Month: July 2007

I am about three weeks away from the end of my Fulbright Fellowship in Morocco, and I’ve already received several emails from friends asking me, “What next?” I’m happy to report that I’ll be joining the Creative Writing department at the University of California, Riverside. I was hired at the same time as Reza Aslan, and we’ll both start in the fall. I’m very pleased about this for several reasons: UCR has the most diverse campus in the UC system. The creative writing department itself is particularly strong. And it offers the opportunity for me to try something new in class. I am going to miss Portland (particularly Powell’s, the greatest bookstore on earth!) but it feels right to be back in the Los Angeles area, where I’ve lived for more than 11 years, and where I have so many friends and family.

(art credit: Kerne Erickson)

Percival Everett has a new novel out next month called The Water Cure, described by publisher Graywolf Press as the “chilling confession of a victim turned villain.” Here’s what they say about it:

Ishmael Kidder is a successful romance novelist. His agent is coming to visit her usually productive client. But Kidder’s eleven-year-old daughter has been brutally murdered, and it stands to reason that he must take revenge by any means necessary. The punishment is carried out without guilt, and with the usual equipment—duct tape, rope, and super glue. But how will he explain the noises in the basement to his agent? How does he know he has the right man?

Everett read an excerpt from The Water Cure at last year’s Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, and I remember it vividly; it was a scene in which the father finds out that his daughter is missing, and goes to his ex-wife’s house to wait for the police. Heartbreaking, terrifying, and yet at the same time laced with the usual Everett humor.

(Via TEV)

Last week, journalist Mustapha Hormatallah and editor in chief Abderrahim Ariri, both of Al Watan Al An newspaper, were held in police custody for 96 hours, three days after the publication of a July 14 cover story on “Secret reports behind the state of alert in Morocco.” The article reproduced classified information, and a police raid on the paper’s offices allegedly turned up classified documents.

In the course of investigative work, journalists the world over try to get access to classified information, so the idea that obtaining these documents is a crime in itself is a little bizarre. An independent court system might have helped Ariri and Hormatallah regain their freedom, but don’t hold your breath. The case is likely to be influenced by politics.

Yesterday, a Casablanca court decided to charge but release Ariri on bail, while Hormatallah was taken to Okacha prison. The first hearing is scheduled for tomorrow; they risk prison terms of one to five years. The journalists have received support from their colleagues and from human rights organizations across the board. You can send the paper a note of support here.

Last year, my story “The Fanatic” was shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing, along with pieces by Sefi Atta, Darrel Bristow-Bovey, Muthoni Garland, and Mary Watson. The finalists’ work appears in a new anthology, titled Jungfrau and Other Short Stories, and it can be ordered from Amazon.co.uk. I believe the book also contains selected stories by writers who have attended the annual Caine Prize workshop, held in Kenya in mid-spring. (There’s a brief mention of this in Boyd Tonkin’s column in the Independent.)