Catherine Banner writes on the “privilege and luck it takes to live the writer’s life.” Pair with this Millions essay on not quitting the writing life.
Lucky Writers
Change
The New York Review of Books excerpts recent Nobel winner Mo Yan’s part fiction, part memoir Change.
●
●
The Colonized Space of Language
Recommended Reading: Iona Sharma writes about language as a colonized space, with its own history, politics, and tradition.
Tuesday New Release Day: Frangello; Theroux; Alameddine; Antopol; Minor; Schaffert
New this week: A Life in Men by Gina Frangello; Strange Bodies by Marcel Theroux; An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine; The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol; Praying Drunk by Kyle Minor; and The Swan Gondola by Timothy Schaffert.
Post-Maidan
Recommended Reading: Marci Shore on reading Tony Judt’s Postwar in modern Ukraine.
●
●
Haiti: Before and After with Edwidge Danticat
Claire of the Sea Light author Edwidge Danticat remarks upon the “split between the Haiti of before the earthquake and the Haiti of after the earthquake” in her interview with Guernica’s Dwyer Murphy. Her latest novel was featured in our Great Second-Half 2013 Book Preview.
●
●
Raymond Chandler on How to Write Detective Stories
“The good detective story writer (there must after all be a few) competes not only with all the unburied dead but with all the hosts of the living as well. And on almost equal terms; for it is one of the qualities of this kind of writing that the thing that makes people read it never goes out of style.” Raymond Chandler’s 1950 essay, “The Simple Art of Murder” is a real gem.
●
●
Literary Friendships
Emily Smith writes on literary friendships throughout history at Ploughshares.
●
●