Recommended Reading: In which a great translator takes on a nearly impossible project: “Schmidt violates the rules of orthography and punctuation throughout the book, and its sprawling conversations cover James Joyce, trees, magic, the moon, and Xerxes, among many other things. After getting Zettel’s Traum out of his system, Schmidt would go on to write his best works. ‘I had to write it,’ he said. ‘And such a book had to be written sometime.'”
Translating the Untranslatable
Silly Prizes
In a piece with which our own Mark O’Connell probably agrees, Tim Parks explains the Nobel Prize for Literature’s inherent silliness.
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They call it an accident, a catastrophe. But it was a war.
n+1 publishes a chilling personal account of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, as the crisis mounts at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
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N.K. Jemisin on Octavia Butler
N.K. Jemisin writes an introduction to Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, in a reissued edition coming this April from Grand Central Publishing.
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Hang Out with The Rumpus, Ctd.
Looking to fill your schedule at this year’s AWP? The Rumpus is hosting an offsite event — featuring readings by Katie Crouch, Monica Drake, Gina Frangello and Wesley Stace — on Thursday night at 8:30.
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“Keep Arguing”
There are plenty of good reasons to read classic literature, but Mary Beard reminds us that there’s a different kind of classic that’s worth revisiting and questioning. “You do the ancient world much greater service if you keep arguing with them.”
North Woods Winter Watercolor
Recommended Reading: Oliver Bendorf’s poetry comic “Experiment With Color in a North Woods Winter” at Hobart.