Laila Lalami

Michael Cunningham is interviewed by Bloomberg (?!) and inevitably, he gets asked the ‘how has your life changed’ question.

My life has changed more than I thought it would. I like to think that I’m still the same lovely, unspoiled person I’ve always been — though some days I’m not so sure about that. Before “The Hours” came out, I was pretty much left alone to just do my work. After “The Hours,” it’s a real battle to get the writing done. There’s so much else going on, the phone rings every five minutes. I’ve had to learn to shut a lot of things out. More importantly, I’ve had to find a new “driving force.” I used to always write from a certain fury about being under- recognized, under-appreciated, and underpaid. And now suddenly I find myself over-recognized, over-appreciated, and overpaid! What kind of fuel runs the engine now?

Man, I feel his pain. He’s had to shut himself off in a retreat in Tuscany to finish his new book!
I kid. I like the guy. Link via Mark.

The latest issue of Maisonneuve is up, though you’ll have to subscribe to the print edition if you want to read the story by Stephen Elliot. Elsewhere, Blithe House Quarterly devotes their Summer 2004 issue to Chicago.

Because where else can you get a conspiracy theory like this? Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is being discussed over at one of ABCtales‘ forums, where one participant claims to have ‘inside knowledge’ that the book is actually a revenge novel written by Haddon at the behest of someone else.

Over at Ha’aretz, Shoham Smith reviews Heelless Shoes, an anthology of Arab women writers, edited by Ami Elad-Bouskila, with stories by Hanan Al-Shaikh, Liana Badr, and Latifa Baka (who contributed the title story) and others.

The anthology appears in the context of the Bridges series, is part of an important project spearheaded by editor and literary critic Prof. Ami Elad-Bouskila, who continues to present Hebrew readers with Arab literary works. It does offer its readers vignettes about the “situation of women” in the Arab states. However, one must immediately add that the picture that emerges from a significant number of the stories will undoubtedly surprise all those who are accustomed to the traditional image of the Arab woman (a backward slave deprived of all human rights) or who anticipate fiction with “female” characteristics (melodrama, an inflation of characters, descriptions from kitchens and bedrooms, etc.).

Smith brings up a really good point–I think fiction by Arab women (and people of color in general) is all too often subject to the agenda that readers bring to the stories. In the past, I’ve received all sorts of innocent (and ignorant) comments during writing workshops, comments that reveal more about the reader than they do about the writing. Recently, in the margin of one of my stories, someone scribbled the words “So human!” I felt like saying, “Fancy that! Yes, we’re human!” Or, another thing I get asked a lot is to describe scenery or furniture. “It’s such an exotic setting,” they’ll say. “Make the most of it!” Once, a reader was disappointed that I simply referred to a carpet as “a rug.” He wanted more description, because, he said, “Morocco has such beautiful rugs.” I’m actually a stickler for precision and detail, but I don’t mind going on the record as saying that I don’t care about the fucking rug. If you want rugs, go read National Geographic. But if you want to hear about the kid who weaved the rug, then maybe I’ve got a story for you.

The Summer 2004 issue of Tingis, a quarterly magazine devoted to Morocco, is now available, with non-fiction by Anouar Majid, David Kuchta, Oumelbanine Zhiri, and others.

J.T. Leroy defends the film adaptation of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. The movie premiered at Cannes and stars Asia Argento, and reviews have been decidedly mixed.

“It’s funny, the press have been very, very supportive of me. I haven’t gotten that many bad reviews or anything, so I feel that they’re coming out for Asia,” the reclusive author told Reuters in a telephone interview.
“I think it’s harder to let a woman break out of a role, especially as she was seen as this dumb sex symbol,” he said. “I think it’s very sexist, I think it’s very pig-headed and it just makes me mad.”

By the way, Leroy has a short story in the current issue of Zoetrope All-Story.

I’m not a very good novelist.

From Negative Capability, a collection of public statements made by George W. Bush and his official spokespeople since 1997.
Link from The Morning News.

The Guardian has an article on the Caine Prize winner, Brian Chikwava, but offers little more than that Reuters dispatch I linked to two days ago.

Maud-bashing appears to be en vogue. I say bashing because Maud has repeatedly made her blog’s goals clear and shouldn’t have to answer to anyone about what she chooses to post. Mark says he’ll have a response and, knowing him, I’m sure we’re in for a treat.

This has been linked to ad nauseam everywhere, but I haven’t had a minute yet to read them: new short stories from Jonathan Safran Foer, Margaret Atwood, Helen Simpson, Hanif Kureishi and others, over at the Guardian.