“Guilt and a feeling of never being satisfied with what you’ve done. And a sense that you are inadequate and a big phony. All useful for a writer. I’m always being edited by my inner nun.” An interview with the inimitable George Saunders, author of Tenth of December, on his approach to humor. Pair with: our own reviews of his stories.
Saunders on Humor
Let’s Have a Panel About It
Man Booker Prize-winner Marlon James is finished talking about diversity, and here's part of his logic: "A panel on diversity is like a panel on world peace. It should be seeking a time when we no longer need such panels. It should be a panel actively working towards its own irrelevance. The fact that we’re still having them not only means that we continue to fail, but the false sense of accomplishment in simply having one is deceiving us into thinking that something was tried."
Translating After the Iron Curtain
The art of book translation becomes even more challenging when you translate a book that hasn't been updated since the Cold War. At Asymptote, Jacek Dehnel discusses how much changed from Ariadna Demkowska's 1962 translation of The Great Gatsby to his current work. "Demkowska was working under very different circumstances: behind the Iron Curtain and without access to Google. It was, therefore, more difficult for her to track down various details, such as those concerning well-known financiers or popular culture starlets of the 1920s."
Action!
Recommended Reading: This lengthy piece from The New York Times on the history of Yiddish theater from schtick to stardom.
The Character of the Characters
Graphic designer Matthew Olin sculpts eight superheros out of letters in imagining the personalities of different fonts. Sadly, he leaves us wondering how one would personify our old pal Comic Sans.
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Appearing Elsewhere
Bet you didn't know this Saturday was the 25th anniversary of the first "going postal" shootings in Oklahoma. I have a piece at The Morning News examining America's export of this peculiar brand of spree killings around the world, most recently to Oslo, Norway.
Paris Review to Publish Bolaño
For its spring issue, the Paris Review will be publishing Roberto Bolaño’s The Third Reich—its first serialized novel in forty years—with original illustrations by Leanne Shapton. It's a chance to discover Bolaño’s famous lost novel almost a year before it appears in book form.
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The Enemy has arrived
Last January, Charlie White launched The Enemy, a new online journal published thrice annually that “invites writers, artists, academics, and activists to present essays and projects outside the mainstreams of their practices and disciplines.”
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