Albertine Books, the bookshop of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York City, is offering a $10,000 prize aimed at “introducing American readers to the best French-language novels that have been translated into English.” Among the nominees this year is Bardo or Not Bardo by Antoine Volodine, who was recently the subject of a Millions piece.
New Prize for French Literature
Dovlatov in PEN
It appears that our own Sonya Chung’s consideration of underappreciated Russian writer Sergei Dovlatov played a role in getting one of his stories published in a forthcoming issue of PEN America.
Neither Magical, nor Realism; Discuss…
The New Republic is, to put it mildly, not chuffed about the new Isabel Allende.
Tell Me Something New
Recommended Listening: Part One of Jhumpa Lahiri’s conversation with Paul Holdengraber at Lit Hub. “You know, tell me about something I don’t know. Tell me about a musician I’ve never heard of. Tell me about a poet I should be reading. Tell me something about the world, a situation that someone can explain to me in more detail.”
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Satire and Self-Laceration
At The Rumpus, a chat with the poet Randall Mann, whose new book, Straight Razor, came out last week. Among the more interesting tidbits revealed in the interview: Mann’s father was an Olympic silver medalist.
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Not a Good Influence
Why should a college student major in English? It’s a question with hundreds of answers, but one of the most common is that reading, more so than other activities, makes you a better person. It sharpens your mind and hones your sense of morality. But what if this comforting idea — as close as you can get to a conviction held by all writers — has little to no basis in reality?
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From the Archives
Recommended Listening: The Esquire podcast has a new episode featuring Jay McInerney on Raymond Carver’s “My Father’s Life,” which first appeared in the magazine in 1984.
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On the Rise and Fall of John Horne Burns
How do you describe the life and times of John Horne Burns? He was in turn a military intelligence officer, a schoolteacher, a critical darling after he published The Gallery, a pariah after he published anything else, and a gay man in post-WWII America. In characteristic concision, Ernest Hemingway summed the whole thing up thusly: “There was a fellow who wrote a fine book and then a stinking book about a prep school, and then he just blew himself up.”
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Kyle Lucia Wu Leaves Room to Think Expansively
Kyle Lucia Wu discusses her debut novel, Win Me Something, as well as the process of balancing discipline with self-kindness when writing.
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