Toni Morrison on U.S. Insularity
French translator Alison Anderson pointed me to this article from Bibliobs the literary section of the weekly French newsmagazin Nouvel Observateur. Interesting what Toni Morrison has to say about the Horace Engdahl/American insularity situation: Toni Morrison. – Je pense que ces propos refl癡tent effectivement, ...
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Small Lives
One of the signs of a great book is that the reader feels like she is reading a great book. From the very first sentence, she knows a question has been answered, a new world has been discovered, an intellectual delicacy has been offered up to savor and more than likely, her life of reading will never be the same. It has been ...
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PEN America #9: Checkpoints
The new issue of PEN America arrived earlier this week and has a ton of interesting articles, interviews, fiction, and poetry. The pieces by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed and Anya Ulinich look great, but the real highlight to me is the transcripts from some of the PEN World Voices events. There’s no way one can attend all the ...
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2008 Man Asian Literary Prize Shortlist
Still catching up on the news of the past week, including the announcement of the five finalists for the Man Asian Literary Prize. The five shortlisted authors and their books are: Kavery Nambisan, The Story that Must Not be Told Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, Lost Flamingoes of Bombay Miguel Syjuco, ...
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Funding for the Arts, Wikis, and Brian Lehrer
I wish I had come across this sooner . . . Earlier this week the L.A. Times blog Jacket Copy posted a piece about today’s episode of the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. As part of his 30 Issues in Thirty Days series, today’s show focuses on “Arts and Culture Funding,” looking at Obama’s and ...
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Another Way to Look at It
Over at the Guardian John Freeman steps to the plate as the latest American critic to try and defend the international quality of our writers from accusations of “insularity.” He looks to the quality of the fiction shortlist for the National Book Award, pointing out that this year’s list is littered with ...
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The Whale Is Still Out There, Man . . .
MobyLives is back! Started by Dennis Loy Johnson years ago, MobyLives was one of the pioneering lit/political blogs. It was insanely popular and triumphantly smart, and it’s refreshing to have it back. In case you’re wondering what DLJ (and his wife Valerie Merians) did in the years between shutting this down ...
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