Writing for NPR’s Book News round-up, Annalisa Quinn steers readers toward a recently released FBI file alleging that Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes was in fact a “communist writer” with a “long history of subversive connections.” In her update, Quinn shares some counter-arguments from Fuentes’s colleague and biographer, Julio Ortega.
Carlos Fuentes: Subversive Communist?
Daniel Mallory Ortberg’s Book of Genesis
Daniel Mallory Ortberg tackles a wide array of subjects in his next book, including William Shatner, HGTV's House Hunters, and the Book of Genesis.
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New Asymptote Featuring Péter Nádas and Anne Carson
Recommended Reading: The latest issue of Asymptote, which features work from Péter Nádas and an interview with Anne Carson. (Bonus: Carson has a poem up on The New Republic’s website.)
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Whither the last typewriter?
Historian Suzanne Fischer on nostalgic artifacts and the changing use for typewriters from work objects to elements of decor.
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Dispatch from Cuba
The May issue of Words Without Borders is now available online, featuring new speculative fiction from Cuba by Herson Tissert Pérez, Mylene Fernández Pintado, Ena Lucia Portela, and others.
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James Frey’s Fiction Factory
From New York Magazine, a harrowing piece on “Full Fathom Five,” the young adult fiction factory spearheaded by James Frey, and the controversial contracts young writers are asked to sign.
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Fully Secure
Recommended Viewing: Atlas Obscura’s gallery of libraries in which books are chained to the shelves. (h/t The Hairpin)
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Wells Tower’s Fairy Tale
Recommended Viewing: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned author Wells Tower reads an original fairy tale entitled, “The Chinese Person.”
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