April 2, 2009 8:01 pm

Omni Daily News

Put Some Poetry in Your Day: April is National Poetry Month and each day you can discover a terrific poem to spice up your morning on the NEA’s Poetry Out Loud website. Today’s offering is “The Poet” from Yone Noguchi (1875-1947) who might be called the progenitor of Japanese poetry in English since he was the first to publish in this language. Noguchi  also happens to be the father of the great sculptor, designer and trans-cultural icon Isamu Noguchi.

Dynamic Duos in Foreign Fiction:  The six shortlisted books for the UK’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize were announced yesterday in London. The award recognizes both the author and the translator of a work of fiction that has been translated and published in the UK.  Both partake of the £10,000 purse, too. I was particularly pleased to see that novelist Ma Jian and translator Flora Drew made the list for the powerful novel Beijing Coma (an Amazon Best of the Month Pick in May 2008).  Winners will be announced on May 14. [via The Literary Saloon]

Cha-ching!  2009 IMPAC Shortlist Announced: And across the waters in Ireland…the short list for the 2009 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for a single work of fiction published in English was announced this morning.  It was a big year for American authors since four of the eight short list titles are from the US: Junot Díaz, Travis Holland, David Leavitt, and Michael Thomas. And, all but David Leavitt’s novel were debuts. As the IMPAC committee itself proudly acknowledges, the IMPAC prize of €100,000 is some seriously mad cheddar: “The Award is worth €100,000 and is the world’s most valuable literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English.” [via Bookninja]

Aussie’s Novel Getting Raves:  Check out Ron Charles’s review of Torsten Krol’s much hyped novel Callisto in the Washington Post. Charles laments the novel’s length: “Callisto” would have been twice as good at half its length.”  However, he goes on to describe the novel’s ending is a knockout.”  Readers seem to think it’s worth the slog. So far, it is garnering five-star raves across the board from Amazon customers. [via The Washington Post]

–Lauren