Ever since Pulphead, we can’t get enough of John Jeremiah Sullivan, so we’re happy to hear he’s at work on his next book, The Prime Minister of Paradise. Sullivan will tell the story of Christian Priber, a German American who tried to establish a utopia in 18th century South Carolina. “This man, he really represented the height of the enlightenment at the time,” Sullivan said during a recent interview at Notre Dame. No word on an official release date yet, but it’s already being optioned for film by Scott Rudin.
New JJS on the Way
New Marilynne!
Marilynne Robinson has a new essay (excerpted from her new book When I Was a Child I Read Books) out in Guernica, and if you’re still reading this sentence because you haven’t yet clicked the link, that’s incredible.
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Dzanc and Melville Houses’s Independence Sales
Not to be outdone by Graywolf, Dzanc Books is also offering an Independence Sale of its own. You have until July 7th to buy one, get one free over at their website. Likewise for Melville House, which is offering a 40% discount on everything it’s got.
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On Rereading
Are rereadings better readings? Nabakov thinks so. But Patricia Spacks, in her new memoir On Rereading grapples with the guilty pleasure.
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Old Saws
We’ve written before about the By the Book series, in which the Times invites well-known authors to talk about their favorite books. This weekend, they interviewed the historian James M. McPherson, who recalled his childhood reading habits and cited his favorite examples of Civil War literature. Pair with: Darryl Campbell on the Civil War series by Ken Burns.
Make Way for Native Excellence
“It’s about what they call Native Excellence — and creating a path to it with its own expectations and standards, instead of relying on those established by white academia or publishing.” BuzzFeed News wrote an in-depth feature on the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), which offers the US’s first indigenous-centered MFA program, Terese Marie Mailhot (author of Heart Berries: A Memoir), and Tommy Orange (author of There There). Read our interview with Marcie Rendon about writing a representative novel for today’s Native Americans.
Necesito Oscuridad
“Whenever the latest woe is me commercial came on hawking the newest painkiller, Mami commanded our attention: ‘That’s me!'” Go check out this piece of new fiction, “I Am A Rock,” by Ricardo Nuila at Guernica Magazine.
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If you read German and can’t wait or want an alternative perspective, consider Ursula Naumann’s longform essay “Pribers Paradies” (Eichborn, 2001).
… and please feel also free to visit Germany to see the exhibition of ACC Galerie Weimar and the Municipal Museums of Zittau called “KINGDOM PARADISE – Christian Gottlieb Prieber and Social Utopias of the present”.
Running from 31 May until 9 August 2015 in WEIMAR and from 1 July to 30 October 2016 in ZITTAU.
There is a huge community of curators, artists, and art historians already working on Priber and his ideas and story – looking forward to opening their exhibition in two weeks on 30th of May, 8pm at ACC Galerie Weimar.