Submit to ‘It’s Lit’
The London “Book Map” Has It All
The good folks at Dorothy labored over a tremendous “Book Map” depicting the settings of some 600 literary works based in London. The books, poems, and essays selected for the map run the gamut from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.
●
●
Amy Tan on Being the First for Some Readers
Nicole Chung interviews Amy Tan about her new memoir Where the Past Begins: A Writer’s Memoir, one of the highlights is when Tan ponders being one of the ‘first’ authors that people name/read when they think of Asian-American literature. “But when [“The Joy Luck Club”] came out, it did feel like there were many expectations from all areas — not just in the Asian American community, but in Asian culture itself, and in any ethnic studies community. There were people who said ‘At last!’ and there were people who said ‘How dare she?’ […] I wanted to say: I’m not writing sociology, it just so happens this is what happened in my own family.”
De Sangue
Blood-Drenched Beard, a new novel by Daniel Galera, is poised to spark a newfound interest in Brazilian literature abroad, argues Chris Frey. In The Globe and Mail, he writes that Galera has forged an original voice, one recalling Borges and Murakami but still distinctly his own. For more on the book, you could read our review.
Yes, More Eggers on the Way
Once again, another Dave Eggers novel is coming with barely any notice. Knopf will publish Eggers’s latest, Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?, on June 17. The title is longer than the plot description, but the new novel will follow a man named Thomas who interrogates a NASA astronaut about their connection.
●
●
The French Word for “Triangle” is “Triangle.”
Once upon a time, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus were buds. Then their friendship soured beyond repair. What happened? Ask Wanda.
●
●
Kafka Papers Overcome Kafkaesque Legal Issues
After a long and complicated drama that played out for five years in Israeli courts, a collection of Franz Kafka and Max Brod manuscripts will be transferred to the National Library in Jerusalem. The unique circumstances at play in this case have been previously written about by Elif Batuman.
●
●