The American novelist, whose latest work is a fake biography of an avant-garde artist, on growing up in Mississippi and why her fiction has ‘never actively involved cellphones or the internet’Catherine Lacey, 37, is the author of three previous novels, including The Answers, currently being adapted for television by Darren Aronofsky, and Pew (2020), about a nameless amnesiac of ambiguous race and gender. Her new novel, Biography of X, set in a parallel America, follows a widow untangling the life story of her wife, an avant-garde artist known as X. The New York Times has called it “sprawling and ambitious… strange and dystopian”. Lacey, one of Granta’s best young American novelists in 2017, was speaking from her home in Brooklyn.Which part of the book came first: the alternate history or the fake biography?I liked the idea of writing a fake biography and the biographies I like best are usually written by someone with some kind of compromised perspective. I thought the worst person to write a biography would be a surviving spouse with a bit of a grudge, but I didn’t want to get into the heterosexual dynamics of a man writing about a woman or a woman writing about a man; it had to be two women. At the same time, I wanted the novel to be set in the mid-20th century but I wasn’t interested in writing about the actual struggles a prominent lesbian couple would have gone through in that time. So my alternate history grew out of that problem. I thought, if I have an America... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2023-04-01 17:00:01 UTC ]
As publishers vie to persuade us to pack their titles for the holidays, we chart the evolution of the ’beach read’Summer reads, beach reads, holiday reads … at this time of year, the publishing world works itself into a sweat trying to force its novels into our carry-on luggage, or over the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-07-14 07:00:23 UTC ]
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Businesses and public policy makers are tapping novelists to imagine the path forward. But how much stock should we put in the predictions of storytellers? Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2019-07-12 13:00:00 UTC ]
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Cultural Cross Sections Margaret Randall Children’s choir at the 2014 La Matanza Book Fair / Photo by Mauro Rico / Ministerio de Cultura de la Nación / Flickr When good engineers or scientists emigrate, they are able to continue their work. Novelists... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-07-10 21:07:28 UTC ]
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The New York Times invited Asian-American authors to choose photos from our archives and write short young-adult fiction inspired by them. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-06-28 17:18:37 UTC ]
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Claire Adam has won the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize for first-time novelists with her "electrifying" debut Golden Child (Faber). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-06-18 18:50:22 UTC ]
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News and Events WLT Norman, Okla. (June 11, 2019) – Robert Con Davis-Undiano, Neustadt Professor and executive director of the World Literature Today organization at the University of Oklahoma, this week announced the names of nine writers to be the jury... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-06-10 16:04:37 UTC ]
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Prolific author T.C. Boyle paid a visit to the Times studio at the Festival of books to discuss his 28th book, “Outside Looking In.” The recently released novel, which plays off his 2003 book “Drop City,” takes place on Harvard’s campus in the early 1960s and follows the “beginnings of LSD.”... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The digital ad industry has a dream. For years, players have longed for an identification system that might help companies compete for targeted ad dollars being swallowed by Facebook and Google, dominant platforms where users sign in and identify themselves. A new initiative -- led by... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2017-05-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Four candidates from the British book trade have been selected to participate in the 2017 Jerusalem International Bookfair Zev Birger (JIBF) fellowship programme, which takes place in June. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sandeep Mahal is to chair the FutureBook Conference 2015. Mahal, most recently director of The Space, will preside over the event, which takes place on 4th December at the Mermaid Theatre in central London. The full programme and preview of FutureBook 2015 has now been released by The... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jane Furze is to step down as literature festival director for the Cheltenham Literature Festival after four years in the post. A statement from the board of Cheltenham Festivals said it was announcing the news “sadly”. Furze said she was leaving to “allow myself some time out”. She will step... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A four-day live reading of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick featuring actors and writers including Liza Klaussmann, Chibundu Onuzo and A L Kennedy will be among the events at Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival. The festival, which takes place from 28th September to 12th October, will also... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Headline has acquired the memoirs of “global rugby legend” Dan Carter. Carter is a New Zeland player, and is the most capped All Blacks' fly-half of all time. His autobiography will be released after the All Blacks’ last game at this year’s Rugby World Cup, which takes place in England and... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-07-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Why must writers from Africa always bear the burden of representing their continent? They should be granted artistic freedom, as other authors areAfrican literature, as it’s called, is enjoying a bit of a moment, with the western media regularly heralding splashes, rebirths, dawns. When I... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-07-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Bloody Scotland festival is to offer free tickets to unemployed people or those on low incomes as part of a scheme to reach new audiences. The festival, which takes place in Stirling from 11th to 13th September, will give away standby tickets on the day of events if there is good... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-06-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Table and seat bookings for The Bookseller Industry Awards will close in one week’s time (Tuesday 5th May 2015 at 5pm). There are a very few tables and seats left for the event, which takes place at the Hilton Park Lane on May 11th. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-04-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Macmillan and Southbank Centre have teamed up to put on an immersive theatre production to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. As part of the Imagine Children’s Festival, sponsored The Book People, which takes place from Monday 9th February to... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-02-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hodder & Stoughton's personal development imprint Yellow Kite is to host a two-day online festival to help people stay on track with their New Year’s resolutions. This is the Year, which takes place this Thursday 22nd and Friday 23rd January, will help “transform your body and mind, get... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins and the BFI are collaborating to hold a virtual sci-fi festival on 15th and 16th November. The festival will take place as part of the BFI’s three month celebration of sci-fi, "Days of Fear and Wonder", which takes place at BFI Southbank and venues across the UK until... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The debut novel by S.E. Grove has earned almost unanimous critical praise for its originality and the fascinating world in which it takes place. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2014-06-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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