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
The CIA Supports the Practice of Good Grammar
“’There is absolutely no truth to this allegation [that the CIA is trying to remove ‘ë’ from the Russian alphabet],’ the spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal. ‘The Agency supports the practice of good grammar and pronunciation in any language.’”
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Words Grow Arid and Stiff
Tim Parks writes for the NYRB about writers living abroad. As he puts it, “But what about those writers who move to another country and do not change language, who continue to write in their mother tongue many years after it has ceased to be the language of daily conversation? Do the words they use grow arid and stiff? Or is there an advantage in being away from what is perhaps only the flavor of the day at home, the expressions invented today and gone tomorrow? Then, beyond specifically linguistic concerns, what audience do you write toward if you are no longer regularly speaking to people who use your language?” Pair with Hannah Gersen’s Millions piece on reading the English translation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words.
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Look Who’s Talking Knau
“I could not do anything but wiggle, so I wiggled.” Here’s a fake excerpt from the non-existent seventh book of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle series, helpfully titled Look Who’s Talking Knau.
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The Traumas We Carry
“If I’d stayed, I could have protected him. That’s what I believed. Maybe he believed that, too.” Over at Catapult, Chris J. Rice writes beautifully and harrowingly about finding her long-lost brother after decades.
Migraine Memories
Writer and illustrator Allyson Hoffman reflects on how chronic illness impacts daily life and memory.
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