"His wife cooks, he says, an admired female characteristic in his novels, but only dishes that he doesn’t eat. “Some vegetarian things,” he sighs. He sticks to ready-made microwave meals, like many of his characters." Michel Houellebecq has lunch Financial Times ft.com/content/73338e…

In the mail: very pleased to see ARC of Ghazaleh Alizadeh's 'The House of the Edrisis' (vol. 1), coming 10/2024 from Syracuse U Press press.syr.edu/supressbooks/6… Far too little (near-)contemporary Iranian fiction makes it into English ! (Only volume one, but vol. two coming 2/2025.)

OK, I found the culprit. It's Sabato himself 😆

"One of these days some pseudo-genius is going to start telling me all about art and literature, and I'm going to take a knife and stick it through his ribs. And plead self-defense." Kenneth Fearing, in 'Dagger of the Mind' complete-review.com/reviews/noir/f…

New review: 'Overstaying' by Ariane Koch complete-review.com/reviews/suisse… Published in the UK by Pushkin Press earlier this year; now out in the US from Dorothy, a publishing project

Shortlist for The Booker Prizes announced thebookerprizes.com/media-centre/p…

Looks interesting upress.umn.edu/9781517919108/…

"Who Am I to Judge? On Reviewing Works in Translation": Lily Meyer PIIRS tomorrow at noon ptic.princeton.edu/events/2024/wh…

Shortlist for the German Deutscher Buchpreis announced deutscher-buchpreis.de/en/news/item/s…

For pub day, check out this excerpt from Arian Koch's debut novel OVERSTAYING, translated by Damion Searls . . . Literary Hub! lithub.com/overstaying/