Philippe Claudel’s Brodeck, translated from the French by John Cullen, is among the 15 contenders longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2010. Arts Council England awards the prize annually to the best work of contemporary fiction in translation. The novel, which Nan A. Talese published in June, received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was glowingly reviewed in The New York Times Book Review. While only a handful of Claudel’s nine novels have been translated in English, American readers might be familiar with the 2008 film he wrote and directed I’ve Loved You So Long, a New York Times Critics’ Pick, which starred Kristin Scott Thomas.
More >Ian McEwan’s forthcoming novel Solar was named an April 2010 Indie Next Pick by the American Booksellers Association. Darwin Ellis of Books on the Common in Ridgefield, CT wrote, “McEwan, as usual, writes a taut plot line, with suspense and dread of retribution building with each turned page.” Click here for his full summary. In bookstores March 30th!
More >“When American writer Marti Leimbach’s fascination with female reporters taken captive during the Vietnam War became obsessive, she knew she had her next book in the making,” Reuters reports. Click here to read the full interview, which includes Leimbach’s advice to aspiring authors.
More >When does inspiration cross over the line into plagiarism and copyright infringement? Mark Lamster, author of Master of Shadows, examined this question in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. His article examines the work of photographers Sze Tsung Leong and David Burdeny and poses the question, “Did Leong have a doppelgänger stalking him around the globe, reproducing his images?”
More >“Union Atlantic sometimes reads as if Adam Haslett was listening into the private conversations that led to the economic collapse and the bank bailouts that followed,” Lynn Neary said on NPR’s Morning Edition. Click here to listen to the full interview.
More >John Burnside, the Scottish author of the terrifically spooky The Glister, will make a rare stateside appearance in New York this March.
More >The breathtaking author of Dying Young and Daniel Isn’t Talking returns with a “vivid and powerful” tale (Publishers Weekly, starred review) of love and allegiance set in the jungles of Vietnam.
More >Kirstin Downey’s riveting biography of Frances Perkins has been named a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize! Titled The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, the book traces the life of the first female cabinet secretary, one of the most influential women of the twentieth century whose ideas became the cornerstones of the most important social welfare and legislation in the nation’s history, including unemployment compensation, child labor laws, and the forty-hour work week.
More >The Wall Street Journal wrote last week, “Union Atlantic is the first serious fictional portrait of the bailout era — in which the unbridled risk-taking of our banking institutions bumped up against powerful government officials trying to keep the system afloat. Decades from now, this fine novel will help readers understand the period we’ve just been through.” The New York Times Book Review agreed. “The eerie overlap of Haslett’s narrative with current events in the American economy,” wrote Liesl Schillinger, “gives Union Atlantic unusual impact.”
More >“The first great novel of the new century. It’s big and ambitious, like novels used to be. It’s about us, now. All of us.” —Esquire
Adam Haslett’s “intensely atmospheric, psychedelically tinged debut novel” (Elle) is on sale today! Written over the course of five years and finished the week that Lehman Brothers’ collapse set off the Wall Street panic of 2008, it portrays the gilded age of the first decade of the 21st century and the conflicts over class, corporate power, and personal identity that shape contemporary life.
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Knopf
Doubleday
Pantheon
Vintage/Anchor