Laila Lalami

Yunan Rizk has an interesting article about how Egyptians’ views of outsiders have changed over time.

In short, Egyptians developed sharply conflicting attitudes towards European culture and towards the individuals who shaped that culture, who were either portrayed as wholly “good” or wholly “bad”. Naturally, this ambivalence was reflected in the Egyptian press and an interesting case study can be found in the biographies of world figures that Al-Ahram would occasionally feature on its “Literature, Science and the Arts” page or in other columns. Not surprisingly, most of the “good” consisted of individuals who contributed to the progress and welfare of mankind as a whole. These included philosophers, scientists and even the occasional politician. The “bad” on the other hand consisted almost exclusively of politicians.

Rizk’s work is based essentially on a survey of articles published in Al-Ahram starting in 1934, and it’s rather interesting to see how (little) things have changed.

Danzy Senna is interviewed over at Nextbook about her new novel, Symptomatic. The biracial Senna talks, among other things, about being mistaken for Israeli, for Arab, and, in cabs, for whatever the drivers are.

Rebecca Walker talks to the New York Times’ Deborah Solomon.

You’re the daughter of the novelist Alice Walker. Why did you decide to take her name instead of your father’s, who is a lawyer?
It’s not that important for me right now. Can we talk about something else?

More of the interview here.

…why joining one of those book-of-the-month clubs might not always be such a good idea.

Another Control Room review. Check out the documentary’s web page to find out when it comes out near you.

Robert McCrum adds to the boo-hoo-hoo line about how bloggers are getting book deals, and what a shame that is. You’ll remember that a few weeks back, a similar New Yorker article by Daniel Radosh intimated that bloggers are getting crazy book deals, and that there’s an agent at ICM who’s devoted to finding the talent.

Somehow, though, the fact that soldiers who write emails about the war in Afghanistan or Iraq will soon get book deals has escaped notice. Soldiers such as the one mentioned in the article get to take writing workshops with the likes of Mark Bowden and Tobias Wolff, with a view to publishing their work in an anthology in 2005, or as part of individual war memoirs. I eagerly await the New Yorker‘s ironic take on ‘Operation Homecoming.’

Mark has finally gotten around to transcribing his interview with Leelila Strogov, founder of Swing Magazine. Find out about her vision for the mag, how the editorial process works, the contest she sponsors, etc.

D.D. Guttenplan writes about the documentary he made about the late Edward Said, and which lucky Londoners will have a chance to see this summer. Guttenplan writes with humor about his first encounter with Said, in which he asked him to sponsor a year of study in France.

I was interested in the overlap between philosophy and literary criticism and wanted to go and see Roland Barthes in Paris. (I also wanted to loaf in cafes, drink endless grandes cremes and generally make the most of being 19 years old and abroad.) But I was broke.
My adviser suggested my grant application would be much more successful if it was endorsed by his friend Edward Said, at the time the only tenured member of Columbia’s English department on speaking terms with French theory. All I knew about Said was that he was a Conrad scholar and the author of Beginnings, a book I was struggling to read. When I met Said in his office he quickly divined that my interest in structuralist theory was, well, rather theoretical. Far from being shocked, he seemed amused, and agreed to sponsor my research.

Guttenplan recounts briefly his later encounters with Said, reactions to the seminal Orientalism, the Oslo accords, Said’s long illness, and the decision to do the documentary.
Update: Here’s a review of the documentary. (Thanks, David.)

Tim Cavanaugh sums up some of the reactions Ulysses still gets:

Ulysses recently has drawn the fire of literary iconoclasts. “I will say it once and for all, straight out: it all went wrong with James Joyce,” writes the dyspeptic critic Dale Peck, who condemns the book’s “diarrheic flow of words” and applauds himself for having spoken “heresy” against a canonical work. “Ulysses could have done with a good editor,” the acclaimed novelist Roddy Doyle recently told an audience of crestfallen Joyce fans. “You know, people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written, but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it.” Concludes the writer Stefan Sullivan in a recent Washington Times appreciation: “Ulysses is a pretty awful novel.”

One critic even calls it a ‘giant fart joke,’ which made me feel somewhat better for having never managed to finish the tome. I’ve always been slow in ‘getting’ fart jokes.

Teenage immigrant turned microbiologist turned dance teacher turned published author.