Irish-born author and broadcaster Frank Delaney, "who, like most novices, initially dismissed James Joyce's Ulysses as unreadable but later spent his career making that elusive novel about ordinary people accessible to ordinary readers," died February 21, the New York Times reported. He was 74. In addition to originating Re: Joyce, a weekly five-minute podcast to deconstruct the novel, and writing James Joyce's Odyssey: A Guide to the Dublin of Ulysses, "he was also a literary impresario and interpreter who interviewed hundreds of fellow authors and was often solicited to judge book awards, including the Man Booker Prize."
Delaney's bestselling books include the novels Ireland, Shannon, Tipperary, The Last Storyteller, The Matchmaker of Kenmare, and Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show, and the nonfiction Simple Courage: The True Story of Peril on the Sea.
Author Colum McCann told the Irish Times: "Frank Delaney was a man of great humor, grace and style. He celebrated, in T.S. Eliot's terms, the auditory imagination. He was, in many ways, an international literary lighthouse. He stood on the cliffs and shone out in every direction. We will miss his voice, but we should be glad that we had it at all."
John Banville said Delaney "had a delightful and infectious love of books, and of the novel in particular. He was not a 'highbrow', nor did he pretend to be, but certainly he was one of the media voices which from the 1970s onwards helped to lift fiction up again to its high place in the public's notion of what literature is and should be. Today's young novelists owe more to him than perhaps they realize.
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Sally Marmion, "who for nearly 20 years abridged books for readings on BBC Radio 4's prized slot Book at Bedtime," has died, the Bookseller reported. She was 53.
"For me she will always be the best abridger I have ever worked with--she had the most amazing ability to see to the heart of a book and to bring out the spirit and the lyricism as well as the plot," said Radio 4 producer Di Speirs. "She had both a phenomenal intelligence but also a hugely sympathetic understanding about where the emotional heft lay.... She passionately loved books, and I'm terribly proud of all the work we did."
Actor Juliet Stevenson, who often read Marmion's abridgements, said, "Sally was such a lovely modest person and yet a supreme mistress of perhaps the least appreciated art there is. But like a great film editor she could delve right into the heart of the available material and draw out everything that mattered, that made the human story sing out, in all its complexity, its contradictions, its humanity."
Author Deborah Levy said: "I always felt I was in safe hands with Sally. She somehow managed to chase the story without losing its complexity and humor. This is not an easy call. She always made the most astute decisions about where to end a scene and begin another--and she had a knack for bringing characters to life for radio. Sally's adaptations for my novels, Swimming Home and Hot Milk, were incredibly skilled. I am so grateful to her."