On Translation Browsing a Copenhagen airport bookstore, a translator picks up a book. The journey between that impulse and his eventual translation of the memoir into English was both emotional and serendipitous. In the summer of 2016 I was passing through Kastrup Airport in Copenhagen with my wife, on our way home after a visit with family. We stopped to browse the bookstore, and I noticed a reprint of a book by Danish author Tove Ditlevsen called Gift, which had first been published in 1971. I hadn’t read much of her work, but I knew she was a big name, so I bought it, even though the cover was strange, a psychedelic skull on a gray background. It did not take more than a couple of sittings to devour this memoir of Tove Ditlevsen’s life from the ages of about twenty-three to thirty-five. It chronicles her rise as a best-selling author, while she also had four failed marriages, two back-alley abortions, and a five-year near-fatal addiction to the opioid Demerol. I distinctly remember laying the book down after the final page and thinking to myself, I think this is a masterpiece. This was an intuitive judgment, not a conclusion I had come to after analyzing the text. But looking back now, I think what caused me to deem this work a masterpiece is the combination of Ditlevsen’s writing style, which is concise, honest, and ironic, combined with the content of her story, which through her many troubling experiences pulls back the... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2021-04-06 13:12:22 UTC ]
From her Louisiana roots to the quasi-imprisonment of her conservatorship, Britney Spears' 'The Woman in Me' paints the pop star's life as a Victorian nightmare. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-10-20 20:46:28 UTC ]
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The book shares secrets – Mantel’s own alongside those of the writers, historical figures and places she describes. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2023-10-19 14:40:38 UTC ]
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The tennis champion has signed a two-book deal with Penguin Random House, saying it will be the first time she has paused and reflected on her remarkable career Serena Williams is set to publish two books, the first of which, a memoir, will take an “intimate” look at her childhood and remarkable... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-10-18 14:56:05 UTC ]
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The pop star explains in her new memoir how control and sexism left her “feeling like a shadow of myself." Continue reading at HuffPost
[ HuffPost | 2023-10-17 17:25:20 UTC ]
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Athena Dixon’s The Loneliness Files: A Memoir in Essays opens on New Year’s Eve of 2021, with Dixon alone in her apartment in Philadelphia, thinking about death during a year fraught with pandemic fear. The first pieces explore her fascination with women who died on their own and, because they... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-10-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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George Stephanopoulos sells a history of the White House Situation Room to Grand Central, Random House buys a memoir from Salman Rushdie, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-10-13 04:00:00 UTC ]
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A recent memoir considers how much we concede when we regard rest as a call to judgment. Continue reading at The Atlantic
[ The Atlantic | 2023-10-12 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Acclaimed novelist Salman Rushdie is releasing a memoir about his experience being attacked on stage last year. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-10-11 15:57:11 UTC ]
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As reported by Publishers Weekly earlier this morning, Random House will publish Salman Rushdie’s new memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, on April 16, 2024. The book will mark Rushdie’s first time speaking at length about the brutal attack he suffered while onstage at the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-10-11 15:03:03 UTC ]
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Rushdie, who was grievously injured onstage last year, said the forthcoming book was a way “to answer violence with art.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-10-11 14:10:29 UTC ]
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The author describes the book, subtitled Meditations After an Attempted Murder, as ‘a way to take charge of what happened, and to answer violence with art’Salman Rushdie’s memoir Knife, about being stabbed last year, will be published on 16 April next year, Penguin Random House has announced.The... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-10-11 13:36:53 UTC ]
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Writers are often advised to write as if we are dying. Awake to our mortality, the theory goes, we will write with urgency and acuity about what matters. We will write honestly, vulnerably, bravely without fear of judgement. We will write for the pure readers: ourselves and our loved ones. We... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-10-11 08:50:48 UTC ]
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Showing Up Every Day: A Conversation with Dewaine Farria, by Matt Gallagher Interviews [email protected] Tue, 10/10/2023 - 15:38 Dewaine Farria belongs to the world. As a US Marine, he served in Jordan and Ukraine, and spent much of his... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2023-10-10 20:38:06 UTC ]
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“Raw Dog,” by the comedian Jamie Loftus, is an investigative memoir that’s part gonzo travelogue and part takedown of the factory farming system. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-10-06 09:00:48 UTC ]
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Safiya Sinclair writes in her memoir How to Say Babylon, “The perfect daughter was nothing but a vessel for the man’s seed, unblemished clay waiting for Jah’s fingerprint.” The memoir, Sinclair’s first, is about her journey to shaping a future that isn’t limited by the idea of the perfect... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-10-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
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“Like the dead‑seeming, cold rocks, I have memories within that came out of the material that went to make me. Time and place have had their say.” So begins with an intense, undeniable beauty the memoir of one of America’s great writers, Zora Neale Hurston. I read her 1942 autobiography, Dust... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-10-05 09:00:52 UTC ]
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In his fond memoir “Making It So,” the actor traces the path from the working class to the Shakespearean stage to “Star Trek” superstardom. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-10-03 09:00:17 UTC ]
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In his new work, the author of 'Such a Lovely Little War' and 'Saigon Calling' switches from memoir to graphic fiction to continue his story about the course of the Vietnam War. An 11-page excerpt. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-10-03 04:00:00 UTC ]
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In his memoir “The Controversialist,” Martin Peretz reflects on his long tenure as publisher and editor of The New Republic. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-10-02 14:15:47 UTC ]
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October is full of fabulous nonfiction books to add to your TBR, from a speculative memoir to a mediation on bears and the natural world. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2023-10-02 10:32:00 UTC ]
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