Rafael Alcides Perez, one of Cuba’s most renowned poets and public intellectuals, has resigned from the Association of Cuban Writers and Artists because of “government restrictions he is being subjected to,” reports the Havana Times. You can read some of his work (in Spanish) over here, here, and here.
Renowned Cuban Poet Resigns from Nation’s Association of Writers and Artists
A Sign of the Apocalypse?
The singularity is near: If you go to your Amazon recommendations page, you’ll see that you can now log into Facebook from there “to get Amazon recommendations for you and discover your friends’ Favorites and Likes.”
“I just like reading, sir—nothing more.”
The Common has a newly translated chapter of Turki al-Hamad’s novel Al Karadib. Its publication online coincides with the one-year anniversary of al-Hamad’s arrest in December 2012 for “tweets considered apostasy.” This featured chapter is the first part of the book to be translated into English.
Fame: A P&L
$500,000 annual home improvements? $125,000 allotted for annual “domestic salaries and expenses?” A $95,000 tutor for Gwyneth Paltrow’s 5-year old? New York Magazine‘s “Celebrity Economy” package is as thorough and informative as it is revolting.
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Viva the Memoir!
Deb Olin Unferth’s memoir Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War hits shelves today. To celebrate the genre, she’s curated a special section in this month’s Guernica, with selections by Joshua Cohen and Rozalia Jovanovic, and forthcoming pieces by Porochista Khakpour and Clancy Martin.
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Nebulous Plotlines
You’ve probably heard it before: never end a story with the phrase “it was all a dream.” Unfortunately for the person who taught you this rule, many classic stories (including Anna Karenina) take place at least partially in dreams. In the NYRB, Francine Prose investigates the trope in fiction.
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Our young robot overlords
Looks like our robot overlord is going to be a 13-year-old boy: the Turing Test has been passed for the first time by a bot simulating a preteen, making history for artificial intelligence research and teenagers alike. “Our main idea was that he can claim that he knows anything, but his age also makes it perfectly reasonable that he doesn’t know everything,” researchers explained.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Hermann; Burgess; Scotton; Howard; Metcalf; Leger; Hogan; Zourkova; Bergman
Out this week: The Season of Migration by Nellie Hermann; Uncle Janice by Matt Burgess; The Secret Wisdom of the Earth by Christopher Scotton; Driving the King by Ravi Howard; Against the Country by Ben Metcalf; God Loves Haiti by Dimitry Elias Léger; A Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan; Wildalone by Krassi Zourkova; and Almost Famous Women by Year in Reading alum Megan Mayhew Bergman. For more on these and other new titles, check out our Great 2015 Book Preview.
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