American Literature Is "Massively Overrated" [How to Turn a Positive Article into a Rant]
This morning, the Guardian: ran an interesting piece recapping a session on the “global novel” at the Jaipur Festival—a session that got a bit heated when Xiaolu Guo called out, well, contemporary American writing1: “Our reading habit has been stolen and changed” said Guo. “For example ...
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Yeah, Paulo, THAT'S What's Wrong with Contemporary Literature
From The Guardian: James Joyce’s Ulysses has topped poll after poll to be named the greatest novel of the 20th century, but according to Paulo Coelho, the book is “a twit”. [. . .] Writers go wrong, according to Coelho, when they focus on form, not content. “Today writers want to impress ...
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Juan Gabriel Vasquez's "The Secret History of Costaguana"
This may be thanks to Bolano and his massive appeal, but it seems (to me at least), like Spanish literature is going through a sort of a “Second Boom.” Not so much in terms of a shared aesthetic, but in terms of having captured the imaginations of American publishers. In addition to standards like Javier Marias ...
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2011: The Year of the Translator?
Over at The Guardian, Robert McCrum has a pretty interesting piece about how the publication of a number of high profile international works has “contributed to a new appreciation of the art of the good translation.” Through the power of global media, there is more than ever before a market for literature in ...
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Guardian on Houellebecq's Latest
Not sure if the infamous French author is still missing or not, but his last novel, The Map and the Territory, just came out in the UK (it’s due out here in January) and the Guardian has a really enthusiastic write-up: Michel Houellebecq’s new novel The Map and the Territory opens with an artist at work on a ...
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Outspoken Lyudmila Ulitskaya
Kind of in conjunction with the release of Daniel Stein, Interpreter, the Guardian has a longish piece on Ulitskaya that focuses on her more dissident side, especially in relation to Mikhail Khodorkovsky: Articles, Dialogues, Interviews, a collection of her letters with jailed billionaire Khodorkovsky: [Ulitskaya] was ...
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Guardian's New European Tour: Poland
Following up on last week’s post about the Guardian‘s New Europe Series, this morning they ran the pieces about Poland, including What They’re Reading in Poland, which focuses on an Open Letter author: However, the literary mainstream is made up of authors who follow Witold Gombrowicz, who teaches ...
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