From the shock and awe of labour to domestic isolation, a wave of recent novels captures the transformative nature of being a motherThey say nothing prepares you. Before having my baby, I approached the literature of motherhood as though I were about to sit an exam. If my studies tempered the shock of birth and early parenthood, then I didn’t notice. The sheer physical and emotive force of the experience left me profoundly shaken. Words felt insufficient. And yet I kept reading – everything I could get my hands on. I wanted answers. I wanted to feel recognised. I wanted this untranslatable experience to be translated into language. Most of all, I think, I wanted restitution for all the maternal stories that had been left untold by centuries of silencing and minimising, not just for myself, but for all of us.Books about motherhood come in waves: the recent spate only the latest in a long line of literary endeavours. In the 1950s there was Shirley Jackson’s Life Among the Savages. The 1960s wave saw Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone and Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, alongside Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique; the 1970s The Women’s Room by Marilyn French, Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born, and In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens by Alice Walker. In the 1980s writing about motherhood became even more transgressive and imaginative, with Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. The early 2000s saw an... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2024-01-20 11:00:01 UTC ]
Novelists and poets, Bernardine Evaristo, Jeanette Winterson, Stephen Marche and others, consider the threats and thrilling possibilities of artificial intelligenceChatGPT seems to have blindsided us all. In less than a year it has proved that it can make writers redundant, which is one of the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-11-11 09:00:30 UTC ]
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A crop of new nonfiction books, all out this coming week, explore the lives and legacies of trailblazing women around the world, from artists and activists to novelists and scientists. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-10-27 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Best of Young British Novelists 2023 ‘Certainly this kind of thing just happened sometimes – it was a glitch, an unfortunate error, and could happen to anyone.’ – Rostrum The post Eley Williams appeared first on Granta. Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2023-10-25 16:21:36 UTC ]
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Best of Young British Novelists 2023 ‘It dawned on her, the fact sliding ice-cold into her body; now that she had crossed the border into her forties, Alma herself was no longer eligible for the scheme.’ – The Termite Queen The post Olivia Sudjic appeared first on Granta. Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2023-10-25 16:15:22 UTC ]
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Best of Young British Novelists 2023 ‘She rings a tiny cymbal over your body. She says, The experience is finished now.’ – Best Last Minute Spa Deal for Under £40 The post Yara Rodrigues Fowler appeared first on Granta. Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2023-10-25 15:37:27 UTC ]
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Best of Young British Novelists 2023 ‘I don’t remember his face, nor him as a whole.’ – Kweku The post Derek Owusu appeared first on Granta. Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2023-10-25 14:58:42 UTC ]
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Best of Young British Novelists 2023 ‘If Wales win tonight, everything will turn out okay.’ – Wales The post Thomas Morris appeared first on Granta. Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2023-10-25 14:51:57 UTC ]
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Best of Young British Novelists 2023 ‘He was grumpy in a way that I enjoyed. It reassured me that he was easily displeased – he was discerning, I thought.’ – Circles The post Anna Metcalfe appeared first on Granta. Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2023-10-25 14:45:13 UTC ]
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Best of Young British Novelists 2023 ‘The monstrous years of my late teens lay lined up alongside the rest of my life like bullets in a gun.’ – Theories of Care The post Sophie Mackintosh appeared first on Granta. Continue reading at Granta
[ Granta | 2023-10-25 14:39:37 UTC ]
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Ananda Devi Wins the 2024 Neustadt Prize News and Events [email protected] Tue, 10/24/2023 - 18:02 Ananda Devi, winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Photo by J. F. Paga, courtesy of GrassetNORMAN, OKLA. (Tuesday, October 24,... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2023-10-24 23:02:22 UTC ]
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Commercial book publishing was (and is) unbearably white. In 1971, when Toni Morrison became a trade editor, about 95 percent of the fiction published by the big commercial houses was by white authors. By 2018, that number dropped only to 89 percent. One of the only other black women working as... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-10-24 08:50:40 UTC ]
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Three novelists reimagine Mary Shelley’s life and loves and her most famous creation. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2023-10-02 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Writing about pop culture and current technology is always a gamble, pitting critique of the present against longevity, a story that will still feel relevant after we’re gone. But for novelists (present company included) who were exposed to the Real World before the, um, real world, reality TV... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-09-27 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors have entered a war over words with OpenAI for using their books as ‘training’ feedstockBattles between human and artificial intelligence are no longer science fiction. The strikes in Hollywood led by the united guilds of actors and screenwriters have a common, intangible enemy: the... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-09-23 15:03:31 UTC ]
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In this post-Fleabag world, publishing has become obsessed with the inner turmoils of messy millennials – but isn’t it time they pulled themselves together? Meet the novelists subverting the clichesYou’ve probably come across this woman: she is unfulfilled in her career, has been abandoned by at... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-08-08 15:19:43 UTC ]
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The freshly announced “Booker’s dozen” of titles longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize is making its way around the literary internet, so let’s see what the morning tides have brought in. There are four debut novelists on the list, and Irish writers nabbed a record four out of the 13 nominations... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-01 14:43:06 UTC ]
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Previously nominated authors Sebastian Barry, Tan Twan Eng and Paul Murray join 13-strong field including four debuts• Irish writers, debuts – and groundbreaking sci-fi: the Booker longlist in depthA longlist of 13 “original and thrilling” books offering “startling portraits of the current” are... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-08-01 08:00:00 UTC ]
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They interrupt narrative and disrupt plot – no wonder novelists have been slow to warm to mobile phones. But a new generation is putting technology at the heart of their workWhat do you call a phone when it rings in a fictional world? “Mobile” and “cell” are old, “smartphone” is almost a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-07-22 10:00:09 UTC ]
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Margaret Atwood, James Patterson and Suzanne Collins are among thousands of writers endorsing an open letter from the Authors Guild urging AI companies to obtain permission before incorporating copyrighted work into their technologies. ... Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2023-07-18 21:52:26 UTC ]
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James Patterson, Suzanne Collins and Margaret Atwood are among thousands of writers endorsing an open letter from the Authors Guild urging AI companies to obtain permission before incorporating copyrighted work into their technologies Continue reading at ABC News
[ ABC News | 2023-07-18 20:54:45 UTC ]
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