Category: news

Happy New Year -this is a new year that was the old year

~ winstonsdad ~ 28 Comments

winston taken last new years day

Well it’s that time of year again New years day the time to make resolutions and plans for the coming year and also a chance  to look back and digest  how the last twelve months have gone  on the blog and reading wise for myself .

Last year was a strange one it felt for me  , I drifted in my blogging. But when I got my year-end report from wordpress I was surprised what I had done  and after reading Sue’s post .I thought well it was a busy year really and maybe I just relaxed as a blogger and gone with my natural flow .So highlights of last year was doing the two shadow juries the first was the man Asian one last January with Lisa in charge ,with matt ,sue ,mark and Fay .Then I took a leaf out Lisa’s book to start a shadow IFFP jury with Rob Lisa Mark Simon Tony and Gary .I loved doing both these and am at moment stuck in the middle of this years Shadow Man Asian jury .I also started Spanish Lit month with Richard to highlight Spanish language fiction from all round the world .That’s not to mention Henry Green week .I also loved joining Lizzie and Caroline in German lit month ,once again and the fact it brought a chance to  enjoyed a new chunk of Germanic literature .So in looking back on my year I did a lot really, made lots of new blogging friends and help promote fiction in translation which is the main aim of the blog these days.

So 2013 another year resolutions reading and blog wise ,I have debated doing a post a day and I know it be hard to keep up my job and life just isn’t able to support a post a day so my resolutions is to try to post a little more and maybe do 50 more post than last year which equates to a post every other day or so which seems achievable .I have previously tried to set reading totals but I m leaving them behind I feel my reading is at a constant level and pushing it to read more will a. spoil my enjoyment of books as I rush trough rather than saviour them ,b..do I really need to add load more books to the unreviewed pile (close to 60 books already on it ) .Another blog resolution is to try over next twelve months to clear pile of books I ve read but not covered on the blog so far ,hopefully doing a few more posts will even this out and cut the pile down .challenges I will be doing some more challenge of my own next year and joining in a few along the way I m sure I prefer month or week long  challenges to year-long ones hence I ve not signed up for any this time again .So my first challenge is Tony’s January in Japan I ve one book read and currently on my second book .

So a very happy new year to you one and all and may the year be a very bookish one for you .

Who is the greatest living Prose writer ?

~ winstonsdad ~ 20 Comments

 

The world cup for the greatest living Prose writer

Well as ever the backlash of the booker winner has started and it is about the comment that Peter Stothard made about Hillary Mantel being the greatest English living English prose writer (Pleased he said that because for my mind if it was world-wide she’d not be near the top ) .So the guardian have open  thread on who is the greatest English prose writer ,well I’m wanting to  go further and ask you all who is the greatest living prose writer ? I feel maybe a discussion that is less Anglo centric be interesting as I feel the best prose aren’t from english at the moment (but that may just be me so steeped in the translation ) so what are your views ? I ll throw three names in the hat to start with –

Peter Nadas – reason able to show the complexities of the human soul and sexual desire in the written word better than any one else .

Cees Nooteboom – travel writer ,prose writer ,novelist ,poet and Holland greatest living writer a jack of all trades and quite possibly a master of them all .

Goncalo Tavares – my current writer I want to read more off and champion . the Portuguese writer is push the bounds of what is fiction unlike anybody has in English for decades .

Thanks I m back slowly

~ winstonsdad ~ 9 Comments

I’m returning  but not fully refreshed as I had hoped ,but as many of you may know my wife has just returned home after a nine-day stay in hospital, so the time I had off from work to try to sort out  my blog and the review backlog has gone on the back-burner  .But I have learnt one thing about what is important about blogging to me  and that is the nice people I ve met via blogging  and there support over recent weeks has been wonderful via twitter and email .So I will be return this week I ve a hug backlog of books but have decide to read Proust  all in one go in December as I had planned to read him this year reading it all in one go will give me time to catch up .So  I’ve managed to read three of the booker shortlist whilst I ve been away and been making small plans for German lit month .I’ve a song that means a lot to me and Amanda here and so  What you all been up to ? I may take a while to get through all your blogs and comment please bare with me .

Translation Why ?

~ winstonsdad ~ 35 Comments

I ve read Tony’s post on translation ,He kindly mentions me but I will now admit something I wonder what difference I have made and why I was mentioned in such hallowed company . I ‘ve spent two year promoting translation and building this blog and to be truthful recently my heart has gone hence lack of post last two months ,I do wonder if I get the message across and my passion because it is a passion to me   .I have reviewed two hundred translations. but feel I ve not made even made a small dent on the readers that don’t even bother reading translation I m not even at base camp yet I need to get to the peak  .This is the point where I d think of a change of direction in the past  but no actually I step back as I struggled  with my own conviction on this journey .But now with Spanish language month on the horizon  .I face the blog and twitter world with renewed excitement  and vigour .so why translation I may ask the opposite why not translation .I ve been round the world been young and  old ,in the wars ,in prison  ,in dream worlds , ancient cities ,imagined cities solved crime in the heat ,cold ,now and then .All that due to translation so hear me I will continue the battle to place a translation in every readers hand .

Treblinka A Survivor’s memory by Chil Rajchman

~ winstonsdad ~ 15 Comments

Just read this book !!!! 

Treblinka A survivor’s memory by Chil Rajchman

The hell of Treblinka by Vasily Grossman

Holocaust memoir

Translators (Rajchman ) Solon Beinfeld ,(Grossman) Robert Chandler

Chil Rajchman Was a twenty eight year old Pole when he enter the Death camp of Treblinka .He was on of the few survivors as Treblinka had a reputation as the most evil of the death camps .The camp killed an estimate 850,000 people during the war .Chil was among a group who manage to cause an uprising in the camp and escape in august 1943 he wrote his memories of the camp at that time   on scraps of paper .He later settled in Uruguay worked this into the book Treblinka which he want published after he died to remind people of what had happened to him during the war

There was a difference in appearance of the dead from the small and from the large gas chamber .In the small chambers death was easier and quicker .The faces looked as if the people had fallen asleep , their eyes closed .Only mouths of some of the gassed victims were distorted ,with bloody foam visible on their lips .The bodies were covered in sweat .before dying people had urinated and defecated .

to find out the horrors of the large gas chamber read the book .

When this book arrived I was excited as I had want to get the hard back when it came out ,Rajchman’s account as one of the few survivors of the horrific Treblinka is an important document of Jewish history and Holocaust literature .Even 70 years after the events in this book took place we could all do with a remind of the horrors of mankind .I read the book in a day as I was gripped but the sheer bluntness of Rajchman memories ,he didn’t sugar coat a word this is like uncut diamond full of wonder and natrual beauty and you the reader have to cut the diamond to carry round and pass on to other readers and any one that mentions the war or says it wasn’t so bad it was that and more .I did just want put a short review up here and that would be

Just read it please

I m still not sure that is the best thing to have said as I as a blogger have to try to get you to pick this book .All I can say is the statement just read it some stories need to be read .This will make you feel like crying it did me .I choose today to put up my review as we see the horror of right-wing extremism raises it ugly head in the trail of the mass murderer in Norway Anders Brevik ,when today I heard him try to justify his actions it made me angry and I decide to do this review today .Chil entered Treblinka with his family the last time he saw them and because he was lucky or able to do jobs that no one else could do was able to survive and pass on this testament to future generations.Many hundreds of thousands couldn’t .

The second part of the book is Vasily Grossman’s account for the russian papers when he was the first journalist to reach Treblinka after the camp was liberated .He wrote the history of the camp an exact description of what he saw when he enter the lay out .These lines struck me

The ashes and crushed cinders swish softly .We enter the camp .We tread the earth of Treblinka .The Lupin pods spilt open at the least touch they split with a faint ping and millions of tiny peas scatter over the earth .The sounds of the falling peas and the bursting pods come together to form a single soft sad melody it is as a funeral knell

This sums up how fragile human life is just like those lupin seeds

I can’t say any more I d love to se reviews of this every where as it is such a touching memoir and one to pass on  to all .I wait to review this to a day when it would mean something and today seems like that day to me .

Libraries where does the future lay

~ winstonsdad ~ 11 Comments

Earlier this week we found out that the large department store in london Selfridge is due to open a library for seven weeks to run along side it’s book festival word ,word words .Here is the piece from the guardian .I remarked on twitter that it remind me of a scene from brief encounters where Celia Johnson talks about going to boots (a large chemist chain in the UK for those not from the UK ) ,Boots ran libraries ran from 1898 til 1960 ,people paid a few pennies for each book lent here is an article for info .Also there has been a library in the protest camps for the occupy movement has opened libraries ,here in london they’ve had a few well-known writers including Alan Bennett and donate their books to the cause .So are these signs of a movement with the current cut backs in local government spending here in the uk ,which has hit the UK library system hard with 500 libraries either closed or under threat 10% of UK total library system .As there is no bright light on the horizon with regards governmental  investment in fact there maybe more cuts ,so if we want people to access books that may not have the means or funds to buy them or a kid to read books we maybe need some new ideas like shops having libraries or communities banding together ,with uk literacy at 99% but the truth is one in five people have trouble reading .We need free access to books for the most of the population so even if they don’t want to read I m not a dreamer but if  they are there people have the chance to access them and borrow a book !!

How do you see the library system going ?

How is the economic situation affect libraries in your country ?

Bookish deeds a film and lend

~ winstonsdad ~ 6 Comments

well last night I had a great night at home with the Amanda but had two great bookish moments away from reading books the first was a film that was new to me that was on the sky premier film channel so a newish film it was called Eleanors secret ,a French Animation with english language soundtrack .We follow Natanael a seven year old boy that is afraid to read aloud and this is effecting his school work ,so on the way to his late aunts house where he spent many happy summers with her reading to him from her library of first editions fairy tales and classics .She left him this library and the secret that goes with it .I don’t have kids but I fell this is a film to inspire kids to read and to a book junkie like me was a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours with my darling wife .I m sorry I picked german trailer first as it much better than the english one I found gives better idea of the book .But have include the english one as well .

My second bookish event last night was minor but to me a thrill I borrowed my first e-book from our library system I didn’t know Derbyshire even  had a e library well we do it’s not terribly big but there is a number of books there I wanted to read but most were out on loan so I choose Arctic chill by Arnaldur Indridason as I have it on my shelves if I don’t finish it on my I pad in time .

Have you borrowed a e-book ?

What bookish things your discovered recently ?

A new book podcast and a old one

~ winstonsdad ~ 9 Comments

Well I say A new one there has been 14 episodes of the readers a new banter based podcast .It is run by two well-known Blogger Simon of Savidge reads and Gavin of Gav reads .each episode is about an hour long a mix of book news ,reviews interview and also a couple of other bloggers have also appeared .If you like the long running us podcast books on the nightstand this one is for you .I like the informal style of Simon and Gavins’s almost like your sat having a coffee with the guys as they inform you of all that is going off .

Well Kim of reading matters is hosting an australian literature  month I d thought I d remind any one that doesn’t it is worth listen to ABC NATIONALS the book show this show on a few times a week is a wonderful source of book info and in particular australian book news ,I feel I learnt lot about the in working of publishing and what books sell in australia and new writers from australia .I would try it and look at the archives for suggestions for Australian reading month my self I m just finishing Bereft by Chris Womersley .

What podcast do you like ?

are you reading a Australian book this month ?

Deutscher buchpreis longlist is out

~ winstonsdad ~ 4 Comments

The german longlist for the Deutscher buchpreis has been announced ,the german version of the books of the longlist see it here in full only few on names are familar to me ,but my german friend on twitter recomends this one by Klaus Modick -sunshine ,a man in california learns of Brechts death a man he knew in a love hate relationship .

I’ve been longlisted for Book blogger appreciation week 2011

~ winstonsdad ~ 18 Comments

I m so happy my blog has been longlisted in the best author interview category .I feel this year I ve had some really strong interviews with some great writers and translators from all round the world .I ve also been ask to judge ,which I m happy about as I want to give something back to the blogging community as I do sometimes moan .Thanks to all that nominated winstonsdad  .

My #iffp 2011 shortlist predictions

~ winstonsdad ~ 12 Comments

Well I got it wrong bar two on the longlist but having read some more from longlist have better idea of what is good and not on this list ,well to my own unique taste .so who made the cut in winstonsdad 6 for Independent foreign fiction prize shortlist .The proper list is announced tomorrow at london book fair by booktrust ,tomorrow I ll have an interview with some one on the longlist .

WINSTONSDAD 6 –

BESIDE THE SEA -VERONIQUE OLMI TRANS ADRIANA HUNTER ,

One of my favourites from last year a struggling mother takes her kids to the french seaside as she makes a shocking decision whilst there .

TO THE END OF THE LAND BY DAVID GROSSMAN TRANS JESSICA COHEN ,

Another mother runaway with her boy’s father to the back and beyond in Israeli ,talking about him to keep him alive .Whilst he is on tour at the front .

KAMCHATKA BY MARCELO FIGUERAS TRANS FRANK WYNNE

Ten year old Harry on the run with his family during the dirty war in Argentina ,a new voice in latin american literature .

THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE BY ORHAN PAMUK TRANS MAUREEN FREELY

A  love affair between a businessman and shop girl over twenty year ,love obsession ,keep sakes and Istanbul all play part in this epic novel .

VISITATION BY JENNY ERPENBECK TRANS SUSAN BERNOFSKY ,

A lot bloggers have liked this not read it yet but loved old child and this seems similar set up to Simon Mawers glass house a grand house and the family living in it during 30’s .

VILLIAN BY YOSHIDA SHUCHI TRANS PHILLIP GABRIEL,

The dark side of Japanese life I ve read 50 pages to get a feel ,and been gripped so far .

 

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL MAKE THE SHORT LIST ?

 

 

Grass calls in the translators

~ winstonsdad ~ 11 Comments

I listen to the BBC world service program The strand which feature a piece on the third volume of Gunter Grass auto bio /bio /fiction trilogy .The first two parts being peeling the Onion and the box .Now the third part  Grimms Wörter. Eine Liebeserklärung or in english Grimm’s Words: A Declaration of Love ,is a book in the form of a dictionary /bio involving Grass the Grimm brothers .Now this book is virtually untranslatable due to its layout and how its alphabetical layout also follows the story of grass and Grimm brothers .So grass called all his translators to meet him and be challenged to translate this book .Grass has always worked with his translators this led to the new tin drum translation in 2006 as grass felt the original cut to much of his original book, .Now he is want the translators to use their life to translate the book in to their languages ,now it seems as thou only the Dutch and Danish translators will be doing so as their languages closet to german ,there was no mention of the english translation sure one of our talented german translators my take up the challenge .

But this led to a question is the some books that can’t be translated ?

Busy few days

~ winstonsdad ~ 9 Comments

I ve a busy couple of days at work coming up a course and then a long day trip to Skegness a seaside town about two hours from here with the people I support so .I m not going to be blogging again til  friday as I just won’t have time ,hope every one has a good week .

great new project

~ winstonsdad ~ 2 Comments

I received a e-mail from James Alsono the other day from the polyglot project a new venture initially with classic books where you can try to read in the original language and then use their tools to translate words you aren’t very sure of .This includes don Quixote ,which is how james found me now I know Richard is read along in spanish with us so this may help if you want to see how the orignal was written and help improve your spanish there is also works in german english and french to work on .