The latest shortcut to publishing stardom: Renaissance mysteries. At the center of this new genre is the work of two friends who were interested in The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a manuscript published in Venice in the 15th century. Dinitia Smith explains it all here. The Rule Of Four has debuted at Number 6 in the NY Times bestseller list.
Link via Bookninja.
Kamala Markandaya has passed away a few days ago and Outlook India has a profile.
Indo-Canadian poet and academic Uma Parameswaran, who has studied Markandaya’s oeuvre and interviewed her, is of the opinion that she was “a pioneer member of the Indian Diaspora, and her best novel, The Nowhere Man (1972) foreshadows many diasporic issues with which we are preoccupied today”.
Here‘s the article.
Leave Maud alone, people.
YPR says that this week, it will present ” presents Interviews with Interviewers, wherein we’ll be interviewing interviewers on the art of interviewing interviewees. If you think that sounded stupid, be grateful we’re not Prince, or you’d have read ‘NtervU’ six times in the preceding sentence.” Duly noted. The first person to submit to the NtervU is Robert Birnbaum. Sample quote:
Y.P.R.: Who do you wish would interview you?
R.B.: The question of who I would like to interview me sounds like a form of who would I like to play me in the movie of my unwritten-but-tending-toward-self-glamorization memoir, Three Hands Clapping. If Robert Duvall were playing me then I would like Jennifer Connelly playing Joan Didion interviewing me. In real life, I would hope that Cynthia Ozick could be interested enough in me to want to have a conversation.
Read the conversation here.