Recommended Perusing: This list from Electric Literature of six contemporary innovators of the short story. From Lorrie Moore to Alejandro Zambra, it is some seriously good company.
Sanity Is a Construct
Writing About Oneself
Recommended Reading: Karl Ove Knausgaard and Sheila Heti discuss literary ambition and the price of success.
Mo Yan, Euphemism, and Translated Prose
Anna Sun profiles the work of Mo Yan, the latest winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. While Sun acknowledges Yan’s popularity and prolific output, she also notes that what the Nobel committee referred to as “hallucinatory prose” is more often than not “repetitive, predictable, coarse, and mostly devoid of aesthetic value.” Indeed, Sun writes, “the English translations of Mo Yan’s novels … are in fact superior to the original.” [Ed. Note: It appears the Kenyon Review link was briefly not working; this Google cache may work better — h/t Dan Farrely]
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1,000 on Twitter
Cheers to @Selorian for becoming the 1,000th follower of @The_Millions on Twitter.
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Late American Novel Love
The brief excerpt of The Late American Novel that appeared in the New York Times Magazine this past weekend was also the first appearance of “A Tiny New Culture Section With No Name,” part of the Magazine’s redesign. At the Magazine’s “behind-the-scenes” blog, Editor Adam Sternbergh talks about the tiny new section and has some very nice things to say about The Late American Novel as well.