Interviews Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s astonishing debut novel, The House of Rust, winner of the inaugural Graywolf Press Africa Prize, arrived in October as if on a magical wave, imbued with an assortment of creatures—human and animal, real and imagined—that populate the city of Mombasa and its surrounding waters. Aisha, fierce and adventurous, sets off on a boat made of bones in hopes of rescuing her fisherman father who has disappeared at sea. What she encounters on her search—and return home—will enthrall and amaze. “On the surface this is a limpid tale,” writes author A. Igoni Barrett, the prize’s judge, “but it is eddied and enriched by what lurks beneath the surface of both the sea and the prose. Everything in this story sparkles.” I spoke with Bajaber about Mombasa, sea monsters, and Aisha’s journey of self-discovery, among other things. Anderson Tepper: Congratulations, Khadija. I’m curious about the story of your book’s path to publication. Did it change much since being awarded Graywolf’s Africa Prize in 2018? Khadija Abdalla Bajaber: Thank you very much. Well, it definitely changed and grew. When I’d first finished working on the book, it ended at what is now actually the midpoint. I was quite happy with that ending at the time but was already beginning to rethink things. There were subplots I’d set up at the beginning that needed resolving. So then I started developing everything more; and toward the end, when... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2021-11-15 21:42:08 UTC ]
News tagged with:
#complicated relationship
#love letter
#short stories
I also love the way that surreality and exaggeration can work in short stories in ways that they don’t often in novels. The wilder the conceit, the harder it is to sustain, like it’s rocket fuel. The post Resisting the Easy Impulse: Te-Ping Chen in Conversation with Brenda Peynado appeared first... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2021-02-26 10:59:07 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#brenda peynado
#short stories
Interviews Michael Berry is a professor of Asian languages and cultures and director of the Center for Chinese Studies at UCLA. He has published extensive works on addressing the richness and diversity of Chinese art and culture in sinophone... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-02-24 15:28:04 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#abridged version
#short period
#publishing houses
#harpercollins
Puffin has scooped the “epic” new stand-alone middle-grade novel from bestselling author Rick Riordan, Daughter of the Deep, featuring his first female protagonist. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-23 13:02:08 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#bestselling author
#puffin
Current Events On a visit to an Oklahoma City bookstore, Alex Crayon finds more than books. When I pulled into the snow-covered parking lot of Nappy Roots Books in northeast Oklahoma City, the first thing I noticed were the posters. Handwritten signs... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-02-22 21:59:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#bookshop
#random house
#bookstore
WHAT WOULD YOU DO if the person who hurt you most refused to say they were sorry? Could you forgive anyway? Best-selling author Susan Shapiro explores this universal question in her intriguing, insightful, all-too-relatable new book The Forgiveness Tour, out this past January. In her... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-21 18:00:04 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#past january
#random house
#memoir
#best-selling author
Actors Alison Oliver, Sasha Lane, Jemima Kirke and Joe Alwyn are to star in the TV adaptation of Sally Rooney's novel, Conversations with Friends (Faber.) Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-02-17 23:11:49 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#sally rooney
#tv version
#tv adaptation
READING PATRICIA LOCKWOOD’S first novel feels a lot like having your brain poisoned by the internet — or at least like having that particular contemporary condition understood. No One Is Talking About This is a searing entry into the rapidly emerging pantheon of digital culture literature, told... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-16 16:00:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#patricia lockwood
#first novel
STEPHANIE ELIZONDO GRIEST was on tour for the hardcover publication of her 2017 book, All the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands, when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She was 43 years old. “I was actually incredibly lucky that I happened to grow this Texas-sized... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-16 13:30:18 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#post ghosts
#ovarian cancer
ON THE EVENING of February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, the granddaughter of the newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley. The men and women who stormed her home and beat up her fiancé were part of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a group which Hearst would... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-02-09 16:00:37 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#hearst
“Bride of the Sea” places a cast of compelling characters in a sweeping plot that spans continents and decades. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-02-02 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
The children’s book has influence out of proportion with its 24 pages and its cardboard cover devoid of medallions. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2021-01-27 13:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#inspiring authors
#children’s book
Subscribe on Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud | In a special LARB Book Club edition of the Radio Hour, Eric Newman and Boris Dralyuk sit down with R. O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell, co-editors of Kink, a new anthology that aims to push the boundaries of traditional literary representations of love,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-01-22 20:43:36 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#garth greenwell
#anthology
#book club
British Library Publishing is to bring forward the publication of a sea shanty guide, due to overwhelming interest on Twitter and TikTok. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2021-01-15 00:28:06 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#bring forward
Interviews Barbara Epler started working at New Directions after graduating from college in 1984, and she has been its president and publisher since 2011. In 2015 Poets & Writers awarded Epler their Editor’s Prize, and in 2016 Words Without Borders... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2021-01-11 14:39:22 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#widely recognized
#jenny erpenbeck
#daša drndić
#literary community
#publishing houses
#national book award
2021 is already starting off right (movie-wise, at least): Deadline has just announced that Tiffany Haddish is in final negotiations to star in the screen adaptation of National Book Award winner M.T. Anderson’s sci-fi novel Landscape with Invisible Hand, which will be produced by MGM, Annapurna... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2021-01-06 19:07:21 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#screen adaptation
#tiffany haddish
#invisible hand
#brad pitt
#national book award
AS SOON AS I picked up Dan Chiasson’s latest book of poetry, The Math Campers, I was immediately drawn into a collaborative experience in which writer and reader make meaning together. Chiasson’s lyrical ruminations can take the form of a “choose your own adventure,” but the poet skillfully... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-01-06 18:00:18 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
LESLIE BRODY’S new biography, Sometimes You Have to Lie, describes the life of Louise Fitzhugh, author of the classic children’s book Harriet the Spy. Originally published in 1964 by Harper and Row, Harriet has never been out of print and has inspired multiple adaptations and spin-offs,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2021-01-02 13:30:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#louise fitzhugh
#classic children
#originally published
#children’s book
Interviews The Spring 2020 issue of World Literature Today explored a variety of works in the increasingly popular genre of graphic nonfiction. Now, as the year comes to a close, use of graphic media in literary storytelling is still on the rise. With... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-12-17 14:14:03 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#roast chicken
#graphic novel
Click below to watch the first virtual meeting of the Alta California Book Club, which Books Editor of Alta Journal David Ulin describes as: an opportunity for us to rethink the book club as a kind of ongoing process involving events, involving posts and interviews and discussions on the Alta... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-12-02 09:48:47 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#post watch
#pam zhang
#john freeman
#literary hub
#book club
#books editor
JoAnn Wypijewski is a writer, editor, and journalist based in New York. From 1982 to 2000, she was an editor at The Nation magazine and co-editor, with Kevin Alexander Gray and Jeffrey St. Clair, of Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence (2014). She has written for CounterPunch,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-26 18:00:16 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#life isn
#anthology