Translation in Service of More Empathy, Less Fear: A Conversation with Megan McDowell, by Veronica Esposito

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 ]

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Who Needs an MFA When You Have This Literary Fiction Trope Checklist?

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 Fiction Literary Agents Open to Submissions

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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Finding My Climate-Conscious Tribe: Black Nature Lovers and Writers

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 Scottish books written by women, research shows

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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8 Beer and Book Pairings

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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The New National Literature of Canada Is Being Written by Women

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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What to Expect When You’re Expecting Evil

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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How the New York Public Library Brought Novels to Instagram With Unexpectedly Huge Results

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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BookExpo 2019: Literary Fiction Gets the Buzz

Indie booksellers raved about both fall/winter fiction and nonfiction offerings at BookExpo, but literary fiction with plots inspired by today's news headlines is what they were most excited about. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook catches 3 billion fake accounts, but the ones it misses are the real problem

The company, which reports 2.39 billion monthly active users, says it zapped 3 BILLION fake accounts in two quarters alone, and that it caught only “most of them.” Facebook held a press call today to report to the world that it has removed 3 billion fake accounts during the last quarter of 2018... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2019-05-23 15:50:14 UTC ]
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BookExpo 2019: Third Time’s The Charm?

In 2017, after a long history of running BookExpo as a three-day show, Reed Exhibitions shortened the period when the exhibit floor was open to two days. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Creative writing graduates will 'never make a living as novelists', says Self

Will Self has declared literature to be "morphing into a giant quilting exercise", suggesting that no current creative writing graduates will make a living from literary fiction. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-05-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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MIT Press partners with Oxford Literary Festival

The MIT Press will sponsor the American Literature and Culture program at the 2019 Oxford Literary Festival, marking the first time a university press sponsor has partnered with the festival in this way.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2019-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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International Prize for Arabic Fiction Shortlist Announcement

The shortlist for the 2019 International Prize for Arabic Fiction was announced today at the El-Hakawati Palestinian National Theatre in East Jerusalem. The IPAF - often referred to as the ‘Arabic Booker’ - is an annual literary prize for prose fiction, which encourages the readership of... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2019-02-05 16:33:45 UTC ]
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Amazon hits back at claims it is to blame for falling author earnings

Retailer insists Authors Guild report that criticised the online giant for contributing to tumbling writers’ incomes used flawed figures, but Guild stands by findingsAmazon has called the conclusions of a recent report into US author earnings flawed, after the Authors Guild suggested that the... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Crashing author earnings 'threaten future of American literature'

Authors Guild survey finds writers’ incomes have fallen dramatically in five years – with literary novelists worst-hitA major survey of American authors has uncovered a crash in author earnings described as “a crisis of epic proportions” – particularly for full-time literary writers, who are “on... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-01-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Late-Night TV Hosts Give Publicity-Starved Novelists the Star Treatment

TV coverage of literary fiction has dwindled, but Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers are exceptions. “Who would have guessed that a 700-page novel would be on national TV?” one publishing executive said. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2018-12-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Stan Lee's comic books were a commentary on the social issues facing the United States

Stan Lee's impact on popular culture spurred a billion dollar superhero industry, but the comic supremo's contribution to American literature during a period of intense social change was just as rich.   Continue reading at Stuff

[ Stuff | 2018-11-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Graham Norton: ‘In a world going to hell in a handcart, Ireland is a wonderful beacon’

The chatshow host’s new novel centres on Irish lives dominated by shame and repression. Yet, after ‘decades of darkness’, the country’s legalisation of abortion and gay marriage have made him hopefulGraham Norton’s second novel, A Keeper, had not gone to press before this interview, so his... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2018-10-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Lost in the Russia scandal maze? Read your way out.

Journalistic books delving into President Trump's relationship with Moscow are two a penny. To better understand the Russia scandal, try reading books that explore Russian history. Or 'Crime and Punishment.' Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2018-08-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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