The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is adapting Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale into a ballet.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum
Tangled Youths
Evan Hughes investigates the formulation of such writers as Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, and David Foster Wallace. He claims they and their generation "had youths tangled enough for ten novels."
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“The pull of the East, of Islam”
"Part of the allure of Bosnia for westerners, I think, has been the surprising nearness of the East. To put it more bluntly, and problematically: in Bosnia the East is tamed, less scarily dogmatic.” Elvis Bego draws a parallel with Madame Bovary at Bookslut.
Impolitic
Is all literature political? Is this political? Are you political?
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Favorite Debuts
Tin House assembles a panel to name its favorite debut novels and collections of the year. Swamplandia! and We the Animals get tapped, but some lesser known titles also make the cut.
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The Diaries of Roland Barthes
At the Book Bench, slides of Roland Barthes’ diaries from 1977 in their original, hand-written form: “His brilliance, which indelibly influenced literary theory, semiotics, social theory, and post-structuralism, can make him seem as distant as he is renowned. Yet the diary entries... reveal Barthes to be extraordinarily sensitive and relatable.” (via The Rumpus)
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Food for Thought
At The New Inquiry, Christine Baumgarthuber writes about the elitist history of food writing before the age of the Internet. Pair with Darryl Campbell’s Millions essay on how food writing manifests social norms.
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