The Korea Herald

Spanish novel, Portuguese poems win translation awards

May 5, 2016

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Spanish-language novel and a collection of Portuguese poetry have won prizes for best translated literature.　Yuri Herrera’s “Signs Preceding the End of the World,” translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman, won the best translated book Award for fiction on Wednesday. The poetry prize has been given to Angeurolica Freitas’ “Rilke Shake,” translated from the Portuguese by Hilary Kaplan. Winning authors and translators each receive $5,000. The prize money is provided by Amazon.
Don DeLillo’s new novel considers life after death

May 4, 2016

“Zero K” 　By Don DeLillo 　Scribner (288 pages, $26)　Don DeLillo’s latest novel toggles between a remote compound in central Asia and the workaday world of New York City. In the bunker an apocalyptic cult is engaged in the cryogenic preservation of humans, whose brains and bodies are being frozen until the time when diseases have been cured and human consciousness perfected. Meanwhile, in Manhattan, an introspective young man named Jeffrey Lockhart, whose father, billionaire Ross Lockhart, is an
Fiction by ex-prosecutor tackles campus rape head on

May 4, 2016

“The Last Good Girl” 　By Allison Leotta　Touchstone (288 pages, $25)　Former federal sex-crimes prosecutor Allison Leotta continues her series featuring her fictional counterpart Anna Curtis in a too frighteningly real scenario in “The Last Good Girl.” 　College student Emily Shapiro has gone missing. She was last seen leaving a bar with a young man named Dylan, but he was chasing her down the street. The investigation reveals a video diary that Emily kept that detailed how Dylan had raped her, and
New Spenser novel is a 5-alarm thriller

May 4, 2016

“Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn” 　By Ace Atkins　G.P. Putnam’s Sons (320 pages, $270)　A troubling series of fires in mostly abandoned Boston buildings turns deadly in “Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn,” the latest crime thriller in the long-running but still potent Spenser series.　Spenser, a private detective, is called upon when the arson unit of the fire department hits dead ends investigating a fire at an old, shut down Catholic church. Three firefighters entering the church died when flames erupted
Judy Blume talks Tumblr, possible new book

May 4, 2016

NEW YORK (AP) -- Judy Blume has many projects on her mind.　She recently helped open a bookstore in Key West, Florida, where she lives much of the year. She’s starting to promote the paperback edition of her novel “In the Unlikely Event,” set in her native New Jersey in the early 1950s. She has just launched a Tumblr account (judyblumeofficial.tumblr.com), on top of her popular Twitter feed and Facebook page. And, she hasn’t ruled out a new book, despite indicating last year that “In the Unlikely
Undeterred by rescues, novelist ready to set sail again

May 4, 2016

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- A novelist who was twice rescued from storm-battered sailboats hopes his next adventure lacks in such drama. 　 South Carolina author Michael Hurley plans to sail around the world after using the experience of scuttling his sailboat on a failed trans-Atlantic crossing for his new book, “The Passage.” “The Passage” by Michael Hurley (Ragbagger Press)　“I love the freedom of sailing on the ocean. There’s no limit. The horizon extends. There’s nothing to stop you from going w
Proust’s personal archives headed to auction in Paris

May 3, 2016

PARIS (AFP) -- Intimate letters, personal photographs and rare manuscripts that once belonged to French writer Marcel Proust will go under the hammer in Paris, Sotheby’s auction house said Monday. 　The collection of some 120 items from the “Remembrance of Things Past” author’s personal archives even includes a hand-corrected proof of one of his well-known works.　The trove of artefacts, being sold by the writer’s 41-year-old great-grand-niece Patricia Mante-Proust, is to be auctioned on May 31.　
Cosmo editor Joanna Coles writing guide to modern love

May 3, 2016

NEW YORK (AP) -- Cosmopolitan editor in chief Joanna Coles is working on a “no-nonsense” guide to some very old subjects in a very new world: sex and intimacy.　Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, told the Associated Press on Monday that it plans to release a book by Coles in 2018. The book currently is untitled. According to Harper, Coles will take on what she considers a “new sexual revolution” and offer advice for how to find “sustaining love” when all the rules have changed.　“As t
Study of body-mind mysteries wins Wellcome Book Prize

Apr 27, 2016

LONDON (AP) -- Neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan won the medically themed Wellcome Book Prize on Monday with “It’s All in Your Head,” an exploration of the mysteries of psychosomatic illness.　O’Sullivan beat five other finalists to take the 30,000 pound ($43,000) prize, which aims to bridge the gap between literature and science.　The author drew on her experiences working at a London neurology hospital to probe the puzzling cases of patients whose serious symptoms have no obvious physical cause. Jo
Irish writer O’Connor and the strange music of unhappy families

Apr 27, 2016

TOULOUSE, France (AFP) - When the Irish novelist Joseph O’Connor reads his books aloud he almost sings them. Like his sister, the singer Sinead O’Connor, he is forever searching for “musicality.”　In the famously tumultuous O’Connor household, art was a family affair. 　Joseph, the eldest, began writing at 14 and published his first book at 27.　His youngest sister Sinead was a pop sensation at 21, while his other sister Eimear is a well-known painter and art historian.　But there was price to pay.
‘A seder goes hilariously wrong in author Brenda Janowitz’s novel

Apr 27, 2016

“The Dinner Party” 　By Brenda Janowitz　St. Martin’s Griffin (288 pages, $15.99 paper)　Sylvia Gold, an upwardly mobile doctor’s wife in Greenwich, Conn., is in a tizzy. Her overachiever med student daughter Becca finally has a boyfriend -- and he’s a Rothschild. Of the Rothschilds, the richest and most powerful Jewish family on earth. And he and his parents are coming for dinner. Not just any dinner, but Passover seder.　Quick, she has to redecorate the entire house, hire a chef, buy new table lin
Polish women prisoners of Nazi camp were no lilacs

Apr 27, 2016

“Lilac Girls” 　By Martha Hall Kelly 　Ballantine Books (496 pages, $26)　Martha Hall Kelly stumbled on the idea that would lead to her debut novel, “Lilac Girls,” when she decided to take a tour of the Bellamy-Ferriday house and garden in Bethlehem, Connecticut　The historic home got the Bellamy part of its name from a reverend who gained fame through his role in the Great Awakening, America’s religious revival of the mid-18th century.　About 150 years later, the 40.5-hectare farmstead was purchased
Miami author bakes her way through life

Apr 27, 2016

“Life without a Recipe” 　By Diana Abu-Jaber　Norton (272 pages, $26.95)　Diana Abu-Jaber has spent years carving out a life as a successful writer, struggling to reconcile the competing voices in her head, one from a tough-minded German grandmother and the other from her exuberant Arab father.　Through it all, she baked. Cookies and cakes, tarts and scones, a blizzard of confectioners’ sugar blanketing all difficulties, smoothing out rough edges, sweetening the bitter. In the kitchen and in life, s
Millennium sequel to be written in American detective fiction style

Apr 21, 2016

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Swedish author David Lagercrantz, who took over the Millennium crime series from the late Stieg Larsson, said the fifth book will be written in a straight-talking style popularized by Raymond Chandler.　But in an interview with the Swedish daily newspaper DN published Tuesday, Lagercrantz admitted that finding his voice in this new style was tough.　“It's so much harder to write hard-boiled fiction than I thought. Good hard-boiled prose needs rhythm. You have to vary the sentence
Beverly Cleary at 100: A salute

Apr 20, 2016

When we first meet Ramona Quimby, she’s only 4 years old and already showing signs of greatness.　She can secretly summon 15 friends to her house without her mother suspecting a thing -- at least until the children start arriving on the doorstep, expecting a party. She can ruin two birthday cakes in a single day, turn the house upside down with only a box of apples, and make herself the center of attention anywhere, any time -- with or without the paper Easter bunny ears she proudly dons for, say