Here’s some rare footage of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera hanging out with Leon Trotsky and Natalia Sedova in 1938. Here’s an awesome quote from Kahlo: “I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.” And finally, here’s a picture of Frida that’s even more awesome than both of those things.
Tres Fridas para el miércoles
Blogging the Caine Prize
The first installment in a series of bloggers reading through the shortlist of the Caine Prize for African Writing, Aaron Bady looks at Rotimi Babutunde’s Bombay Republic [pdf]. A full list of participating bloggers is available at the bottom of Bady’s post.
Tuesday New Release Day: Atwood, Coetzee, Woodrell, Dolnick, Davis
A new Margaret Atwood novel is out this week, as is a new book by Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee. Also out: The Maid’s Version by Daniel Woodrell, At the Bottom of Everything by Ben Dolnick and Duplex by Kathryn Davis. For more on these and other upcoming releases, check out our Great 2013 Second-Half Book Preview.
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Full Stop Blogger Call
Know some talented writers in need of a great platform? Full Stop is looking for bloggers to cover literature, film, music, politics, and a host of other topics.
Hats Off to the World’s First Chinese Laureate
On Thursday, the fiction writer Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which marks the first time a Chinese writer has won the prestigious award. Lauded for his command of “hallucinatory realism,” Yan (whose pen name translates to “not talking” in Mandarin) has drawn comparisons to Faulkner for the complexity of his fictional settings. Back in 2005, John Updike published his thoughts on the writer.
Tuesday New Release Day: Hashimi; Torné; Leo; Bullough; Warren
Out this week: A House Without Windows by Nadia Hashimi; Divorce Is in the Air by Gonzalo Torné; The Gentleman by Forrest Leo; Addlands by Tom Bullough; and Liberty Street by Dianne Warren. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great Second-Half Book Preview.
“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.
A Bookish Jurassic Park
Recommended reading: before you head to the theaters for the latest Jurassic Park film, make sure you know the series’s bookish roots.