“I guess the book could be read also as poetry, but I just didn’t want to define this book, I didn’t want to put it under any label.” The Rumpus interviews Chilean author Alejandro Zambra about his newest book, Multiple Choice. And if you want more Zambra – and believe us, you do – we interviewed him too back in 2011.
D) All of the Above
Belladonna* and Kundiman Celebrate Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
If you’re in New York this weekend, join Belladonna* and Kundiman for a celebration of what would have been the 60th birthday of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (a full life cycle event in the Chinese/Korean lunar calendar). Nine poets, including Cathy Park Hong, Myung Mi Kim, Sina Queyras, and Anne Waldman, will perform a staged reading from Dictee, Cha’s best known work. There will be birthday cake, projected images, scholarly contextualization, and other surprises. Saturday March 5, at the Bowery Poetry Club, 2pm.
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Time’s Authors with Influence
Somehow, I did not make Time‘s list of the 100 most influential people of 2011. But authors Jonathan Franzen, Jennifer Egan, George R.R. Martin, and “tiger mom” Amy Chua did.
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Tale of a Jetblack Sunrise
Every year, for six months, a mysterious Twitter account tweets the Walt Whitman book Leaves of Grass in its entirety one line at a time. At The Atlantic, Rebecca J. Rosen profiles the account, which (to the owner’s bemusement) is popular among Lana Del Rey fans.
We Have the Technology
At The Awl, James S. Murphy goes in-depth on the Stony Brook study, which I wrote about last week, that identified characteristics of historically successful books. In making a point about the publishing industry, he references the sale of our own Garth Risk Hallberg’s debut novel.
Jane at 40
The Austen Project, launched last year, asks prominent contemporary writers to reimagine Jane Austen’s classics in modern times. (Thus far, we’ve seen Joanna Trollope’s Sense and Sensibility and Val McDermid’s Northanger Abbey.) In perhaps the most significant adaptation yet, Curtis Sittenfeld has announced that her Pride and Prejudice will feature a 39-year-old Jane Bennet. After all, Jane (23 in the original novel), is “pretty much teetering on the edge of spinsterhood.”