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Michael Holtmann

@michaelholtmann.bsky.social
452 followers 466 following 10 posts

Gadabout. Book person. President of the Center for the Art of Translation and its imprint Two Lines Press. (Image: "Opticks 008" detail, Hiroshi Sugimoto.)

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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
"'People in the arts are often the people who speak truth to power,' avows Holtmann." On what's happening at the NEA—and to cultural life in the U.S. Big thanks to Adam Morgan (@thefrontlist.org) and the Los Angeles Review of Books (@lareviewofbooks.bsky.social). lareviewofbooks.org/article/we-d...
lareviewofbooks.org
We Don’t Have Any Reserves | Los Angeles Review of Books
Adam Morgan writes on the impact of Trump’s coup at the NEA for small publishers and literary magazines.
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Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
I wrote about the NEA cuts and that overwhelming feeling when so many different orgs and people need our money. But there are some answers in here too, courtesy of @michaelholtmann.bsky.social and @markkrotov.bsky.social. lithub.com/on-the-lates...
lithub.com
On the Latest Threat to Literary Culture’s Fragile Ecosystem: Donald Trump
There’s an ongoing crisis in book publishing. I mean, there are many, but corporate consolidation is a threat to anyone who cares about books. When there are fewer publishers, both large and small,…
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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Bananas.
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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Elvira Navarro, translated by Christina MacSweeney, in Granta. VOICES OF ADRIANNA is forthcoming from @twolinespress.bsky.social on February 18. granta.com/images-of-wo...
granta.com
Images of Women | Elvira Navarro | Granta
‘In the years before his stroke, just how many times had her father told a woman he loved her after dating for two or three weeks?’ Fiction by Elvira Navarro, translated by Christina MacSweeney.
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MoMA Paintings and Sculpture @moma.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
Odilon Redon, Trees in the Blue Sky, c. 1883 botfrens.com/collections/14377/cont…
Gift of The Ian Woodner Family Collection
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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 22/12/2024
THE YEAR’S BEST HORROR! Love seeing THROUGH THE NIGHT LIKE A SNAKE and WOODWORM (both from Two Lines Press) in such distinguished company (and in print!) here. Thanks again, Gabino!
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Rabih Alameddine @rabihalameddine.bsky.social · 09/12/2024
Odilon Redon - Peach, 1901
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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Ha! Amazing.
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eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Best Larkin is not cynical Larkin, imo — The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time. Philip Larkin, 'The Mower' #everynightapoem Also: found poetry at Harris Teeter, spotted by a friend
The Mower
BY PHILIP LARKIN
The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, Killed. It had been in the long grass.
I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:
Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time.“we should be careful
Of each other, we should be kind 
While there is still time. -Philip Larkin” inscribed on a lemon, found in the grocery store fruit aisle
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CJ Evans @categoryofoutcast.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
It has been 20 years since Bowker found only 3% of books were translations. Of the 100 “best books” by the ny times this year a whopping… 4 are translated. How far we’ve come.
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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Breyten Breytenbach. Farewell. The first time I read it, THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF AN ALBINO TERRORIST knocked me on my ass. “They took seven years from him, and he has now struck back with a volume that seems to have been ripped from his entrails.” —J. Lelyveld www.nytimes.com/2024/11/26/w...
nytimes.com
Breyten Breytenbach, Dissident South African-Born Writer, Dies at 85
He wrote poetry in Afrikaans and prose in English in his fight against apartheid, an effort that landed him in jail for seven years and in Paris as an expatriate.
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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Breyten Breytenbach, who will be much missed: ‘History is a succession of things that ought never to have happened, and the writing act is a kind of revenge against it.’
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Maris Kreizman @maris.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Adrienne made the books section at Esquire the best one in the business. Heartbreaking to see her and it become a casualty of bad management.
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David Naimon @davidnaimon.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
What does it mean that a life can not only be animated by books but destroyed by them? That a self can be not only made by reading, but unmade by it? Dionne Brand returns to BTC to discuss Salvage: Readings from the Wreck Audio📻🔥: tinhouse.com/podcast/dion... @fsgbooks.bsky.social
tinhouse.com
Dionne Brand : Salvage : Readings from the Wreck - Tin House
What does it mean that a life can not only be animated by books but destroyed by them? That a self can be not only made by reading, but unmade by it? Dionne Brand’s latest book of nonfiction Salvage: ...
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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
it was radicals who first opened my eyes to how individual acts of repair were not gonna be the ticket. the corporations must be compelled to change. this should be a function of government for the sake of all and we must insist on it. I know this is rather earnest but the need is pressing, urgent.
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Frank Wynne @terribleman.com · 24/11/2024
Optimist: the glass is half full Pessimist: the glass is half empty Translator: when you say glass, are we talking flute, coupe, shot glass, balloon, tumbler, highball, schooner, snifter, tankard?
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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
August Wilson forever.
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Alexis Madrigal @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Oakland! Come toast the return of East Baaaayyy Boookseeellleerrrs www.eventbrite.com/e/a-toast-to... www.eventbrite.com/e/a-toast-to...
eventbrite.com
A Toast .... to occasion East Bay Booksellers' new temporary location!
We're toasting all that goes into making a good bookstore great.
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Brad Johnson @ahablives.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
As you may have heard, from me or whomever else, East Bay Booksellers is reopening. A smaller version of itself, perhaps. But no less for the wear, I suppose. We're toasting to mark the occasion on Saturday, Nov. 30 at 2pm. Swing by, if you're so inclined or available.
eventbrite.com
A Toast .... to occasion East Bay Booksellers' new temporary location!
We're toasting all that goes into making a good bookstore great.
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Little James Baldwin @nnemmanuels.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers. Support local booksellers.
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Min Chao @wordsfromtaiwan.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
"Taiwan Travelogue follows a fictional 🇯🇵 writer and her relationship with the charming yet closed-off 🇹🇼 woman who serves as her interpreter [...] this novel explores language, politics, and popular culture in 1930s Taiwan, and the shape a cross-cultural friendship takes under the weight of history."
https://www.nationalbook.org/2024-national-book-awards-longlist-for-translated-literature/
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eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Lovely news! #TaiwanTravelogue, by Yang Shuang-zi (author) and Lin Kin (translator), have won the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature! A first for Taiwan.
screenshot of Yang Shuang-zi and Lin King, Winner, 2024 National Book Award for Translated Literature for 'Taiwan Travelogue'
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Rabih Alameddine @rabihalameddine.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Piet Mondrian. Red Amaryllis with Blue Background. ca. 1907. Watercolor on paper
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Erika Meza @erikadraws.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Y sus amarillos y sus rojos y naranjas y violetas.
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CJ Evans @categoryofoutcast.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Wendell Berry
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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
It’s a personal favorite. A true touchstone. Such spectacular harmonies, such brilliant orchestration, the apotheosis of the Romantic Era. And the sublime, time-bending Adagietto. It’s almost too gorgeous. I discovered Mahler in my teens, and my life was never the same.
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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
This piece. One of the greatest. The trumpet motif borrows from the Austro-Hungarian Army’s Generalmarsch. From Mahler’s notes: “In gemessenem Schritt. Streng. Wie ein Kondukt.” At a measured pace. Strict. Like a funeral procession.
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Michael Holtmann @michaelholtmann.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
New to this blue but not all blue. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXk...
youtube.com
Miles Davis - So What (Official Audio)
YouTube video by MilesDavisVEVO
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