Last year we highlighted University of Nebraska Press among other small presses for the keeping in print otherwise little known future Nobel laureates. Today’s honoree Mario Vargas Llosa is quite well-known by comparison, but University of Nebraska Press has nonetheless (barely) run its Nobel streak to three straight years by way of Vargas Llosa’s inclusion in the press’ soccer writing anthology, The Global Game: Writers on Soccer.
Nobel Streak Stays Alive for University Press
The End of Copyright, The Death of the Novel
Would anyone write novels in a world without copyright? According to Tim Parks, they probably would not. For more on the relationship between the market and the product, see Parks's essay on whether more money leads to better writing.
The Marvelous Words
Over at Catapult, Niina Pollari writes about translating Finnish literature in English. As she puts it, “If a thing you read gives you that sensation, it’s your responsibility to share the piece with someone.”
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Lot by Lot
Valeria Luiselli has a new novel coming out, and BOMB has an exclusive excerpt. Titled “Hyperbolics,” it juxtaposes the goings-on at a church auction with descriptions of items on offer, which steadily grow macabre. You might want to check out her first novel after reading it to get some context.
“Carefully Arranged Derangement”
"Literature offers a way of framing, or reckoning with, the chaos of a universe we can never truly know." The LA Times interviewed Denis Johnson about his new novel The Laughing Monsters, an excerpt of which can be read online here.
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Daemon Days
You may have heard (via this site or elsewhere) that Harold Bloom has a new book out. In the Times Sunday Book Review, Cynthia Ozick gives her take, identifying the critic's use of the phrase “without precedent” as key to understanding his theory. You could also read Matt Hanson on Bloom's classic The Anatomy of Influence.
Marco Roth on Kazuo Ishiguro
In honor of the upcoming film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, n+1 posts Marco Roth’s compelling review of Ishiguro’s novel and Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island online for the first time.