Ayobami Adebayo is interviewed by Abigail Bereola for Hazlitt and it’s fantastic. They discuss proverbs, romantic love, sickle cell anemia and writing your first book. “At the risk of sounding very narcissistic, I’m going to say I write for myself ultimately. And maybe my sister. I think that when I’m working, it’s very difficult for me to think about an audience, perhaps because sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming. I’m trying to figure out so many things that I really don’t start thinking about the idea that other people might read this thing until, ‘Oh my God, it’s publication day’ and I have a panic attack like ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ I think the awareness of an audience is something I’m just coming into because this is a first book.”
Ayobami Adebayo: Rising Star
The PEN World Voices Line-Up
PEN World Voices, the great annual festival of International Literature, unveils this year’s lineup for the week of April 26, in New York and elsewhere. Highlights include Norman Rush, Patti Smith, László Krasznahorkai, Rodrigo Frésan, and Sherman Alexie‘s “Freedom to Write” lecture.
In Context
At Signature Reads, Matt Staggs offers some reading suggestions in light of the discriminatory anti-LGBTQ laws recently passed in Mississippi, North Carolina, and other states.
On Hating Poetry
Ben Purkert reviews Year in Reading alum Ben Lerner’s The Hatred of Poetry. If you like the title, check out ten poems for people who hate poetry.
Winter Reads: The Little House Books
Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books bring an icy take on America in winter. To Guardian reader Alison Gibbsme, “as a child, they were full of adventure and excitement; as an adult I am shocked at how full of danger they are.”
Picador Playlists
The gulf between Picador and every other publishing house continues to yawn in one major aspect: literary playlists. To honor the release of Dylan Jones’s Biographical Dictionary of Popular Music, Justin Hargett put together a list of his “Favorite Covered Songs!” (Previously: the “Marriage Playlist” for Jeffrey Eugenides)
Arrested Development Meets Academia
“Dr. Kristin M. Barton is seeking proposals for an edited volume … which will explore Arrested Development from a scholarly perspective,” reads a call for submissions on H-Net. I can see the titles of these essays now. Can’t you? “Desperation Economics: There’s Always Money in the Banana Stand” or “I Don’t Know What I Was Expecting: An Exploration of Dead Doves and Tragicomedy.”