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 ]
An open letter protesting the acquisition of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s forthcoming memoir by Penguin Random House, first reported in 2021, has begun circulating in publishing circles. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-10-25 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Sofia Samatar's "The White Mosque," a singular memoir about a journey through Asia on the trail of a Mennonite sect, tracks a personal search as well. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-10-24 13:00:39 UTC ]
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The art of pornography: Steven Heller recalls being arrested, as a minor, for his art direction on the underground sex paper Screw. | Lit Hub Memoir “Every woman who enjoys horror films has at some point felt the need to explain herself.” Elizabeth Horkley revisits Kier-La Janisse’s House of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-21 10:30:03 UTC ]
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The following is an excerpt from Joy Harjo’s The Art of Memoir and appeared in Lit Hub’s The Craft of Writing newsletter—sign up here. * At unexpected points in life, everyone gets waylaid by the colossal force of recollection. One minute you’re a grown-ass woman, then a whiff of cumin conjures... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-21 08:53:59 UTC ]
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The former children’s laureate shares her sometimes enraging story of rejection, determination and resilienceAt the beginning of Malorie Blackman’s engrossing and often shocking memoir, the former children’s laureate asks: “Why am I an author?” What she goes on to tell us certainly shows how she... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-10-19 06:30:17 UTC ]
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In his memoir 'Beyond the Wand,' Tom Felton shares behind-the-scenes tales from the 'Harry Potter' franchise and chronicles his struggle with alcohol. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-10-18 20:19:47 UTC ]
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Unsurprisingly, George Saunders is kind of a chaotic reader. | Lit Hub Ross Gay sings the praises of adult braces, feeling needed, and kissing a very small dog one million times. | Lit Hub Memoir “It is this uneasiness that helped me nurture such a wild and fucked-up imagination—an imagination... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-18 10:30:42 UTC ]
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The book, to be written with her husband Richard Ratcliffe, will detail her six years in prison and the campaign for her releaseNazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who spent six years in jail in Iran, is to write a memoir with her husband Richard Ratcliffe.The book, which is currently untitled, will tell... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2022-10-18 09:45:58 UTC ]
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The Hudson Valley-based Golden Notebook Bookstore will launch its publishing press next year with author Abigail Thomas's memoir 'Still Life at 80: The Next Interesting Thing.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-10-18 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Compiled from interviews he gave to a close friend, “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man” sheds light on the self-doubt of the seemingly imperturbable Hollywood star. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-10-16 18:47:52 UTC ]
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"The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man" draws on reams of interview transcripts rediscovered after Paul Newman's death. Here's how it came together. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-10-16 13:00:47 UTC ]
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Compiled from interviews he gave to a close friend, “The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man” sheds light on the self-doubt of the seemingly imperturbable Hollywood star. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-10-16 09:00:11 UTC ]
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Flatiron signs a novel by Whiting Award winner Caitlin Greenidge, Legacy Lit nabs a memoir by podcaster Jonathan Conyers, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2022-10-14 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Prince Shakur’s debut memoir When They Tell You to Be Good starts with an argument between him and his mother which recalls the image of his father’s murder, a man he never got to know. In unflinchingly honest detail Shakur traces his own journey of self actualization as a queer, Black Jamaican... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2022-10-13 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Her win also marks the ascendancy of the memoir as the leading genre of our time. Continue reading at New Yorker
[ New Yorker | 2022-10-09 17:07:05 UTC ]
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“A woman is a useful symbol for the splay of land on which such a free man saunters.” Rachel Richardson on Thoreau, running, and the pleasures of not quite knowing where you’re going. | Lit Hub Memoir In praise of multiple narrators: Rubén Degollado recommends Dawnie Walton, Tommy Orange, Juan... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-07 10:30:18 UTC ]
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Jada Pinkett Smith's memoir will take readers on 'a rollercoaster ride from the depths of suicidal depression to the heights of personal rediscovery.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2022-10-06 19:59:48 UTC ]
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The French writer, who was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, blurs the line between fiction and memoir with spare prose she has characterized as “brutally direct.” Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2022-10-06 16:13:27 UTC ]
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“Cheever drank. Roth womanized. My grandfather wrote quietly in his office for 60 years.” Alison Fairbrother on learning lessons—in writing and life—from her grandfather, E.L. Doctorow. | Lit Hub Memoir Nina Totenberg reflects on her long friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion of “small... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-06 10:30:07 UTC ]
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As Tony Montana would probably say if he were a literary agent: In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the memoir. That’s right! Al Pacino is reportedly in talks to sell his first memoir […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2022-10-05 14:49:52 UTC ]
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