The new Elena Ferrante is just one of the exciting novels in translation coming next year. Lara Feigel talks to the UK editors who are rediscovering classics and finding new audiencesThere are voices that speak to us across oceans and centuries with more intimacy than the people who surround us in our daily lives. These can speak directly with clarity and honesty: think of Elena Ferrante, whose feverishly awaited new novel The Lying Life of Adults is written from the perspective of an adolescent girl disillusioned by the “unreliable animals” inhabiting the adult world; or Natalia Ginzburg, writing in The Little Virtues that after the war “we cannot lie in our books and we cannot lie in any of the things we do”. They can speak meanderingly out of troubled nights, entering our dreams: think of Vigdis Hjorth, writing in Will and Testament that “it is terrible that someone who has been destroyed spreads destruction, and how hard that is to avoid”. Or they can speak precisely and carefully, allowing us to access our own hopes and fears by describing material surroundings in minute detail. In Territory of Light, Yūko Tsushima’s autobiographical tale of motherhood in the wake of divorce, there are long descriptions of the flat where she lives alone with her daughter: “The apartment was filled with light at any hour of the day.”From postwar Italy, from contemporary Norway, from 1970s Japan, these narrators speak of love, suffering and domestic labour. That we have access to these... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2019-11-23 08:00:49 UTC ]
Interviews Veronica Esposito Photo by Camila Valdés Megan McDowell has translated many contemporary authors from Latin America and Spain, including Alejandro Zambra, Samanta Schweblin, and Lina Meruane. Shortlisted for the Man Booker... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-22 15:20:00 UTC ]
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If you think lit fic endings are all sorrow or question marks, think again. Here are some happy literary fiction books that will leave you hopeful. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-05-21 10:34:27 UTC ]
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Taco Bell Quarterly is the literary magazine for Taco Bell-inspired literature. When I started it, I had heard the jokes about the looming cease and desist that Taco Bell would eventually banhammer down upon me. Rebellious and having no working knowledge of copyright laws, my motto was RIDE OR... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-05-19 08:49:11 UTC ]
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San Francisco’s iconic City Lights bookstore, which has been an anchor of the city’s literary world since Lawrence Ferlinghetti founded it in 1953, is asking for help to stay financially afloat as its doors remain closed. The store launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for staff and to pay... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-10 16:03:18 UTC ]
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How can technological solutions adopted during the coronavirus outbreak foster a greater sense of connectivity in the literary world post-pandemic? Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-04-03 05:03:51 UTC ]
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Almost two years ago, I walked through a forest and found myself thinking of fairy tales. The forest is a magical place, so perhaps this is not surprising; what was surprising at the time was the creeping realization, as I walked among the trees, of how inaccessible the forest is for those who... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-12 08:48:53 UTC ]
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The debate around Jeanine Cummins’ controversial novel American Dirt will continue on March 6th when a new episode of Oprah’s Book Club airs at midnight (ET) on Apple TV+. The two-part episode centers on the Oprah Book Club selection that stirred one of the most vociferous discussions about race... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-05 17:53:35 UTC ]
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From literary fiction to fantasy, here are five books that celebrate male friendships to fight toxic masculinity and homophobia. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-03-05 11:35:47 UTC ]
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Walk into a contemporary bookstore and self-help manuals are likely to be among the first books you’ll see. In my local Barnes & Noble, a “self-improvement” section is featured in the vestibule, luring customers before they even open the store’s main doors. Inside the store, the boundary... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-29 09:49:07 UTC ]
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Get a fresh take on literary fiction with Book Riot's new podcast, Novel Gazing, your destination for lit fic news, book recommendations, and more. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-01-14 11:34:19 UTC ]
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The Street is a groundbreaking work of American literature that is as relevant today as when it was published in 1946. When it won Ann Petry the Houghton Mifflin Prize for Debut Writers, the literary world was put on notice. Everyone agreed that the novel was brilliant, but, as is the case with... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-06 09:47:44 UTC ]
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Peter Handke, the Austrian writer whose Nobel win has been causing upheaval in the literary world since it was announced in October, is now persona non grata in Kosovo, the country’s foreign minister Behgjet Pacolli announced Wednesday. Handke, who has defended or downplayed Serbian war... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-12 20:22:06 UTC ]
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Though Grace Paley never stopped writing, and the publication of her first book demonstrated that she was in fact “a writer,” her energy turned increasingly to political activity after 1960. Her desire to remain outside the literary world was abetted by her interest in the growing peace... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-11 09:48:14 UTC ]
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Today saw two new developments in the ongoing Peter Handke controversy, which has set the literary world ablaze since October 10 when the Swedish Academy announced the Austrian writer/Slobodan Miloševic eulogist as the joint winner (with Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk) of the 2019 Prize. The first... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-06 20:05:06 UTC ]
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In this episode, taped live at the Miami Book Fair, writer Jeff VanderMeer and editor Ann VanderMeer talk to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about editing The Big Book of Classic Fantasy anthology, historical understandings of fantasy, editing beyond... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-05 09:48:07 UTC ]
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The new Elena Ferrante is just one of the exciting novels in translation coming next year. Lara Feigel talks to the UK editors who are rediscovering classics and finding new audiencesThere are voices that speak to us across oceans and centuries with more intimacy than the people who surround us... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-11-23 08:00:49 UTC ]
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PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH for the first time by Verso Books, Will and Testament is the latest novel from Vigdis Hjorth, one of Norway’s leading writers. Told from the perspective of Bergljot, a theater critic estranged from her parents and siblings, the narrative is centered around the inheritance of... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-11-21 20:00:35 UTC ]
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Writers of literary fiction are supposed to disdain celebrity memoirs. They’re sucking up all the big advances and lowering the bar of what’s supposed to be Literature, right? But I’ve got a dirty reading secret. I love celebrity memoirs, particularly by standup comedians (and not just because... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-11-20 12:00:00 UTC ]
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ALMOST NO CONTEMPORARY literary fiction recounts the experience of getting an abortion. Perhaps this is because it can seem politically suspect to write in a nuanced way about its difficulties; opponents of legal abortion are all too eager to turn any mention of these difficulties into evidence... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-11-07 13:30:09 UTC ]
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August 29th. French cultural magazine Les Inrockuptibles is throwing its traditional end of summer party, also known as “le cocktail de rentrée littéraire.” On the intimate patio of the Musée Bourdelle, on the Left Bank, the big shots of France’s literary world exchange anecdotes about their... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-11-04 09:49:09 UTC ]
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