Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa has come back to haunt Salman Rushdie once again. Iran is threatening to boycott the Frankfurt Book Fair because Rushdie was invited to give the keynote speech. You could also read our essay on how Rushdie passed the time while in hiding.
Iran Boycotts Rushdie… Again
Behind the Red Pen
Last week, our own Edan Lepucki interviewed her copyeditor. This week at Tin House, executive editor Michelle Wildgen reflects on what she has learned from being both an editor and writer. Her biggest discovery: “The whole thing should be a conversation.”
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Pulp and Not
Is “literary” fiction just a product of clever marketing? Elizabeth Edmondson thinks it is. At The Guardian, she argues that classically literary authors like Jane Austen had no idea they were writing Literature — posterity classified their work as such later on. Her essay dovetails nicely with our own Edan Lepucki’s argument that literature is a genre.
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A Few More Goodbyes
Hopefully you’ve read Eryn Loeb’s Millions review of Goodbye to All That, a collection of essays by noted writers on the weird sorrow of leaving New York City. Contributors include Dani Shapiro, whom we interviewed back in October, Emma Straub, who wrote an essay for The Millions back in July, and Millions staff writer Emily St. John Mandel. At the LARB, Mason Currey says he dreaded reading the book out of fear that it would raise old anxieties, but then says that his hesitations “quickly evaporated” when he started reading.
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Woot Twilight Parody
Today only at Woot, a Stephenie Meyer parody qua flashlight advert: “I was just watching you sleep. Isn’t that dark and brooding and romantic?” Edward brooded darkly.
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Luck Runs Out
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The Strand Says Goodbye
“By the time Mr. Bass bought the building for $8.2 million in 1997, the Strand had become the largest used-book store in the world.” Fred Bass, the owner of the Strand, has died at the age of 89. Bass — who bought used books with panicked fervor, opened up satellite kiosks, and created the fabled literary quiz for prospective employees — turned his father’s used bookstores into a New York City literary landmark.
Hitchens on Literary Feuds
With Naipaul and Theroux making nice, the Times asks Christopher Hitchens what makes for a good literary feud these days: “A really first-rate bust-up must transcend the limits of ‘an entertaining side show’ and involve playing for high moral and intellectual stakes”
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Where are the PEN ******* running to Rushdie’s defense?
I’m guessing we won’t see it.
This obviously being an instance of the subaltern re-asserting Himself at the level of the geo-political….