“The continued publication and popular packaging of [Roberto Bolaño’s] incomplete work may actually be diluting his reputation as a writer of varied talents and fearless ambition.” Sam Carter is wary of The Roberto Bolaño Bubble.
The Roberto Bolaño Bubble
Liyuan Library by Li Xiaodong Atelier
A new library has been designed for the small village of Huairou on the outskirts of Beijing. Instead of adding a new building inside the village center, the architects chose a site in the nearby mountains, a pleasant five minute walk from the village center. “In doing so we could provide a setting of clear thoughts when one consciously takes the effort to head for the reading room.”
The Long Road
On the occasion of the publication of his novel The Madonnas of Echo Park, Brando Skyhorse writes about the decades-long path that got him there and the rules for writing that he devised. (Thanks, Steve)
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Becoming David Grann
The brilliant New Yorker reporter David Grann discusses his new collection, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes.
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Whose Sex is the Worst?
Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, Chris Adrian, James Frey, and Peter Nádas are all in the running for the 19th annual Bad Sex Award. The award will be presented by the UK’s Literary Review on December 6th. Last year’s prize(?) went to Rowan Somerville for his work(?) in The Shape of Her. If you’d like to read snippets of the sex scenes in question, check out the publication’s Twitter feed.
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Colbert’s Children’s Book
Stephen Colbert is keeping his promise to Maurice Sendak. The comedian will publish his children’s book I Am a Pole (And So Can You!) this spring. “I hope the minutes you and your loved ones spend reading it are as fulfilling as the minutes I spent writing it,” Colbert told The Hollywood Reporter. (See also: Colbert’s equally literary meeting with Ann Patchett)
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A needed perspective, although the Bolaño Legacy argument makes more sense than the “He’s taking the space of other translated works in NA” one. He might take up a greater part of the literary conversation, but I’m not publishers would necessarily be translating more Latin-American fiction if Bolaño’s posthumous works weren’t around.
People are finally figuring this out? They’ve been churning out subpar Bolano collections for years, much of it mindlessly repetitive.