“Silence Became My Mother Tongue”: A Conversation with Sulaiman Addonia, by Anderson Tepper

Interviews Photo of Sulaiman Addonia by Alexander Meeus. For me, one of the most astounding books of this past year—which may have slipped your attention due to the pandemic—was Silence Is My Mother Tongue, the second novel by Ethiopian Eritrean writer Sulaiman Addonia (@sulaimanaddonia). Published last September by Graywolf Press, the novel is just now beginning to get the recognition it deserves: it was recently shortlisted for the Firecracker Award for Independently Published Literature and is a 2021 LAMBDA Literary Award finalist. Set in a refugee camp in Sudan, the novel defies expectations—shimmering with sensual detail, it charts the daily encounters and erotic dreams of an extraordinary cast of characters, with the inseparable siblings Saba and her mute brother, Hagos, at its center. Of course, since war erupted in Ethiopia’s Tigray region this past winter, Addonia’s work has only taken on more resonance. “I have been looking at the pictures of refugees fleeing Tigray and waiting outside the United Nations refugee agency office at Hamdayet in Sudan,” Addonia wrote in a New York Times editorial in late November, “the place through which my family and I passed decades ago, on our way to a refugee camp further inland. I was struck by the eyes of young children. Their gazes retreat and shift, as if their wide eyes have already become the trenches into which they will hide their childhood.” We spoke by email—Addonia... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2021-05-18 13:43:22 UTC ]
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Alternate Histories and Silenced Women: Sue Monk Kidd on Her New Novel The Book of Longing

In this episode, New York Times bestselling author Sue Monk Kidd discusses her upcoming novel The Book of Longings, which is from the point of view of Ana, the wife of Jesus. Kidd talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about how alternate histories... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-04-09 17:30:46 UTC ]
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Diversifying the Translation Field: A Conversation with John Keene, by Veronica Esposito

Interviews Veronica Esposito John Keene is the author of Counternarratives, which received an American Book Award and the Republic of Consciousness Prize. He is also the recipient of a Lannan Literary Award and a MacArthur Fellowship. He is the... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-03-30 15:27:14 UTC ]
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Hope Is the Most Powerful Arrow: A Conversation with Joshua Wong and Jason Y. Ng, by Tiffany Hawk

Interviews Tiffany Hawk In 2012, at sixteen years old, Joshua Wong and the pro-democracy student group he founded took on the Hong Kong government, mobilized more than one hundred thousand student protesters, and surprised the world by successfully... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-03-23 16:00:04 UTC ]
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In Conversation with Jason Reynolds, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature

Every Monday through Friday, AudioFile’s editors recommend the best in audiobook listening. We keep our daily episodes short and sweet, with audiobook clips to give you a sample of our featured listens. AudioFile’s Josephine Reed spoke with author and National Ambassador for Young People’s... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-10 08:48:25 UTC ]
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Egmont snaps up new Laura Ellen Anderson series

Egmont has snapped up a new illustrated fiction series by Amelia Fang creator Laura Ellen Anderson.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-03-09 08:58:32 UTC ]
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A Conversation with Poet David Ferry on the Occasion of His 96th Birthday

In 2013, I corresponded with David Ferry by phone to conduct a wide-ranging interview on his poetry, translations, and literary life. He had just won the National Book Award for Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations and was still at work on Virgil’s Aeneid which he published in 2018. Today,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-05 09:48:44 UTC ]
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The Best Book Club Questions to Jump Start Conversation: Critical Linking, March 1, 2020

An awesome daily roundup of the most interesting bookish links from around the web. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2020-03-01 11:30:56 UTC ]
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Who should star in the upcoming BBC adaptation of Conversations With Friends?

Sally Rooney’s takeover of the world continues apace today with the announcement that the Irish literary phenom’s debut novel Conversations With Friends will be adapted into a twelve-part series for the BBC. Like the upcoming BBC/Hulu adaptation of Rooney’s 2019 juggernaut Normal People, which... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-25 18:39:10 UTC ]
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BBC Three adapting Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends

BBC Three is adapting Sally Rooney’s 2017 debut novel, Conversations with Friends, into twelve half an hour episodes directed by Oscar-nominated Irish film director Lenny Abrahamson. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-24 15:37:51 UTC ]
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Anderson Press signs Wheatle's first historical YA

Andersen Press is publishing Cane Warriors by Alex Wheatle, a "visceral" historical novel about the real-life slave uprising against British plantation owners in Jamaica in 1760 known as Tacky’s War. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-21 07:47:08 UTC ]
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What to Leave In, What to Leave Out: My Conversations with David Foster Wallace

When you’re writing a memoir, you find that you’re obliged to confront your own ideas about the nature of memory. In Gore Vidal’s own splendid memoir Palimpsest, he suggests that when we remember an event, we don’t remember it as it actually happened, but rather that we remember our memory of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-02-11 09:48:31 UTC ]
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Literary LA: Viet Thanh Nguyen in Conversation with Tom Lutz

Subscribe on iTunes | Spotify | SoundCloud | LARB Editor-in-Chief Tom Lutz is joined by author and USC Professor Viet Thanh Nguyen, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Sympathizer, at a recent LARB Luminary Dinner. Viet begins by talking about about his family’s... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-01-27 20:01:38 UTC ]
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WriteGirl Has My Heart: A Conversation with Keren Taylor

I KEEP FOLDING DOWN the corners of pages in this latest anthology from WriteGirl. It’s that kind of book, contains multitudes, it does — 180 young writers represented, and a range of genres, too: poetry, prose, drama, song — and in between selections, tips to keep a writer of any age on task:... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-01-16 18:00:49 UTC ]
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“Still Evolving”: A Conversation with Staceyann Chin

STACEYANN CHIN MADE a name for herself performing poetry on Russell Simmons’s Def Poetry Jam, but her work extends beyond her electrifying spoken-word performances. She is a civil rights activist and teacher, published a critically acclaimed memoir in 2009 called The Other Side of Paradise,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-12-29 18:00:18 UTC ]
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Piatkus acquires guide to anxiety for mothers

Piatkus is publishing a book to improve mental wellbeing in motherhood, Mind Over Mother: Every Mum’s Guide to Worry and Anxiety in the First Year, by Anna Mathur in May 2020.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-12-18 18:09:29 UTC ]
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An American Boy and His Jamaican Nanny: A Conversation with Ross Kenneth Urken

“UNLIKE MOST JEWISH BOYS from New Jersey, I have a Jamaican accent,” writes Ross Kenneth Urken in Another Mother, his memoir in which he goes in search of both his recollections of the Jamaican nanny who raised him and all of the things he never knew about her before she died. He writes,... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-11-24 20:00:33 UTC ]
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More Norwegian Family Scandal: A Conversation with Vigdis Hjorth

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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Fact-Checking Help from Readers: A Conversation with Ann Patchett on “The Dutch House”

ANN PATCHETT IS an American writer and independent bookseller who has authored eight novels, three books of nonfiction, co-authored a children’s book, and edited two books of essays. Her latest novel is The Dutch House, which was released this September. Patchett has received numerous awards and... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books

[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-11-12 20:00:45 UTC ]
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