At Elle, Eloghosa Osunde discusses her debut novel, Vagabonds!, in which love and romance help the cast of characters navigate their demons. “I think that love is what saves our lives, isn’t it? The world is brutal a lot of the time, but I think that we can make little worlds in which we are safe,” Osunde says. “Love is one great way to do that. It was also really important to me to represent different kinds of relationships because the fact that those two in that story don’t physically end up together doesn’t mean it’s not a true love story. It’s always been on my mind to show how people take care of each other. There’s a quote that I’m thinking of [by Jenny Holzer] that goes, ‘It is in your own self-interest to find a way to be very tender.’ I love that. In writing about love, that’s what I’m showing.”
Creating Safe Little Worlds With Eloghosa Osunde
All the Sad Young Literary Women
Are New York Times book reviewers biased toward writers who are “white and male and live in Brooklyn”? Chris Jackson at The Atlantic laments all the sad young literary women.
Italian Researchers Locate World’s Oldest Complete Torah
“The University of Bologna in Italy has found what it says may be the oldest complete scroll of Judaism’s most important text, the Torah.”
What They Teach
For those who are out of the collegiate loop and are curious what’s being assigned in classrooms these days, The Literary Hub has compiled a fascinating list of books being taught by English professors at institutions across the country. Pair with these two related pieces from The Millions on the business of teaching creative writing and fifty-five thoughts on teaching English in public school.
Celebrity Memoir Overdose
John Harris at Guardian looks at what reading 11 celebrity memoirs in four days will do to your brain.
1Q84 Coming Fall 2011
According to Millions reader James who emailed Random House, the publisher has plans to put Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 out in fall 2011. Millions contributor Ben has covered much of the news surrounding Murakami’s mysterious new novel, which was recently published in Japan, including the recent revelation that there will be a third volume.
Je Ne Sais Quoi
In her controversial book The Fall of Language in the Age of English, Minae Mizumura argues that English, thanks largely to its global predominance, threatens to lessen the diversity of expression in the world. At Bookslut, she tells interviewer Corinna Pichl about her book, her issues with lingua francas and things you can say in Japanese that you can’t say in English.