Category Archives: Books

Hungarian bookseller wraps LGBTQ+ books in plastic to stop people reading them

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Libri bows to pressure to comply with ‘child protection’ law after takeover by foundation linked to PM

Hungary’s largest bookseller has started wrapping books that feature LGBTQ+ characters in plastic to prevent customers from opening them in stores after it was taken over by a private foundation with close ties to Viktor Orbán.

Libri, which is also the country’s largest publisher, said in an email that the packaging was a request from the Hungarian consumer protection authority to follow the controversial “child protection” law that came into force in 2021.

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Life imitates art as El Salvador pressures book fair to bar dissenting writer

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Barbers on Strike, author Michelle Recinos’s collection of short stories, has apparently upset strongman president Nayib Bukele

First the soldiers came for those with mohawks. Then they came for the hairdressers themselves.

“They were good kids,” quips the narrator in one of the latest tales by the Salvadorian author Michelle Recinos, “although I’d never trusted them with my hair.”

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Publisher withdraws former police officer’s memoir after force questions Port Arthur massacre claim

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Victoria Police says Christophe Glasl was not in Tasmania at the time of Port Arthur massacre, despite his claim to have been involved in its resolution

A publisher has pulled a former police officer’s memoir after the force questioned his claim he attended the Port Arthur massacre.

Hachette confirmed parts of the book Special Operations Group by former Victorian police officer Christophe Glasl were inaccurate, and that it had been removed from shelves.

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Daniel Kaluuya’s Barney the Dinosaur film to be ‘adult’ and ‘lean into millennial angst’

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Mattel says the Barney movie will be inspired by Charlie Kaufman, while Barbie director Greta Gerwig is planning two Narnia movies for Netflix

The Daniel Kaluuya-produced movie featuring Barney the Dinosaur will be an “adult”, “surrealistic” and “A24-type” film inspired by Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze, it has been revealed.

In a wide-ranging report on the film-making plans of toymaker Mattel in the New Yorker, Mattel Films executive Kevin McKeon said of the project: “We’re leaning into the millennial angst of the property rather than fine-tuning this for kids. It’s really a play for adults. Not that it’s R-rated, but it’ll focus on some of the trials and tribulations of being thirtysomething, growing up with Barney – just the level of disenchantment within the generation.”

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‘Translation is an art’: why translators are battling for recognition

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Like any author, translators want to receive credit for their work instead of being treated as an afterthought

They have often been overlooked in the artistic and literary process, but translators have long claimed they have the power to change everything.

There are tales of myths being born, societies being forged and cities destroyed with just a slip of the pen, such as the supposed translation error that allegedly led to the US deciding to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or the speculation about life on Mars after the mistranslation of an Italian astronomer.

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Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina dies after being wounded in Kramatorsk strike

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Author who had been working to document Russian war crimes since the invasion was hospitalised with skull fractures after Tuesday’s missile strike

An award-winning Ukrainian writer and war crimes researcher wounded in a Russian missile strike on a restaurant last week has died, the freedom of expression group PEN has said.

Victoria Amelina, 37, was wounded when a Russian missile destroyed the Ria Pizza restaurant in the eastern city of Kramatorsk on Tuesday, killing 12 people, including four children, and wounding dozens.

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Rights to Jorge Luis Borges’s work go to his wife’s nephews

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Widow of great Argentinian writer did not leave a will, which put the rights in limbo

A court has granted the rights to the works of the late Jorge Luis Borges, considered Argentina’s most internationally significant author of the 20th century, to five nephews of the author’s widow, who died in March.

Borges’s wife, María Kodama, had devoted much of her life to fiercely protecting his legacy and it surprised many in Argentina’s literary circle that she did not leave a will, even though she had breast cancer.

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Notes, ponderings, doodlings: behind Capote’s creation of In Cold Blood

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New manuscript offers insight into the painstaking work of writer’s seemingly effortless storytelling in true crime classic

The opening words are not quite there, but the essence Truman Capote is striving for already soars from the page as he conjures up the vision of a small community in the heartlands of America where terrible events are soon to unfold.

“Holcomb is a very visible village,” the passage begins, captured in the author’s tight, almost crabby handwriting, “located on high wheat plains of western Kansas, where the air is Swiss-clear and the flat views lonesomely, awesomely extensive.”

In Cold Blood, the manuscript by Truman Capote, is published by SP Books and available here.

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Miles Franklin award 2023: shortlist revealed for Australia’s prestigious literary prize

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Five first-time nominees are among the six authors competing for $60,000 award for novels that ‘present Australian life in any of its phases’

Five first-time nominees – including a debut novelist – are among the six authors shortlisted for the 2023 Miles Franklin award, Australia’s highest literary honour.

Announced on Tuesday, the six books up for the $60,000 prize are Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow, Robbie Arnott’s Limberlost, Yumna Kassab’s The Lovers, Fiona Kelly McGregor’s Iris, Shankari Chandran’s Chai Time at the Cinnamon Gardens, and Kgshak Akec’s Hopeless Kingdom.

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Edinburgh book festival hoping Greta Thunberg will bring back audiences

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Fallout from Covid crisis has left event struggling financially after last year’s ‘traumatic’ fall in sales

The Edinburgh International book festival hopes a swathe of Booker prize winners, political leaders and a guest appearance by Greta Thunberg will help restore its finances after a “traumatic” fall in sales last year.

The world’s largest book festival celebrates its 40th anniversary in August with events featuring Katrín Jakobsdóttir, the Icelandic prime minister, the former Booker winners Ben Okri and Anne Enright, and the International Booker winners Georgi Gospodinov and David Diop.

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Abuse has led Sathnam Sanghera to ‘more or less stop’ doing book events in UK

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Writer of Empireland, which examined Britain’s imperial past, says culture war-fuelled online trolling and heckling ‘gets to you’

The writer Sathnam Sanghera has said he barely ever does public events in the UK because of a fear of being attacked amid a culture war-fuelled backlash over his views on Britain’s imperial past, saying he feared a Florida-style push towards the banning of books.

Sanghera, a journalist and author whose bestselling book Empireland assessed how the UK’s colonial territories still infect contemporary politics and discourse, said he had begun to dread holding book events here.

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Call for new writers of colour as entries open for the 4thWrite short story prize

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The winner will receive £1,000, and have their story featured on the Guardian website

A short story competition run by the Guardian and publisher 4th Estate is open for entries from unpublished writers of colour living in the UK.

The winner of the 4thWrite prize will receive £1,000, a one-day publishing workshop with 4th Estate and publication of their story on the Guardian website.

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Utah school district that banned Bible considers removing Book of Mormon

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Davis school district says it will assess text after complaint for ‘pornographic or indecent materials’ under law passed last year

A school district in Utah that last week banned the Bible from school libraries is now being asked to consider a further title for removal: the Book of Mormon.

The Davis school district, which serves Davis county, north of Salt Lake City, said it was considering a new complaint demanding the removal of the foundational text of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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Author Ama Ata Aidoo, ‘an inspiration to feminists everywhere’, dies aged 81

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The Ghanaian playwright and novelist, who also served as her country’s education minister, focused on the modern African woman

The Ghanaian writer and academic Ama Ata Aidoo, whose work focused on the modern African woman, has died aged 81.

Ata Aidoo, whose fans included Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, rejected the idea of what she described as a “western perception that the African female is a downtrodden wretch”, said the BBC.

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Librarians sue Arkansas state over law banning them from giving ‘obscene’ books to children

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Move comes as rightwing groups increase pressure to remove books, most written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of colour

The American Library Association and the Authors Guild are among a group of organisations bringing a lawsuit against the state of Arkansas over a law which makes it a crime for librarians to give children books with “obscene” content.

The lawsuit involves 17 plaintiffs, including the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), the Association of American Publishers and the American Booksellers Association.

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Nobel literature prize fell into my life ‘like a bomb’, says Annie Ernaux

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In conversation with Sally Rooney at Charleston festival author says award has hindered her ability to focus on writing

Annie Ernaux, the French winner of the 2022 Nobel prize in literature, has said she never wanted the award and that it fell into her life “like a bomb”, hindering her ability to focus on writing.

In conversation with the novelist Sally Rooney on the final day of Charleston festival, Ernaux was talking via an interpreter as she explained her tricky relationship with the prize.

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Elizabeth I heavily influenced by loss of mother Anne Boleyn at young age

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Evidence that both women experienced stress and anxiety, with Elizabeth traumatised by mother’s death and issue of marriage

Elizabeth I was heavily influenced by her mother Anne Boleyn, despite the fact that the latter died when the Tudor queen was less than three years old, according to the historian and author Tracy Borman.

As well as being influenced by feminist ideas that were ahead of their time, Borman said there was evidence they both experienced stress and anxiety.

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James M Cain: lost story by ‘poet of the tabloid murder’ discovered in Congress library

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Strand Magazine will publish Blackmail, a tale of a blind Korean war veteran, found by New York editor Andrew Gulli

A New York editor and literary detective is celebrating the discovery and release of an unpublished short story by James M Cain, one of the greats of American noir, a “poet of the tabloid murder” whose works made famous on film include The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity and Mildred Pierce.

“For all the work that you do,” said Andrew Gulli, editor-in-chief of the Strand Magazine, “like 2% of the time you hit the jackpot. I just feel so good. It’s worth it.”

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The Enormous Crocodile among latest Roald Dahl books to be adapted for stage

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Roald Dahl Story Company announces new shows, including a large-scale circus and a reading of The Magic Finger

A slate of Roald Dahl adaptations has been announced, including a family musical based on The Enormous Crocodile, a reading of The Magic Finger and a large-scale circus show featuring many of the author’s most famous characters.

The three shows will join the new musical The Witches, co-produced by the National Theatre and readying for its debut in November, while a further four creations have been commissioned by the theatre division of the Roald Dahl Story Company and are under development.

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Martin Amis, era-defining British novelist, dies aged 73

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The celebrated author of Money and London Fields, whose works defined the 80s literary scene, died of oesophageal cancer on Friday at his home in Florida

Martin Amis, the influential author of era-defining novels including Money and London Fields, and the memoir Experience, has died at the age of 73 at his home at Lake Worth in Florida . His wife Isabel Fonseca said that the cause was cancer of the oesophagus.

Amis was among the celebrated group of novelists including Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes, whose works defined the British literary scene in the 1980s.

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