To most Americans, the announcement of most recent literary Nobel laureate French author Patrick Modiano spurred a collective reaction: “who?” But (thanks to translation!), readers are warming up to his noteworthy oeuvre, and he’s gotten a significant boost since the prestigious win. And if you’re heading vers la France in the next few weeks—Christmas in Paris does sound romantic—be sure to check out this walkable guide to the City of LIghts à la Modiano.
Speaking of Nobel laureates: the archives of recently-departed Doris Lessing will be sent to Zimbabwe, the country where she spent her youth, and the one that banished her for critiquing racial discrimination.
Feels like every week the Roundup reports on something related to the inevitable demise of (non-Mandarin and non-English) language. Here’s a pragmatic approach to preserving the world’s linguistic wealth, inspired by Egypt. In related topics of scarcity: who even buys—or reads, for that matter—academic books (is the self-perpetuating system of university publishing good or bad)?
Libraries, too, are often said to be under risk of disappearance—so a forward-thinking United Kingdom panel suggests that the future of the Library should reflect that of the coffee shop. Perhaps the collective hand-wringing over brick-and-mortar bookstores is warranted, though: in India, an exclusive book deal with Amazon is angering those who bookshop offline.
The end of the year bodes well for award winners and year-end lists (unless you’re of the opposite camp, believing that 2014 is not a list). The Australian winner of the Man Booker for children’s fiction, Richard Flanagan, is donating his 40,000$ prize to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (yay!). That may not be a controversial move, but the hullabaloo surrounding his split-win of the nation’s biggest award, the Prime Minister’s Award, certainly seemed to be: apparently, the judges and the Prime Minister himself were at odds. And in case you’re interested in making your voice heard, submit your favorite reads of the year to the Morning News’ annual Tournament of Books. And if you’d like to master all of a list, all at once: here’s 2014’s best (English-language) sentences, or some of its best tweets.
Afraid you’ve missed a great author, somewhere, in translation? Your fears are warranted; you most certainly have. But here’s a reissue of one of Russia’s greatest gems, compared to Colette and Sedaris in the same sentence (that one is on the New York Times). Here’s Teffi!