This excellent cradle-to-grave biography of a much loved novelist who goes in and out of fashion captures her alarming habits and tormented love affairsIn 1971 the author Barbara Pym was at her day job at the International African Institute when she noticed “Mr C” laboriously attacking his lunchtime sandwich with a knife and fork. Pym made a mental note of the detail before asking herself ruefully, “Oh why can’t I write about things like that any more – why is this kind of thing no longer acceptable?” Ten years earlier, Jonathan Cape had dumped her after her sixth book on the grounds that her brand of anthropological observation of English social manners was old lady-ish, dull and didn’t sell. As an extra humiliation, no other publishing house had been interested in picking up Miss Pym: books built on “the daily round of trivial things” could hardly compete with Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal or, if you were feeling fancy, Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Jonathan Cape had even published John Lennon (Pym liked the Beatles, but still). Clearly there was no place in contemporary literature for Mr C and his oddly formal way with a sandwich.There is nothing unusual about major minor novelists having a disappointing and disproportionate decline, followed by a posthumous flowering in reputation and sales. What’s unusual about Pym is that her phoenix moment came while she was still alive. In 1977 the Times Literary Supplement asked well-known... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-04-08 06:30:07 UTC ]
Cultural Cross Sections Baret Magarian Photos by Pierpaolo Florio A novelist living in quarantine in Florence looks back at Italy’s cultural history and then forward, considering whether something positive might rise from the ruins that the virus will... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-03-23 21:14:07 UTC ]
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Two novelists have partnered to build A Mighty Blaze, a initiative to promote other authors and their new books on social media. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-03-23 04:00:00 UTC ]
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First-time novelists with books out or coming soon talk about their changes of plans and how they’re spending these unusual days. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-03-18 20:00:14 UTC ]
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For centuries, novelists and fiction writers have imagined what plagues and virus outbreaks could look like, and many readers are seeking these books out amid concerns about the coronavirus. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-03-12 09:00:29 UTC ]
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We can’t stop telling stories about pandemics, even as we wait for one to hit us. As coronavirus spreads across the world, so have headlines about the ways that storytellers, from those in Babylonia to contemporary novelists and Hollywood, have used infectious disease for narrative effect. The... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-03-02 16:51:35 UTC ]
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My Dark Vanessa author Kate Elizabeth Russell was driven to reveal details of her past when accused of inauthenticity – but should we be seeking the truth elsewhere?Our world, more than at any time in history, is all about stories. Snapchat feeds capture your entire day, Instagram users... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-03-02 06:00:36 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has pre-empted a “ground-breaking” study of global crises by political economist Jerome Roos, one of the most talked about titles ahead of the London Book Fair. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-27 02:08:45 UTC ]
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Novelists rub shoulders with presidents, chefs, comedians and thriller megastars on longlist to define the title with the biggest impact on the book worldIt could be almost the setup for a joke, but a former president, a Booker winner and an erotic fiction superstar have walked on to the British... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-02-14 06:01:23 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape will publish an autobiographical novel by Martin Amis later this year, with the book described as his "most intimate and epic work to date". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-02-14 00:11:42 UTC ]
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The 1890s saw pioneering works of science fiction, detective fiction, and Gothic horror all published, by some of the greatest English, Scottish, and Irish writers of the age. In the United States, too, novelists addressed social issues, sometimes in comic ways, while social realism continued to... Continue reading at Interesting Literature
[ Interesting Literature | 2019-12-31 15:00:10 UTC ]
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“The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison” capture the fiercely intelligent and irreverent author of “Invisible Man” in conversation with other novelists and critics of his day. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-12-19 10:00:10 UTC ]
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A deliciously original study of the cheap editions of Pride and Prejudice and other novels – ignored by literary scholars – casts new light on her readershipJane Austen aficionados think that they know the story of their favourite author’s posthumous dis-appearance and then re-emergence. For... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-12-11 07:30:31 UTC ]
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“My Brilliant Friend” and Elena Ferrante’s other best-selling books are inspiring female novelists and shaking up the country’s male-dominated literary establishment. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-12-09 10:00:14 UTC ]
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It’s rare for novelists to make the leap to becoming filmmakers, but Dennis Cooper has not only made the transition, his latest movie Permanent Green Light is one of the year’s best. It reworks his longtime themes of young people, intimacy, and violence to create an affecting story of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-11-18 09:47:50 UTC ]
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It’s a confusing thing, being Irish. We’re European with none of the sophistication, and for a tiny island, we have an impressive lack of consistency. That said, we also have an impressive literary output. Our politics, social movements, and religions have born enough conflict to make a canon... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-11-15 12:00:00 UTC ]
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News and Events WLT Photo by J. Foley Opale World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, announced late Wednesday evening that Ismail Kadare is the 26th laureate of the renowned... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-10-16 22:21:35 UTC ]
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The founder and editor of literary magazine Strong Words on his appetite for tales of financial chicanery and why he won’t be returning to Jane AustenEd Needham is the editor of Strong Words, a magazine about books that he writes and edits on his own from his flat in Camden Town, a feat that has... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-10-05 17:00:51 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has pre-empted Lyndsey Stonebridge's "bold reexamination of the life and ideas" of German-American philosopher Hannah Arendt. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-04 05:39:34 UTC ]
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Petina Gappah’s “Out of Darkness, Shining Light” is the latest example of a new generation of African novelists reinventing historical fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-10-03 17:21:24 UTC ]
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Petina Gappah’s “Out of Darkness, Shining Light” is the latest example of a new generation of African novelists reinventing historical fiction. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-10-03 17:21:00 UTC ]
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