The Iowa Review Forum on Literature and Translation
The Iowa Review is up to a lot of cool things . . . First off, as you can see in the ad below, they’re sponsoring a writing contest for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, with the winners each receiving $1,500 and the first runners-up getting $750. That’s pretty solid. But more to the point of this website, ...
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Introducing Icelandic Week
The Frankfurt Book Fair kicks off next Wednesday, and since I won’t be able to attend this year (boo!), I’ve decided that instead, next week will be “Icelandic Week” here at Three Percent as a way of celebrating Iceland as this year’s Guest of Honor. We’ve got an amazing amount of stuff ...
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"Karaoke Culture" by Dubravka Ugresic [Read This Next]
This week’s Read This Next title is Karaoke Culture by Dubravka Ugresic, which is translated from the Croatian by David Williams, Celia Hawkesworth, and Ellen Elias-Bursac, and is coming out from Open Letter at the end of the month. I’m really excited about this book—in my opinion, it’s one of the ...
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Karaoke Culture
To even write this review is to participate in the Karaoke Culture the Dubravka Ugresic criticizes. To be one of the voices the mass experiment in democratic culture is only one more example of a worldwide culture that is collapsing into parodies of itself as we all become yet another karaoke singer demanding our moment and ...
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Another Nobel Prize Odds Update
Bob Dylan is now listed at 5/1 making him the favorite for this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. I find this very confusing. Bob Dylan? Nobel Prize in Literature? I doubt he’ll win, but in a way, it would be awesomely fitting after all of the complaints over the past few years that a) Americans don’t win ...
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"Reading Alberto Moravia in Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy"
This past weekend, the NY Times Book Review included this interesting essay by Rachel Donadio about reading Alberto Moravia: In its culture as in its politics, Italy lives under the shadow of Silvio Berlusconi. With his endless legal entanglements and sexual imbroglios and his colorful manner of governing (or not ...
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Nobel Prize in Literature To Be Announced on Thursday
According to various reports, this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced on Thursday around lunchtime. As always, the announcement of the forthcoming announcement brings out the speculation as to who will win, the complaints about why Americans don’t win every year, and the betting. Since I ...
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