Lit Lists Earlier this spring, the editors of WLT invited twenty-one writers to nominate a single book, published since the year 2000, that has had a major influence on their own work, along with a brief statement explaining their choice. We published the longlist and then invited readers to vote on their favorites. Here are the top vote recipients, followed by the respective nominating statements: 1. M. NourbeSe Philip, Zong! 2. Deborah Levy, Things I Don’t Want to Know: On Writing 3. John FitzGerald, The Mind 4. Roberto Bolaño, 2666 5. (tie) Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing, and W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz To mark the occasion of Zong! winning the readers’ poll, M. NourbeSe Philip and Philip Metres recently took part in an email interview about the book. It will be published tomorrow on the WLT Weekly. M. NourbeSe Philip Zong! Wesleyan University Press, 2008 I discovered M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! only after I’d written abu ghraib arias, when critics saw parallels in the work. Zong! is at once a brilliant documentary long poem and a sort of ritual exorcism of the demons of the slave trade. Built out of the language of the legal document of Gregson v. Gilbert, Zong! brings to light the murder of Africans on board a slave ship in 1781 for financial gain. The kidnapped and enslaved Africans had been purposely thrown overboard so that the owner of the Zong could benefit from his insurance policy. Philip’s visionary use of the burying language... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2021-06-28 13:32:05 UTC ]
A book written in a child's voice wins the 2020 International Booker Prize, its author from a devoutly religious Dutch farming family. The post Author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Translator Michele Hutchison, Win International Booker Prize appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-08-26 16:17:28 UTC ]
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The International Booker Prize is awarded annually to the best book written in any language, translated into English, and published in the UK or Ireland. It comes with a whopping £50,000—shared equally between the author and translator. This year, the judges read 124 books in 30 languages. In a... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-26 16:02:37 UTC ]
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From The New Yorker’s archive: short stories by Zadie Smith, Jennifer Egan, and Stephen King. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2020-08-16 10:00:00 UTC ]
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The most iconic short stories in the English language, as determined by that “weird and wiggly” hive-mind, the American cultural consciousness. | Lit Hub Jill Filipovic on how Boomers—“the generation with the least stable marriages in American history”—changed family life forever. | Lit Hub... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-13 10:30:25 UTC ]
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Last year, I put together this list of the most iconic poems in the English language; it’s high time to do the same for short stories. But before we go any further, you may be asking: What does “iconic” mean in this context? Can a short story really be iconic in the way of a […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-08-13 08:50:36 UTC ]
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A Chicago brewery is partnering with Hat and Beard Press to cross-promote craft beer and a new collection of short stories by Sam Weller by brewing an Imperial stout with a label that replicates the cover of 'Dark Black.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-08-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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At Lit Hub, David Karashima asked five Japanese writers, including Yoko Ogawa and Masatsugu Ono, to discuss their favorite short stories by Haruki Murakami. Mieko Kawakami, author of Breasts and Eggs, praises the story on loneliness and lost, “Tony Takitani.” “I think of Murakami as an athlete,”... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2020-07-22 20:30:36 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK is releasing 500 Words: Black Lives Matter, a book featuring short stories children have submitted to a Chris Evans-devised Virgin Radio competition this month. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-16 10:43:26 UTC ]
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'Too Much and Never Enough,' a book written about President Trump by his niece, is dark right from the get-go. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-07-09 18:03:41 UTC ]
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Virago has acquired a new book from Sonia Purnell, telling the "explosive" story of Pamela Harriman, Winston and Clementine Churchill’s beloved daughter-in-law, and "secret weapon" during the Second World War. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-22 04:52:06 UTC ]
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Faber is to publish a collection of short stories by John Lanchester this autumn. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-18 08:59:04 UTC ]
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Short stories by contemporary Italian writers are hard to come across and almost none of them make it across the Atlantic. Booksellers and publishers seem to stay away from them because—what’s new?—they sell less, as they apparently lack “the immersive factor.” However, readers in the twentieth... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-16 08:48:49 UTC ]
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Faber is publishing Lou Kuenzler's latest middle-grade novel, inspired by the stories of the female footballers who rose to fame following the First World War. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-07 17:42:25 UTC ]
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‘The Man of the Crowd’ is one of the shorter short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe (who pioneered the short story form when it was still an emerging force in nineteenth-century magazines and periodicals). Written in 1840, the story is deliciously enigmatic and, in some ways, prefigures later... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2020-06-02 14:00:22 UTC ]
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It’s a long-standing joke in lockdown now – among those of us quarantined, self-isolating, or lucky enough to keep working from home – that we don’t know which day it is. Or even which week. And did I shower this morning, or was it yesterday? Our immediate surroundings have been so similar for... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2020-05-15 14:46:20 UTC ]
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Whether delving into chunky historical narratives or listening to short story podcasts, we’ve all been approaching reading differently during lockdown. Our reading habits can take us back in time, allow us to examine our present, or give us hope for the future. In time for the May bank holiday... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2020-05-07 13:58:54 UTC ]
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Cultural Cross Sections Alex Wade View inland from the top of Zennor Hill / Courtesy of the author Walking his dogs through the Zennor moors, a writer in Cornwall contemplates the area’s literary history and discovers the ever-growing distance between... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-05-07 13:18:25 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Svetlana Tomić Neva Lukić / Courtesy of Cultural Institution Blesok The recent collection of short stories by Neva Lukić, Endless Endings (Bokeh, 2018), originally written in Croatian and translated into English by Jeremy White, was... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-05-06 13:13:29 UTC ]
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Book Reviews Indrajit Bose The author at the Zakir Hussain Delhi College during the Bengali Literary Festival 2018 / Photo courtesy of bitanchakraborty.com Simplicity and quiet elegance never fail to impress us. The effect of a good short story often is... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-04-21 13:18:37 UTC ]
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A reviewer reflects on reading “The Moment of Tenderness,” a collection of short stories, and then returning to the 1963 novel she loved growing up. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2020-04-17 23:14:00 UTC ]
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