearian functional shifts.

Neuroscience of Shakespeare – Boing Boing.

Copyright As Censorship: After 22 Years, Joyce Estate Finally Lets Kate Bush Use Lyrics She Wanted

It’s no secret that the James Joyce estate has been ridiculously overprotective when it comes to Joyce’s copyright. Of course, a lot of Joyce’s works are quickly approaching the public domain in various places (and some are already there), and so the estate may be losing its control. Still, it’s nice to see that the estate finally “agreed” to one usage. Glyn Moody points us to the news that after an astounding 22 years of asking, singer Kate Bush has finally been allowed to use Molly Bloom’s famous soliloquy from Ulysses as lyrics for a song. She had first asked in 1989… and was denied. She wrote different lyrics instead, but kept asking the estate. Perhaps realizing that (in the UK) the work was going into the public domain next year, the estate finally relented.

Copyright As Censorship: After 22 Years, Joyce Estate Finally Lets Kate Bush Use Lyrics She Wanted | Techdirt.