After more than sixty years, Antonio di Benedetto has had his book Zama finally translated into English. The novel, which kicks off in the 1790s, depicts a Spanish administrator named Don Diego de Zama, whose viceroy dispatches him to a town in the scrublands of Paraguay. In the latest New Yorker, Benjamin Kunkel gives his take.
Purgatorio
NaNoNoMore
For all my fellow NaNoWriMo failures, here’s how not to write a novel, romance or otherwise.
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Theories of Theories of the Novel
In the Boston Review, Jess Row wades – slowly, interestingly, not always coherently – into the perpetually roiling waters of Theory of the Novel, taking on the canon wars, realism vs. the avant-garde, etc. Is it really “a safe bet that your average well-informed critic today has never read a single work of criticism by a writer of color?” Probably not, even granting Row’s exception. But possibly worth arguing about. If you like that sort of thing.
Books Per Square Foot
Via BookRiot we came across this ranking of the top 10 U.S. cities for book lovers; scroll down to see the methodology behind the list. Also pair with our own Janet Potter‘s relationship history with bookstores.
More XX at the C-Level, Please
“Are things getting worse for women in publishing?” The Guardian asks, and while the article focuses on the UK, it also touches on the state of affairs in the U.S. What both situations share is a lack of female representation at the executive level, based partly on “a generation of women retiring and the amalgamation of publishing houses, which has left fewer c-circle jobs to compete for.” Oh, and sexism.
Dystopian (Non)Fictions
Alexandra Alter traces how “a bleak, apocalyptic strain of post-revolutionary literature has taken root” in the Middle East following the Arab Spring.