Want to get your book published? Move to Iceland. One in ten Icelanders will become published authors, which isn’t a big surprise because the country has a 99 percent literacy rate. Pair with: our essay on Icelandic writer Sjón.
Everyone Has a Book in Their Stomach
The Bolaño Myth: Wiggity Wiggity Wack?
Over at Conversational Reading, Scott covers Horaçio Castellanos Moya‘s dis of imperialist publishing suckas who be pimpin’ “The Bolaño myth.”
●
●
Shopping’s Scrivener
“I’m used to writing in very weird contexts.” Poet Brian Sonia-Wallace talks with Minnesota’s Star Tribune about his gig as the Mall of America’s first-ever writer in residence. Asked if he’ll go crazy during his several-day-long tenure, Sonia-Wallace answered “probably” (via Bookforum). Our own Marie Myung-Ok Lee had some opinions back when the residency was first announced.
Paris to the power of 4
Rosecrans Baldwin’s Paris I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down is set in Paris, France. But there are also 25 Parises in the USA. For “Our French Connection,” a series of features for The Morning News, Baldwin hit up four towns called Paris in America and asked locals to opine on the French way of life. You can buy the whole four part series as an epub for $3.
●
●
Top Longreads of 2011
They say you’re only as good as the company you keep. If that’s the case, we’re thrilled to have published Jim Santel‘s piece on The Moviegoer, which has made The Awl staff’s list of “Top Longreads of 2011“.
Shakespeare in Asia
“It’s fair to say Shakespeare is having a cultural moment in Asia, with a “boom” of new film adaptations and dramatic stagings,” and the Royal Shakespeare Company just received 1.5 million pounds to keep that boom going by translating all of the Bard’s plays into Mandarin. Melville House has the full story, and it pairs well with both this diagram of a translated book’s usual lifespan and this discussion of Shakespeare’s best plays.
●
●
The Great American Novelist
“And that might be the best way to understand Erdrich’s artistic project: as a celebration of beauty and a testament to the redemptive power of art — which, of course, includes storytelling.” Rumaan Alam interviews Louise Erdrich about her illustrious writing career for Buzzfeed Reader. Erdrich’s newest novel Future Home of the Living God was featured in our November Preview.