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Meet the Iraqi writer who left his home to find lost love in Seattle Mortada Gzar tells his story filled with heart, heartache and humor in his new memoir, "Im in Seattle, Where Are You?" #newdaynw Author: Danielle Pascual, New Day Northwest Published: 10:00 AM PDT April 29, 2021 Updated: 12:17 PM PDT April 29, 2021 SEATTLE — Before coming to the U.S., award-winning writer and filmmaker Mortada Gzar spent his childhood in war-zone Iraq. Now, he...

International Booker Prize Announces Its 2021 Shortlist Of the six authors shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize, four are published in English for the first time. Image: Booker Foundation Hughes-Hallett: ‘So Many Different Modes’ You may notice collisions of news from major publishing and book awards at the moment. It’s one of those times of the year when the winners’ announcements, shortlists, longlists, and jury roll-outs all run into each other like tightly smiling com...

Books ready for free download this year include today’s release of Keiichiro Hirano’s bestseller in Tokyo, ‘At the End of the Matinee.’ ‘This Complex Diversity’ The author of At the End of the Matinee leans in and sports a slightly impish smile when he hears a question he likes to answer. Better in English than he gives himself credit for being, Keiichiro Hirano, has heard the phrase “language of relationships” in an interview with Publishing Perspectives from his home in Japa...

Many Elections Ago: The First Translation from Amazon Crossing The first Amazon Crossing translation was released exactly 10 years ago today. Born into a political season, the imprint keeps widening its own campaign for international literature in a political world. Gabriella Page-Fort in Seattle. Image: Galen Maynard Page-Fort: ‘Just by Saying Yes’ Unlike today, November 2 ten years ago was a Tuesday. But like today, it was a day highly charged with political energy. On that Tuesday in 201...

Translators in the UK Call for Racial Equality in Literary Translation The UK’s Translators Association issues a statement on debates about who should translate whom–and ‘institutional barriers.’ Londoners at Kings Cross’ Granary Square on April 2, amid pandemic restrictions’ easings in the United Kingdom. Image – iStockphoto: VV Shots There are several prompts to this newly enunciated stance, and we’ll talk through them to help explicate the issues. Briefly, the translators are...

Touting a big year in entries, the US-based Global Literature in Libraries Initiative names two books its co-winners for 2021, both translated from Brazilian Portuguese by Larissa Helena. At Ipanema during the COVID-19 pandemic, November 9, 2020. Image – iStockphoto: Brunomartin Simagens ‘Sharing Perspectives From Abroad’ The Global Literature in Libraries Initiative‘ (GLLI) Translated YA Book Prize announced on Friday (April 2) that it has two winners this year. Both of them are theme...

UI offers diversity fellowship in its literary translation program but only one student has accepted Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman speaks at the inauguration of President Joe Biden on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Alex Wong/Getty Images/TNS) By Sindya Bhanoo, Washington Post Aron Aji, a literary translator and professor at the University of Iowa, runs a Facebook group called Literary Translation with more than 4,300 members from 99 countries. ...

On IBBY’s International Children’s Book Day: books on Amazon Crossing Kids’ list this year include titles from Asia for the first time, as editor Marilyn Brigham looks to expand the imprint’s range. A detail from the illustrations by Ramón París for María Eugenia Manrique’s ‘The Caiman,’ releasing July 1 from Amazon Crossing Kids. Image: ACK Update: Today (April 2) is International Children’s Book Day, as designated by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY)....

Bookshop Iraqi novelist Gzar (My Beautiful Cult) unfurls an exquisite story of life and lost love in this sweeping memoir. Raised in Basra, Iraq, Gzar spent his youth collecting scrap metal to sell for money while hiding his homosexuality, as, in Iraqi culture, gay men were often murdered. He recounts stories of violence, such as his transgender friend Mahiya, whom soldiers stalked slowly for weeks then “killed... on the spot. She was in the wrong place, dressed in the wrong clothes....