At AAWW, Mary H.K. Choi discusses her new novel, Yolk, and why she is partially relieved it has not been translated into Korean, the language spoken by her parents. “As a writer, as someone who reveals their innermost selves linguistically, it’s lonely not to speak the same language as your parents,” Choi explains. “Then again, the fact that my books haven’t been translated into Korean is incredibly freeing. I don’t know that I’d want to be swayed in any way, or feel as though I’m aiming for a version of work that would gain the most approval. I think it wouldn’t even be intentional but I’d feel the weight of it and can imagine it would be stultifying.”
Mary H.K. Choi’s Hidden Joy in Not Being Translated
Be Mine
Yesterday, one of my Curiosities included a link to an old Millions review of AM Homes’s domestically disturbing novel May We Be Forgiven. Today, she has a great new story over at The Guardian just in time for Valentine’s Day.
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Learning from Munro
“When, like Alice Munro, you feel your way forward, sniffing and digging and groping toward a truth virtually beyond words, it takes a long time. And the structures, organic to that process, are as miraculous and indicative and expressive of that truth—one of the deeper truths of human life—that fiction is all about.” Elizabeth Poliner explains how mapping Alice Munro’s stories made her a better writer. Never read Munro? Check out our beginner’s guide to her stories.
“This is not a part of the entertainment here tonight.”
Recommended Reading: Brian Oliu’s “Owen Hart & The Finite Life of Ropes,” which is damn sure the best piece of writing you’ll ever read about a professional wrestler’s death.
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A Bit Rusty
Most of our discussions about changing the canon revolve around adding onetime marginalized writers. But there’s a flipside to this — who do we need to eject? In a Bookends column for the Times, James Parker and Francine Prose pick greats that are no longer great.
“This Website is Pretty Good…”
I had no idea Kanye read The Millions. Apparently, he’s not that impressed by our recent comments about him.
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Epic Pizza Delivery From Anonymous
Cole Stryker‘s Epic Win for Anonymous hasn’t garnered him a lot of positive feedback from members of the infamous image board 4chan. It did, however, result in lots of pizzas being delivered to Housing Works’ Bookstore on the night of its launch party. The author later did an “Ask Me Anything” session with Reddit and explained the pizza delivery among other things. What do you think will happen now that two authors have announced a forthcoming book on Anonymous itself?