A few months ago, we reported on an American train company’s nostalgia-inspired plan to offer residency for certain writers, after some mused that they found they could boost productivity in transit. The company pulled through: here’s the list of the official Amtrak writers-in-residence. 

Here’s an interesting twist on the lost-language trope we report on all too often at the Roundup. Language heritage advocates at Viki are enlisting the likes of über-addictive Korean soap operas and (somewhat-less-salient) Mel Gibson movies to help preserve endangered languages across the globe. And while translators are often lamented as all-too-invisible arbiters of global literature, sometimes, that invisibility may be by choice: a profile of the anonymous translator of French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet’s latest shocker, A Sentimental Novel. Meanwhile, things aren’t quite looking up yet for the publishing industry in Nigeria—but it isn’t all bad, either, and one of Spain’s most venerated writers, Javier Marías, is finally getting acknowledged in English-speaking markets (slowly, but surely).  READ MORE…