The long-awaited follow-up to Yann Martel’s Booker-winner Life of Pi is out: Beatrice and Virgil. Also new, Elegy for April, a thriller by John Banville alter ego Benjamin Black; David Lipsky’s already much discussed interview with David Foster Wallace, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself; and, apparently hitting shelves ahead of its official release date, a book of philosophy by Marilynne Robinson, Absence of Mind.
Tuesday New Release Day
Watch me spit, classic lit
Based on a recent Jay-Z and Kanye West joint, La Shea Delaney and Annabelle Quezada bring you the addictive track “B*tches in Bookstores.” This all despite West being a confirmed, even proud, non-reader.
Life in the Company of Writers
Arisa Wright hits the nail on the head in this piece for LitHub, titled simply “In Praise of Our Black Women Poets“: “Clifton’s remark disabused me of the idea that there is something I must erase to make my poetry universal. She freed my mind and body; she freed my verse.”
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All Voices Must Be Heard
“The last two years have given long overdue visibility to trans / non-binary realities, pushing us to re-imagine what centering the margins truly means. Being intentional, though, is more than a special issue of a literary journal for the ‘marginalized;’ it’s about creating a space for folk to curate, create, and declare their own bodies: of work, of resistance, of survival.” Editor Jayy Dodd introduces the new issue of The Offing, devoted to trans and non-binary artists. Pair with our own Sonya Chung’s piece on literary activism.
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In This Here Place
“In this here place, we flesh; … Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don’t love your eyes; they’d just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it.” Toni Morrison‘s Beloved as featured in a powerful essay by Allyson Hobbs for The Root about black life, Philando Castile, “and the trauma that remains.” See also: a consideration of parallels between Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic and The Odyssey.
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On Translating Robert Walser
The Quarterly Conversation interviews Susan Bernofsky, gifted translator of Robert Walser (whose Microscripts are due out this month.)
“We call it Book”
Old but still as timely as ever: The latest and greatest in cutting-edge reading technology from Penny Arcade.
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Ostentatiously Withholding Information?
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara is scooping up award nominations left and right. Given the relative heaping of praise, it’s interesting to hear a dissenting voice. This review from the London Review of Books offers us just that. If it’s more Yanagihara you’re after, here she is in a recent interview for The Millions.
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Poets and Their Day Jobs
David Orr investigates the day jobs of some modern poets, and notes “the university job is a relatively recent development in Anglo-American poetry.” Indeed, as this playful illustration from Incidental Comics makes clear, poets have engaged in a wide array of salaried jobs – from pediatricians to bank clerks to diplomats. Previously, we took a look at writers and their day jobs, too.