In light of this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, which had Indonesia as the official guest of honor, check out Wayan Sunarta’s essay on the rise of Indonesian literature abroad. As he explains it, “Although Indonesian literature is in the ascendant at home, it has so far failed to establish itself internationally. The number of works translated from Indonesian is still very small.”
From Jakarta to Franfurt
50 Favorite Fictional Women
Fifty authors, editors, and publishers, including Year in Reading alumnae Rachel Cantor and Julia Alvarez, have come together to discuss their favorite fictional women at Brooklyn Magazine.
●
●
Bad Boys
“An ambidextrous cardsharp, who took losing as a personal insult; a proletarian agitator, who dressed like a dandy; a germ-fearing hypochondriac, smoking 100 cigarettes a day; a lady-killer with rotten teeth, causing a string of abortions wherever he went.” On the Soviet poet Mayakovksy.
●
●
Close Reading with a Community
Follow Saturday: Poetry Brain, which is the “poetry and literature side of Rap Genius.” You may remember my last shout out for their work – it involved a certain finger being extended to the “stripped down simplicity of the Imagists.”
●
●
The Perilous Art of Giving Books
What is the right book for the right reader? Arts Beat gives examples of books given as presents in literature, which can be just as perilous as giving books as gifts in real life.