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Friday 5 December 2008

Alien

That Nobel grandee's complaint about American publishers not translating enough foreign literature may have some merit, but when I went looking for titles by this year's Prize-winner, there wasn't exactly an abundance of riches on Amazon UK. The Evening Standard's books editor had a similarly frustrating experience:

Le Clézio... has many connections to Britain. The son of a British doctor, he grew up speaking both French and English. As a child, he regularly holidayed in Britain and went on to study English at Bristol University. He cites Stevenson and Joyce as his favourite novelists... But here Le Clézio's work is barely available...There is perhaps just one of [his] many books that can, at a stretch, be classed as being in print in Britain...Otherwise, zilch... Meanwhile, worthless new titles fill the shops each season and good books have ever shorter shelf-lives. The Nobel, with its wacky track record  - won by Galsworthy, not by Tolstoy, Joyce or Proust - is far from infallible as the ultimate award. But if it makes us feel momentarily abashed about that complacency, it serves some purpose.

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