RIP Günter Grass, who passed away in a hospital in Lübeck, Germany this morning at the age of 87. Grass, who won the Nobel in 1999, achieved fame upon publication of his debut novel, The Tin Drum. For more on the author’s life, you can read Ranbir Sadhu’s review of his memoir.
RIP Günter Grass
A Screwball Tragedy
“Expertly constructed, Mister Monkey is so fresh and new it’s almost giddy, almost impudent with originality. Tender and artful, Prose’s 15th novel is a sophisticated satire, a gently spiritual celebration of life, a dark and thoroughly grim depiction of despair, a screwball comedy, a screwball tragedy.” Cathleen Schine reviews Francine Prose’s newest novel, Mister Monkey, over at The New York Times.
Get Bent, Collier County.
The MFA program at Florida Atlantic University launched Swamp Ape Review, a new national online literary journal. For their first print issue, which is set to publish next year, they’re accepting submissions from writers in South Florida, such as Martin, St. Lucie, Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties. For a nice primer on the journal’s namesake (or, rather, its alias), I direct your attentions to Bill Kearney.
“Life around the pool”
Recommended Reading: Colm Tóibín on a new biography of the artist David Hockney.
●
●
JSTOR and Wikipedia Partnership
In an effort to help Wikipedia become a more reliable source, ITHAKA has agreed to provide 100 of the site’s editors with free access to the complete archive collections on JSTOR.
●
●
Minister of Defense and Propaganda of the New Cinema
Recommended Reading: On the the anticriticism of Jonas Mekas, the “raving maniac of the cinema,” courtesy of The Paris Review.
●
●
The Odyssey, Mapped
An interactive map created by Gisèle Mounzer tracks the winding, often circuitous journey taken by Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.
●
●
●