Recommended Reading: Brett Elizabeth Jenkins’s poem “To Get to Zen” at Paper Darts. “you must first lose your/shit in an elevator/in front of a man you do not know.”
Zen State
RIP Harry Crews
Dwight Garner, Maud Newton, and Jason Diamond are among the many to mourn the passing of Harry Crews this past week. "Few writers," Garner writes of Crews, "could touch his authority and muscle."
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Ancient Welsh Book To Be Made Available Online
A 13th century Welsh book originally written by monks on pages of animal skin has finally been made available online thanks to the country's National Library. The ancient Book of Aneirin contains the Gododdin, one of the oldest poems ever written in the language.
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To Translate or Not to Translate
"A good translation, Han’s subconscious seems to suggest, is a living, breathing thing, which must be understood on its own terms, discovered from beneath the great white sheet." The New Yorker explores Han Kang's novels and the complex nature of translation. From our archives: The Millions review of Kang's The Vegetarian and an essay on what gets lost (and transformed) in translation.
It’s Tuesday! It’s New Releases
The long, long awaited posthumous publication of Ralph Ellison's Three Days Before the Shooting... has arrived. Also newly out today (in the States) is William Boyd's Ordinary Thunderstorms.
“Free to make her a watery presence”
Recommended Reading: Jonathan Lee’s interview with Year in Reading favorite Rachel Kushner. The piece is a nice complement to our own interview with Kushner from last year.
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New Nicole Krauss Story
The History of Love author Nicole Krauss has a new story out for sale in ebookstores: "An Arrangement of Light".