Laila Lalami

This is the best author interview I’ve seen in years. The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten talks to Robert Burrow, author of the novel “Great American Parade.” Here is the opener:

“I am on the phone with Robert Burrows, author of the recently published political novel Great American Parade. This book has sold only 400 copies nationwide, and Burrows seems flabbergasted to be hearing from me. The most prestigious newspaper to have shown any interest so far is the Daily Student at Indiana University.
I tell Burrows that if he is willing to submit to an interview, I am willing to review his book at length in The Washington Post. The only catch, I said, is that I am going to say that it is, in my professional judgment, the worst novel ever published in the English language.
Silence.
“My review will reach 2 million people,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. ”

Read on….

Link via Metafilter.

Between the recent woes of Amiri Baraka and Tom Paulin, the White House cancellation of its February poetry event, and the resulting spate of anti-war poems, it does seem like poets are in the news a lot lately. Joshua Clover asks Why Poetry? Why now? in this Village Voice article. Clover’s answer:
“We are now into the second year of a period when words are being policed with particular vigor, hemmed in by off-the-record advisories as much as by Patriot Acts and Total Information Awareness. But such measures can’t help but suggest that words themselves matter, now more than ever. Poets have been saying that all along.”

Link via Moby Lives.

Addendum: A review of the event “Poems Not Fit for the White House,” by Kelefa Sanneh in today’s New York Times.

Today’s New York Times includes a piece on Arab American writers featuring, among the poets, the up and coming (Suheir Hammad) as well as the established (Naomi Shihab Nye). The article also mentions novels to look for this Spring by Diana Abu-Jaber and Laila Halaby. Oh, and it “outs” Arab American writers who don’t directly address Arab American themes, like Mona Simpson. The future of labels is safe.

Thanks to Sami for the link.

The East Coast blizzard prompted this piece in the Washington Post today, which looks at Snow Lit:
“Some of the most memorable works of fiction

It’s Tuesday and that means it’s time for Harper’s Weekly Review. Too many depressing items to quote (war, self-censorship, human rights abuses, etc.) but also lighter ones like: “The Thai government urged women to enlarge their breasts with exercises rather than plastic surgery; as part of a demonstration, dozens of women wearing shorts and T-shirts squeezed their breasts outside the health ministry in Bangkok.”

The end is near. Which is a shame. But then again, how does a content-provider rack up $81 million in debt?

I can’t quite decide which piece of news is the most surreal: the fact that poor Salman Rushdie is again in the cross-hairs of the wacko Revolutionary Guards in Iran or the fact that Rushdie is reportedly wooing Sophie Dahl, the model/author who is also the granddaughter of Roald Dahl. And in an even more surreal way, the two stories connect in this quote, attributed to the children’s author, that Rushdie “knew what he was doing and got what he was asking for.”
Ay Carumba.

That’s what one girl wrote on her pink banner at yesterday’s rally in Los Angeles.
Other signs included: Draft the Bush Twins, Stop the Bushit, How did Our Oil get under Their Soil, Saddam Hussein = Unelected dictator, Bush = Unelected dic, One Regime Change Deserves Another, etc.
The rally started at Hollywood and Vine and ended at the recruiting station on Sunset and La Brea. Pictures are available if you click on “More.”

(more…)

Thank God it’s the 14th already. That means only a few more hours before Valentine’s Day is over and I don’t have to sit through silly heart-shaped ads or hear any more about this forced celebration of (and concomitant gift-giving to) loved ones.

This picture, by Los Angeles-based Eric Grigorian for Polaris Images, has just won the World Press 2002 award for picture of the year. It was taken on June 23 2002, after the earthquake in Iran that claimed the lives of 500 people. The boy is holding his father’s trousers as he mourns over the freshly dug grave.