CAROLINE WALSH talks us through news from the literary world
In other words . . . Irish books being translated
In Other Words . . . , a month-long free exhibition of more than 100 Irish books translated into 33 languages, was launched this week at Dublin Central Library. Running for the rest of the month, it celebrates the Ireland Literature Exchange translation-grant programme. Polish, Russian, Chinese, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Latvian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese translations are included of John Banville, Seamus Heaney, Anne Enright, Claire Kilroy, WB Yeats and Edna O’Brien, among others.
Ireland Literature Exchange is the national agency for the promotion of Irish literature abroad; the idea of the show is to illustrate the range of Irish books available in translation. A series of talks and readings accompany it, with John Boyne next Wednesday at 11.30am, Hugo Hamilton on November 17th at 6.30pm and Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin, Irish- language publisher of children’s picture books, on November 24th, also at 6.30pm. Book through the library’s Open Learning Centre on openlearning@dublincity.ie or 01-8734333.
Many of the books on display are included in the Rosetta Collection, which is part of the library’s world-books section. Containing contemporary Irish writing in translation, it is available in all branches of Dublin City Public Library, through borrowbooks.ie or by interlibrary loan throughout the country.
007 goes digital as James Bond e-books launched
Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels were launched on this side of the Atlantic as e-books this week. The 14 titles, which include Casino Royale, Live and Let Die and From Russia with Love, will be sold under the Ian Fleming Publications imprint, whose MD, Corinne Turner, says Fleming loved new technology. “He would have been thrilled by the idea of his books being available electronically.” As more than 100 million Bond books have been sold to date, and more than half the world’s population has seen a Bond film, their popularity in the new format seems pretty well assured. The e-books are available through Amazon and Waterstone’s, among other retailers.
Irish Times Poetry Now Award up for grabs
Borbála Faragó, Brian Lynch and Leanne O’Sullivan are the judges for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award 2011. The prize is part of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown council’s Poetry Now International Poetry Festival, which runs from March 24th to 27th next year. The €5,000 award will go to the best single volume of poems published by an Irish poet in the previous year. The deadline for submissions is December 1st. A shortlist of five titles will be announced in February, with the winner being declared during the festival.
