Haven’t read our own Mark O’Connell’s great new essay at Slate? To mark the hundredth anniversary of Dubliners, Mark paid a visit to the James Joyce House, which led him to reflect on life in his native city. “If you live in Dublin, if you are yourself a Dubliner,” he writes, “no matter how many times you read the book, it will always reveal something profound and essential and unrealized about the city and its people.”
Dear and Dirty
“Ish” Writes to Granta
From Granta, we learn that Kazuo Ishiguro likes to go by “Ish.”
Remembering Jenny Diski
Frederick Tuten recalls the first fan letter he ever wrote to novelist Jenny Diski in his 1999 interview with the author for BOMB Magazine.
●
●
His Tone is Defensive
“Legal writing, save for the prose of a precious few lawyers and judges, has rarely contributed to the literary enterprise. Yet there are times when legal proceedings have helped the public at large to reconsider the experience of reading in commercial, emotional, and intellectual terms.” Ian Crouch on the odd experience of reading the statements of Lance Armstrong.
●
●
Apocalypse Patriots
In The New Statesman, Ben Marcus wonders why American writers are so obsessed with the apocalypse. (A sentiment a few others have wondered of late, too.)
Talking Translation
In an interview at The Brooklyn Rail, Susan Bernofsky talks about translating The Tanners, the last novel by the great Robert Walser to appear in English.
●
●
Two-Step
You may have heard that War of the Encyclopaedists is one of those rare novels written by multiple authors. Christopher Robinson and Gavin Kovite worked together to write their debut. In The Guardian, our own Emily St. John Mandel takes a look.
●
●