NYRB NEWS
Two Winter 2023 NYRB Events
Two standout NYRB events from earlier this winter have been archived and posted online.
The first, “The Intimate Worlds of Colette,” was part of the Mechanics’ Institute’s three-day celebration of the 150th birthday of Colette, whose novels Chéri and The End of Chéri were recently translated by Paul Eprile and published by NYRB Classics in November 2022. Both Eprile and the author of the introduction of the NYRB Classics edition, Judith Thurman, took part in the event along with the writer and translator Zack Rogow.
The second, a conversation between Kilometer 101 author Maxim Osipov and the essayist and critic Becca Rothfeld, was part of Brookline Booksmith’s Transnational Reading Series.
Phillip Lopate and Lore Segal Elected to Academy of Arts and Letters
Phillip Lopate, author of the forthcoming New York Review Books essay A Year and a Day, and Lore Segal, author of the forthcoming NYRB Kids book Tell Me a Mitzi, were both announced as newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters last month alongside other beloved cultural luminaries such as Percival Everett, Vivian Gornick, Frances McDormand, Francis Ford Coppola, and Yiyun Li.
The formal induction will take place during the Academy’s annual Ceremonial on May 24, 2023. You can learn more and see the other newly elected members here.
‘Temptation’ Wins 2022 AATSEEL Book Prize
Congratulations to Mark Baczoni, whose translation of János Székely’s Temptation (NYRB Classics) from the Hungarian won the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages’ 2022 award for Best Literary/Scholarly Translation into English. The award citation reads:
Mark Baczoni has given English-language readers a great gift in translating János Székely’s rollicking lost classic Temptation (Kísértés) into English for 21st century readers. Baczoni has produced a marvelously readable rendering of of Székely’s sparkling, sardonic prose; in his hands the narrative races along, offering us a delightfully exhilarating reading experience. Throughout the novel’s nearly 700 pages, Baczoni ably switches from drama to comedy and back, via poems, songs, and a great deal of lively dialogue, all interspersed with social and political commentary: a most enjoyable and rewarding read, and an admirable feat of translation.
Read more about the 2022 AATSEEL Book Prizes here.
NYRB Titles on 2022 “Best of the Year” Lists
’Tis the season for annual year-end literary wrap-ups, and several books from NYRB Classics, New York Review Books, NYR Comics, NYR Poets, and the NYR Children’s Collection have appeared on “best of the year” lists. Click the links below to see some of the NYRB titles critics and reviewers enjoyed most in 2022.
Our Fort by Marie Dorléans (trans. Alyson Waters)
The New York Times Book Review
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/08/books/review/the-best-childrens-books-of-2022.html
The Projector and Elephant by Martin Vaughn-James
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-top-5-graphic-novels-of-2022/
Gold by Rumi (trans. Haleh Liza Gafori)
The Marginalian
https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/12/09/favorite-books-of-2022/
Telluria by Vladimir Sorokin (trans. Max Lawton)
The Spectator (UK)
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/books-of-the-year-i-chosen-by-our-regular-reviewers-2/
Seduced by Story by Peter Brooks
Vulture/New York Magazine
https://www.vulture.com/article/best-books-2022.html
My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2022/12/best-books-2022-hua-hsu-gabrielle-zevin/672403/
All Your Racial Problems Will Soon End by Charles Johnson
NPR
https://apps.npr.org/best-books/#year=2022&book=187
After by Vivek Narayanan
The TLS
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/tls-books-of-the-year-2022/
The Right to Be Lazy by Paul Lafargue (trans. Alex Andriesse)
Chéri and The End of Chéri by Colette (trans. Paul Eprile)
Bookforum
https://www.bookforum.com/print/2904/writers-on-their-favorite-books-of-2022-25159
Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/arts/design/best-art-books-2022.html
Unofficial NYRB Holiday Gift Guide
‘Exhausted on the Cross’ Wins 2022 Sarah Maguire Prize
Najwan Darwish and his translator, Kareem James Abu-Zeid, have won the 2022 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation for their recent NYRB Poets collection, Exhausted on the Cross. The book was selected from a shortlist of six that also included titles by poets from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Korea, Mauritius, Mexico, and Syria. Darwish and Abu-Zeid will split the £3,000 prize money.
The chair of the prize judges, Rosalind Harvey, said of the collection: “In its direct, stripped-back lines, [Exhausted on the Cross] demonstrates both the limits and the necessity of language, inviting us to ask, together, how we can move through and beyond suffering.”
To learn more about the award and read Abu-Zeid’s comments on the honor, click here.
Three NYRB Titles on 2022 Awards Lists
Anna Badkhen‘s upcoming essay collection for New York Review Books, Bright Unbearable Reality, has been included on the 2022 National Book Awards longlist for nonfiction along with nine other titles. The books were selected from a submissions pool of over 600 titles. To see the other books on the list, read about the awards judges, and view other 2022 NBA longlists, click here.
In addition, two recent NYRB titles have landed on the 2022 National Translation Award in Poetry shortlist: Najwan Darwish’s Exhausted on the Cross (NYRB Poets; trans. by Kareem James Abu-Zeid) and Dante Alighieri’s Purgatorio (NYRB Classics; trans. D. M. Black). You can read the shortlist citations for both books below:
Exhausted on the Cross
Exhausted on the Cross, Najwan Darwish’s second volume of poetry, is poignant, raw, unflinching, and deeply humane, infusing the sorrow and suffering of occupation and the human condition with a startling lyricism. Kareem James Abu-Zeid’s unforgettable translation in its stark, clean, yet melodic register, invites us into the complexity of Darwish’s poetry, the suppleness of his Arabic, and the uncompromising vision of resistance in the face of oppression that beats at the heart of this marvelous book.
Purgatorio
There is nothing middle-of-the-road about D. M. Black’s version of the middle book of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The translator’s every step is sure, evincing not only his sensitive ear for the cadences of blank verse but also his profound insight into the psychology of the poet as well as of his shades. Black shows great respect for Dante as both a craftsman and a thinker, and in so doing serves the reader as a uniquely competent guide to “that Mountain where the blade of Reason probes us.”
To read about the other two titles on the list, click here.
Amit Chaudhuri Wins James Tait Black Prize for ‘Finding the Raga’
Our heartiest congratulations to Amit Chaudhuri, who this week was announced as the winner of the UK’s James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography for his 2021 New York Review Books memoir Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music. The award comes with a cash prize of £10,000.
Dr. Simon Cooke, one of the judges in the Biography category, called Finding the Raga “a work of great depth, subtlety, and resonance, which unobtrusively changed the way we thought about music, place, and creativity. Folding the ethos of the raga into its own form, it is a beautifully voiced, quietly subversive masterpiece in the art of listening to the world.”
To read more about this year’s James Tait Black prizes, click here.