Two-time Pulitzer-winner Colson Whitehead spoke to Hillel Italie at AP News about his latest book, The Nickel Boys, his quarantine routine, and his childhood reading habits. “I wanted to write from a very early age, just from reading Marvel Comics and Stephen King, and Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury,” Whitehead says. “I consumed fantastic fiction and loved how you could make possible whatever weird idea you had in your head. Your taking your eccentric ideas and trying to convince the reader that they’re plausible.”
Colson Whitehead on Making Eccentric Ideas Plausible
Egyptian Writers on the “Unfinished Revolution”
In the run-up to the Egyptian elections, writers and booksellers discuss the military clampdown following Mubarak’s fall.
●
●
DFW, ctd.
On Friday, the Ransom Center at the University of Texas-Austin opened up its holdings of The Pale King, DFW’s last novel (which our own Garth Risk Hallberg reviewed for New York Magazine). At Page-Turner, D.T. Max picks through the new papers.
The Writing Life Fantasy
Admit it, at one point or another you had a certain idea of what a writer’s life looks like. What comes to mind when someone says “I’m a writer?” You may picture a struggling hipster artist who lives in a smal apartment with books everywhere and does nothing but read and write. Rosalie Knecht explores the fascinating idea that we associate certain specific images with the writer lifestyle based off an Anthropologie catalogue. Not convinced? Read it for yourself.
The Joys of Air Travel
“In college, I didn’t realize I was the face of the Diaspora, the embodiment of all the women they thought I was, and who I knew I was. I was from Africa, east and west, a sojourner through the islands of the Caribbean, a daughter of the Second Great Migration of African-Americans from South to North. Perhaps Chaka said it best—to these young men, I was ‘every woman.’ To airport security, I was that woman. The one to be stopped and searched. The one who was suspect. A long-lost daughter whose lineage crossed through Kush—was I carrying Kush now, perhaps, in my hair?” If a ‘Pat-downs, Pissing, and Passport Stamps’ headline isn’t enough to get you to read this great piece from The Literary Hub, hopefully the quote will do.
●
●
A Debut
Maaza Mengiste, an old school chum, gets high praise from Claire Messud for her debut, the “extraordinary novel” Beneath the Lion’s Gaze.
●
●
South Africa, 2010
The last of the World Cup qualifying matches wrapped up this week and the final list of qualified teams is in. See the list of the 32 qualified national teams headed for South Africa in 2010 here.
●
●