When The New York Times tried to ask Jhumpa Lahiri what immigrant fiction inspired her, she smacked the question down by saying there is no such thing as immigrant fiction. “If certain books are to be termed immigrant fiction, what do we call the rest? Native fiction? Puritan fiction? This distinction doesn’t agree with me. Given the history of the United States, all American fiction could be classified as immigrant fiction.”
Us vs. Them
The Longest Hike
“At the train station in Cerbère, France, M. and I have survived the grueling hike on the Sentier de la Liberté Walter Benjamin.” For Catapult, Gwen Strauss writes about climbing the path that Benjamin used to flee the Gestapo, only to take his own life at its terminus. See also: Kyle Chayka's recommendation of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction in our own pages just last week.
●
●
“Because with Helen DeWitt, everything is physical.”
Lightning Rods author (and occasional Millions commenter) Helen DeWitt has a story entitled "Recovery" featured in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading series. Don’t miss the “single sentence animation” video for it, either.
“A signature strike leveled the florist’s”
“I've always referred to it as a troubled project in the sense that I'm trying to tell stories about people who not are here in a way to tell their own stories. I'm trying to speak about an environment I knew well, but I'm aware that I'm dealing with very dark material. I'm pointing out the irony of what we would wish for ourselves and what actually ends up happening.” Teju Cole on tweeting American drone strikes.
●
●
“We’re Lucky to Be Writers. Nobody Owes Us Anything.”
"Why I Write" by Stephen Elliott.
Beats Rock-a-bye Baby
Adam Mansbach's Go The F**k to Sleep took the children's book market -- or at least the number of adults talking about the children's book market -- to a whole new level last summer. Then, weeks later, Samuel L. Jackson read parts of the story for its book trailer, and people freaked out all over again. Well, prepare yourselves yet again, folks. Now somebody's remixed that recording into the most badass (NSFW) lullaby of all time.
●
●
“I can’t rely upon sex and violence to sell my books”
Meet Libi Astaire, the “Jewish Jane Austen” and a major figure in the burgeoning Haredi literary scene.
●
●