Ashwin Sanghi first published his book, The Rozabal Line, on Lulu.com under the anagram Shawn Haigins. A revised edition of the book was published by Westland Ltd. & Tranquebar Press much later, and garnered controversy with readers pointing out similarities between its plot and the 26/11 terrorist attack on Mumbai. Sanghi’s response? “Any book based on research could have real life commonalities.”
My Book Didn’t Influence Terrorism
Tuesday New Release Day: Sebald; Ugresic; Storace; Nunn; Mailer
Out this week: A Place in the Country by W.G. Sebald; Europe in Sepia by Dubravka Ugresic; The Book of Heaven by Patricia Storace; Chance by Kem Nunn; and new paperback editions of Norman Mailer’s Ancient Evenings and Tough Guys Don’t Dance.
Extremely High Dive
When Electric Literature tells me that Jonathan Lee has “unleashed a literary bombshell of a novel,” I set aside my skepticism of the hyperbolic and give it a look. Lee’s High Dive “asks us to look at the plethora of thought and self-indulgence—that beautiful minutia—that flourishes in an unharmed life, and to consider how much generous freedom there is in nonviolence.”
Films About Writers
“There are a lot of bad movies about writers out there,” but Flavorwire has ranked the 50 best, ranging from Sylvia to The Hours to Adaptation.
“I’m going out on this adventure”
“The idea was that whatever I felt or did resonated in life, caused people pain or happiness. This gave me a feeling of huge responsibility even as a child – to the extent that sometimes I had to block my own feelings or wishes. When I started writing fiction, suddenly I was allowed to do what I wanted.” Talking with Etgar Keret.
The World’s Most Powerful Editor
“I think you are abusing your power, and I find it hard to believe that you have thought it through thoroughly.” Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten, has published a front-page letter to Mark Zuckerberg after Facebook censored an iconic image from the Vietnam war. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a naked nine-year-old Kim Phúc running away from a napalm attack was deleted from a post about seven images “that changed the history of warfare.”
Tatjana Soli, author of The Lotus Eaters, wrote for us about the legacy of that infamous photo a few years back.
A Good Character Is Hard To Find
I’ve told you about The Atlantic’s By Heart series plenty of times before. This week brings us novelist Paul Lisicky taking a close look at how Flannery O’Connor’s “flawed” characters are the ones we find ourselves drawn to most.