A 14-Hour Zen Koan Shoved Though My Soul [Some August Translations]
Another month, another preview that’s late. This month caught me a bit by surprise though—how is it possible that the new academic year starts in three weeks? It just doesn’t seem right. So in the spirit of “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” essays, I thought I’d kick off this ...
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Translation Loaf
The Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference (which should’ve been named “Translation Loaf”) is a great new initiative that was conceived of and implemented by Jennifer Grotz, poet, translator, assistant director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and Open Letter’s poetry editor, and one that ...
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Autobiography of a Corpse
One of the greatest services—or disservices, depending on your viewpoint—Bertrand Russell ever performed for popular philosophy was humanizing its biggest thinkers in his History. No longer were they Platonic ideals, the clean-shaven exemplars of the kind of homely truisms that might’ve been found in commonplace books: ...
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On Repackaging Italo Calvino's Oeuvre
Over at the New Yorker, there’s a really interesting interview with cover designer Peter Mendelsund, whose new book, What We See When We Read, sounds amazing: A gorgeously unique, fully illustrated exploration into the phenomenology of reading—how we visualize images from reading works of literature, from one of ...
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A Musical Hell
The best way to review Alejandra Pizarnik’s slim collection, A Musical Hell, published by New Directions as part of their Poetry Pamphlet series, is to begin by stating that it is poetry with a capital P: serious, dense, and, some might say, difficult. Take from that what you will, but I’m going to follow an idea from ...
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Amazon on Hachette Controvery and Pricing
A lot of people are going to have a lot to say about this, but for anyone interested in the inner workings of publishing, ebooks, and pricing, it’s worth checking out this open letter from Amazon about their ongoing dispute with Hachette. Just to recap: Hachette and Amazon are currently negotiating over terms, a ...
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Elvio Gandolfo's "The Moment of Impact" at Ninth Letter
In a few weeks, we’ll be releasing A Thousand Forests in One Acorn, one of the most impressive—and beautiful—books that we’ve ever published. It’s a 715-page beast that was put together by Valerie Miles (one of the people behind Granta’s “Best of Young Spanish-language ...
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