Laila Lalami

Hanif Kureishi reflects on how his play, Borderline, which was staged 25 years ago, might still be relevant for Asians in Britain. The play dealt with riots, fascism, and feminism, all of which are still around, though the context for them has changed.

During the 10 years between the Southall riots and the demonstration against The Satanic Verses, the community had become politicised by radical Islam, something that had been developing throughout the Muslim world since decolonisation. This version of Islam imposed an identity and solidarity on a besieged community. It came to mean rebellion, purity, integrity. But it was also a trap. Once this ideology had been adopted - and political conversations could only take place within its terms - it entailed numerous constraints, locking the community in, as well as divorcing it from possible sources of creativity: dissidence, criticism, sexuality. Its authoritarianism, stifling to those within, and appearing fascistic to those without, rejected the very liberalism the community required in order to flourish in the modern world. It was tragic: what had protected the community from racism and disintegration came to tyrannise it.

You can read the full essay here.

Over at the Observer, Jason Burke catches up with Faïza Guène, the “voice of the suburbs.” (What? You didn’t know there was only one? Well, now you know.)

Guène’s parents came from Algeria and her family - father a manual worker, mother who has never worked (As if, Ed.)- is very close. The fact that many readers, especially in France, jumped to the conclusion that the broken family of the novel is her own irritates her - ‘I have written a novel, but I always end up being asked about social issues and so on.’ It is part of the stereotyping that much of the book is devoted to combating.

Though not intellectuals, Guène’s parents were ‘deeply respectful’ of books, she tells me. ‘I learned to read when I was very young,’ Guène says. But in Les Courtillières, the large, public-housing projects where Guène grew up and still lives, there were almost no cultural facilities at all. ‘Books are expensive things. My book in its first edition cost €18. If I hadn’t written it, I would not have bought it.’

Guène’s first book is due out in the United States in June, under the title Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow (in an excellent translation by Sarah Adams, by the way.)

The SF Chronicle’s Edward Guthmann interviews Junot Díaz, who was in town to support the staging of his short story, “The Sun, The Moon, The Stars,” at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco. Of course, the subject of that long-awaited second novel came up:

As a Latin American author, Diaz feels a mandate to give young Latinos, especially Dominican Americans, a voice and a touchstone to measure their experience. The problem, he freely admits, is the fact that he’s an incredibly slow writer. “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars” took a year. It’s been 10 years since “Drown” was published, and the novel he’s working on is in its fifth year of gestation.

Diaz sighs at the thought of his uncooperative work rhythms. “Who doesn’t want to be constantly working?” he asks. “I drove myself nuts for a couple years, gave myself a lot of hassle.” At the beginning of writing his novel, “I was a lot more deranged about it ’cause I didn’t have the sense that I was ever going to find my way through it. Then I finally began to embrace my inner slowpoke.

If you read this blog consistently, you know how much I adore and admire Díaz, so go on over there and read the piece.

(Photo credit: Darryl Bush)

Lorraine Ali meets profile of Eddie Vedder and his bandmates for Newsweek:

After the success of their 1991 debut, “Ten,” which sold nearly 10 million copies, the Seattle group stopped making videos, shunned endorsements and shied away from almost all self-promotion. And each subsequent album proved less accessible than its predecessor. (Can you name the last two Pearl Jam records?)

Actually, no, I can’t, and I live with a card-carrying Ten Club member. But I am indeed looking forward to the new CD. I hope it’s good.

As has been widely reported, Harvard sophomore and New York Times bestselling author Kaavya Viswanathan is facing charges that she plagiarized material from Megan McCafferty’s Sloppy Firsts for use in her novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life. (See the material side by side here.)

Over at Galleycat, Sarah points out that that there may have been more than one cook in the kitchen, what with the involvement of a “book packaging” company that helped Viswanathan make her work more “commercially viable.” Meanwhile, Maud links to a MeFi thread in which a former teacher of Viswanathan states, “I was surprised to learn she had written a book, as her writing was awful — I had given her low grades on her papers.” And, over at Lit Saloon, Michael quips: “Wonderful stuff — especially since the plagiarism seems so utterly pointless. God, we love the American publishing industry and what it leads to !”

Well, here is what it leads to: According to this article by Dinitia Smith in the Times, the “book packaging” company in question is 17th Street Productions, now renamed Alloy Entertainment. Smith writes that “Alloy, which referred questions to Little, Brown, holds the copyright to “Opal” with Ms. Viswanathan.” (Emphasis mine.) So who exactly wrote this book?

Sad news this morning: Moroccan playwright Abdesslam Chraibi has passed on:

He started his career in theatre as an actor and playwright in the 60s in his native city, Marrakech, with the troupe Al Wifak and then with the national groupe Al Maamoura.

He later co-founded the troupe Al Wafaa al Marrakshia with other emblematic figures of the Moroccan theatre like Abdeljabbar Lawzir and Mohammed Belkas.

As a playwright, Chraibi is known for his successful plays “Al Harraz”, “Sidi Keddour El Alami”, and “Meksour Ljanah”, which discussed issues related to the Moroccan society, traditions, and culture.

The artist also wrote scripts for television, including the outstanding serial “Inssane fil Mizane”.

He collaborated with many theatre leaders, such as Tayeb Seddiki, and worked in Casablanca’s municipal theatre.

He will be missed.

This week, the LBC is engaged in a discussion of Sheila Heti’s short novel Ticknor, which was nominated by MG pal Mark Sarvas. Of the book, Mark writes:

When George Ticknor’s Life of William Hickling Prescott was published in 1864, it received rapturous notices, and reviewers were quick to point out that the long-standing friendship between Prescott and Ticknor made the latter an ideal Boswell. Sheila Heti, whose debut short story collection, The Middle Stories, was published in this country by McSweeney’s, has pulled this obscure leaf from the literary archives and fashioned a mordantly funny anti-history; a pungent and hilarious study of bitterness and promise unfulfilled.

As a fretful Ticknor navigates his way through the rain-soaked streets of Boston to Prescott’s house (”But I am not a late man. I hate to be late.”), he recalls his decidedly one-sided lifelong friendship with his great subject, a friendship that Heti has estranged from its factual moorings. Unlike the real-life Ticknor, this one is an embittered also-ran, full of plans and intentions never realized — coveting his friend’s wife, writing letters that never get answered, working on essays destined to be rejected — always alive to the fashionable whispers behind his back.

I recommend you stop by the site to read LBC members’ discussion.

Because I’d missed last year’s edition, I was really looking forward to Wordstock, Portland’s book festival, which was held this weekend at the Oregon Convention Center. I got there around 10:30 am, and walked around, through the neatly ordered booths where booksellers, literary magazines, MFA programs, small presses, writers’ conferences, writers’ organizations, and self-published authors were selling their wares. I started my literary peregrinations by popping into the “Sassy Stories” reading, which featured Thisben Nissen, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Vendela Vida. The poster for the talk listed Vendela Vida as “the author of And Now You Can Go, and wife of author Dave Eggers.” Seriously. What does her marriage have to do with anything?

Then I went into the green room to wait for my own panel, which was due to start at 12. The place was alternately desert-hot or freezing cold, but at least the coffee flowed and the company was great. I had a quiet chat with Mary McGarry Morris, who was delightfully down to earth. I caught up with David Hernandez and Lisa Glatt, and got a chance to congratulate her on landing a position at California State University. Local authors Cheryl Strayed, Justin Tussing, and Matt Briggs were also there, waiting to go to the Emerging Voices panel.

As we were both waiting for our International Fiction panel to be announced, Thrity Umrigar and I had an animated conversation about book reviewing, teaching, and writing. Thrity had reviewed my book for the Boston Globe (and, fortunately for me, she’d liked it.) The reading went well, and we had some great questions about how our books were received here in the U.S. as opposed to our native countries, whether we think of a specific audience while writing, and how we identify ourselves. Later, during the book signing, I was seated next to Nigerian author Chikodi Anunobi, whose work I was not familiar with, and so we talked about Nigerian literature for a little bit before Alex and I had to go look for some lunch.

As I was getting coffee, I bumped into Whitney Otto, who was holding an ice pack against the back of her head. “What happened?” I shrieked. She said she’d knocked her head somehow, but now she was feeling fine, and was looking forward to attending Karen Karbo’s reading. I also had a discussion with Marc Acito about comedy writing–Acito himself is very funny, though he says he doesn’t think he’s being funny most of the time, he’s just being candid; people find that amusing.

Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures from my panel with Erin Ergenbright, during which we each read our contributions to The May Queen anthology . Alex, who had the camera, noticed that I was reading at the same time as Andrew Sean Greer. “Andy’s reading!” he said. “See ya!” So here’s Andy, answering questions about The Confessions of Max Tivoli. (No, I imagine him saying, that syndrome about reverse aging doesn’t exist. I made it up.) I can’t wait for his next book.

Let’s see. What else happened? I watched Joyce Carol Oates come and go in the green room and on the festival floor, without mustering the nerve to talk to her. What do you say to someone like her? Hello, Ms. Oates, I love your work? What if she’d said, Take a number, sister.? Nor could I manage to talk to Colson Whitehead, whether before his talk or at the evening party. Again, I say, what can one ask? What do you use on your hair, Mr. Whitehead?

The larger stages, which were set up inside the convention floor, remained sparsely attended in the early hours of the day. (No doubt this is because the weather was lovely. This is Portland: When it’s not raining, people go out.) But the turnout got bigger as the day wore on and as the stars came out. Edward Hirsch and Vern Rutsala packed the Mountain Writers Stage, for instance. There was a huge crowd at the “Writing About Iraq” panel, although, tellingly, not a single Iraqi was on the bill. But by far the most popular reading was Dave Eggers’s. Here’s a picture of him as he’s about to go on the Powell’s stage.

I skipped Sunday’s events in favor of Chapter Five of my novel. But you can read more about Wordstock over at the Oregonian, where Jeff Baker delivers the goods, and don’t forget to swing by the Powell’s blog.

Portland’s Wordstock Festival is set to open today, with a guest list of more than 250 authors. For only $3 each day, you can attend dozens of readings at the Oregon Convention Center. (See the full schedule here.) The Willamette Week’s editorial staff have also written up a handy little Guide to Wordstock, which you should check out.

I will be doing two events at Wordstock. I’ll be reading from my book, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, at the International Fiction stage, with Thrity Umrigar, author of The Space Between Us. Here are the details:

Saturday, April 22
12 PM
Portland Stage, B110-111

And I will also be reading from a personal essay I contributed to the anthology The May Queen. The other reader is the lovely and amazing Erin Ergenbright, author of The Ex-Boyfriend Cookbook (with Thisbe Nissen) and the co-director of the Loggernaut reading series. Details:

Saturday, April 22
3 PM
Oregon Stage, B118-119

You can see the full author list here. It’s an awesome line-up, so if you’re in the Portland area, please come.

I met Cristina Henriquez at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference last year, and we’ve been in touch since. Having read a couple of her stories, I was eagerly awaiting the release of her first collection, Come Together, Fall Apart. (Henriquez is now on the road, promoting the book; you should try and make it to one of her readings. ) This week, I’d like to give away a copy of this lovely collection, to the first reader who correctly answers this question: What is the title of the novella included in this debut? Please include your mailing address. Previous winners excluded.

Update: The winner is Amanda R. from Cookeville, Tennessee.