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 International Prize, her translations have been published in the New Yorker, Tin House, the Paris Review, Harper’s, and McSweeney’s, among others. Veronica Esposito: As a translator, you’ve primarily worked with writers from Chile and Argentina, a region with a very rich literary history, and you are the primary translator for two of the standout authors to recently emerge from the Southern Cone—Alejandro Zambra and Samanta Schweblin. What is special about this region and its literatures? Megan McDowell: I’m not an academic or a critic, so I’m very reluctant to try to draw connecting lines through the literary histories of countries I live in but that aren’t mine. Every time I make a generalization, all the exceptions spring to mind. But, my assumptions or predispositions go something like this: Chilean writers tend to look inward, to play with autofiction, to write the domestic and the personal. Argentine writers tend toward the surreal, toward madness and fantasy and the uncanny. Both, I think, can get pretty experimental with form. Both have histories of dictatorship and state violence, which can rear its head in fictions in various ways. If you look at the writers I’ve translated, these... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-22 15:20:00 UTC ]
The summer before my freshman year, a kind family friend gave me a crash course in cultural awakening. She loaded me up with Fuentes, Martí, and Cortázar—all names tethered to any Latin American literature syllabus worth its salt. But it was the works of Gabriel García Márquez that stood out to... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-09-20 08:48:41 UTC ]
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Stella Count researchers say gender parity reached by most publicationsResearchers have praised most Australian publications for reaching gender parity in their book review sections last year.Of published book reviews in Australia in 2018 49% were for books written by women, according to... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-09-18 18:00:08 UTC ]
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Hamish Hamilton has bought a book by author Avni Doshi, billed as “a sly and searing debut from an unmissable new voice in literary fiction”. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-13 07:57:52 UTC ]
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After years as an Amazon affiliate, the African American Literature Book Club, an online portal dedicated to black books, literacy and a wide variety of book-related services, is severing most of its commercial ties to the online retailer. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-09-12 04:00:00 UTC ]
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His latest book looks at society’s long history of getting it wrong when it comes to judging people. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-09-10 09:00:11 UTC ]
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There is much to be said of importance for literary culture in general and black American literature in particular when we reflect on the life of the late novelist Paule Marshall. I will discuss all this, but I’d like to begin with an anecdote about my only encounter with this grand lady. On... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-09-05 08:47:45 UTC ]
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We need more women in tech, so when women in the field write about it, it's important to pay attention. Get insight from these books by women in tech. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-09-04 10:34:21 UTC ]
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When I first joined a workshop in 1994, American literary fiction was dominated by and continually lauded a “quiet” kind of writer, one often influenced by J.D. Salinger, Ernest Hemingway, or Raymond Carver. I loved literary fiction—I’d been reading, writing, and submitting it since high school.... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-08-16 11:00:22 UTC ]
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In her creative and critical work, Toni Morrison sought to remap the contours of American literature and culture. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2019-08-07 06:00:28 UTC ]
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Toni Morrison, giant of American literature and the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, has passed away. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-08-06 14:08:13 UTC ]
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Interviews Matthew Davis Ugandan novelist and short-story writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s first novel, Kintu, won the Kwani Manuscript Project in 2013 and was longlisted for the Etisalat Prize in 2014. She was awarded the 2014 Commonwealth... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2019-08-06 13:42:31 UTC ]
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All photos courtesy of Hannah Colen. Held in Washington D.C., the Second-Annual Asian American Literature Festival took place this year at multiple locations including the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Freer|Sackler Galleries, and kicked off at Franklin Park down the street from the Eaton... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-08-05 16:16:47 UTC ]
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Writing literary fiction stories? Forget what you’ve learned about complex characters and earned endings. What you really need is to include the required tropes. To help you out, we’ve created this handy checklist. Literary Fiction Trope Checklist _____ 1. Starts with character waking up _____... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-26 11:00:50 UTC ]
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Literary agents are gatekeepers of the publishing industry. Find literary fiction literary agents open to submissions in this post. List will be updated regularly. The post Literary Fiction Literary Agents Open to Submissions by Robert Lee Brewer appeared first on Writer's Digest. Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2019-07-26 11:00:18 UTC ]
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Scrolling book-reveals for Lit Hub’s Climate Change Library I sighed, “Here we go again.” On the first day, “Part One: The Classics” listed 48 books written by mostly white authors. The four exceptions, Robert D. Bullard, a Black American and Winona LaDuke, an Indigenous North American, along... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-26 08:50:12 UTC ]
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Only 37% of books published in Scotland over the course of 2017 were written by women, showing gender inequality is still “structural and persistent”, according to new research shared by pressure group ROAR. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-26 05:14:33 UTC ]
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It’s a cliché among authors that we write the books we wish existed, but two of the many reasons I set out to write The Lager Queen of Minnesota was because I wanted to read literary fiction set in a brewery, and frankly, I also wanted a reason to bum around the country researching contemporary... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-19 11:00:19 UTC ]
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As an American-born literature scholar and writer who became a permanent resident of Canada last year, I’ve spent a lot of time recently wondering how to differentiate between American literature and Canadian literature. Growing up in the 1980s, I saw these two nations as not just contiguous but... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-10 11:00:48 UTC ]
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Literary fiction is increasingly borrowing from the horror genre to explore the fears and anxieties of modern motherhood. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-07-06 09:00:14 UTC ]
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The idea makes practically no sense at all. Full works of long-form literary fiction uploaded to ... Instagram? And specifically to Instagram Stories, a format known for its fast and fleeting posts about nights on the town and outfits of the day? But the New York Public Library pulled it off,... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2019-06-14 20:20:07 UTC ]
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