At Electric Literature, Agustina Bazterrica discusses her novel, Tender Is the Flesh, with Elizabeth Sulis Kim, and reflects on fiction’s ability to raise questions and open minds. “I love literature that makes an impact and generates a response, but does not tell me what to do,” Bazterrica says. “In my own writing I want to generate questions. And a lot of people told me that after reading my book they stopped eating meat. I don’t know how much that decision endured. I don’t care if they stop eating meat for one day, one week or several years, it’s not the important thing. The important thing is that they start looking at reality in a different way.”
Agustina Bazterrica on Cannibalism and Dystopian Fiction
Kafka Who?
When you think “Franz Kafka,” it typically isn’t his sunny disposition that comes to mind. According to Reiner Stach, this new collection of ephemera, however, seeks to challenge the tired, old conception of Kafka-as-tortured neurotic. Here’s a Millions review of Stach’s twin biographies of Kafka, himself.
A Little Bird Told Me
Catapult has a new anonymous column in which a little bird called Magpie collects nice things that happen each week.
The True Face of the Earth
As Le Petit Prince author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “The aeroplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth.” Perhaps that can be extrapolated for satellites, too. Either way, if this incredible, orbital HD Vimeo footage doesn’t move you, then I don’t know what could.
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Book Nerd Gift Alert
I did not know this existed: Trivial Pursuit Book Lover’s Edition. I suspect that Millions readers would be quite skilled. Sample question: “What Hardy novel features a doomed title heroine who names her daughter Sorrow?” Bookslut took the game for a spin a few years back.
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On the Bro’d
“I first met Dean not long after Tryscha and I hooked up. I had just gotten over a wicked fucking hangover that I won’t bother to talk about, except that it had something to do with a six-foot-five douchebag and a beer bong… Before that I’d often dreamed of going West to see hot LA actress chicks and try In N’ Out burgers, always vaguely planning and never taking off.” – From On the Bro’d, where every sentence of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is retold for Bros. (via The Rumpus)
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No Guarantees At All
The Paris Review once referred to Roberto Calasso as “a literary institution of one.” Calasso stopped by The New York Times to answer a few questions about publication and Italy in anticipation of his forthcoming memoir, The Art of the Publisher.
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