Laila Lalami

In a story that is bound to hearten writers who deal with rejections (which is to say, pretty much all of them), news came yesterday that George Orwell’s Animal Farm was rejected by T.S. Eliot when Eliot was editorial director at Faber and Faber.

In a letter from 1944 explaining why he would not be publishing the work, Eliot told Orwell that he was not persuaded by the “Trotskyite” politics which underpin the narrative. To publish such an anti-Russian novel would jar in the contemporary political climate, explained the poet.

“We have no conviction … that this is the right point of view from which to criticise the political situation at the present time. It is certainly the duty of any publishing firm which pretends to other interests and motives other than mere commercial prosperity to publish books which go against the current of the moment,” wrote Eliot, before going on to say that he was not convinced that “this is the thing that needs saying at the moment.” The letter, which has been in the private collection of Eliot’s widow, Valerie, since he died, is explored in a forthcoming edition of the BBC documentary series, Arena.

I read the published excerpts from Eliot’s letter several times and I still can’t figure exactly what Eliot had against the book. Maybe I just need some coffee. Or maybe rejections are just opaque to me.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is reporting that Ali Anouzla and Jamal Boudouma, managing editor and publishing director of the Moroccan newspaper Al-Jarida Al-Oula, have received suspended jail sentences and large fines for “defamation” and “insulting the judiciary.” Specifically:

The lawsuit, the second in less than three months in regard to the same article, was filed by Khalil Hachemi Idrissi, publishing director of the daily French-language newspaper Aujourd’hui Le Maroc in January. Idrissi filed a previous lawsuit against Anouzla in September 2008, after the newspaper reported on an incident in which Hassan al-Yaqoubi, the spouse of King Muhammad VI’s aunt had shot and injured a traffic policeman who had stopped him.

“We urge the court of appeals to overturn this unjust ruling,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayam, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator. “This fine and another that was issued in January smack of political score-settling and are likely to bring down the newspaper if upheld by the court of appeals.”

So let me see if I get this straight: One prominent journalist sues another for defamation and wins. (And it just so happens that the latter was critical of the regime’s handling of the al-Yacoubi case.) The censorship machine is so well-oiled nowadays that the Moroccan government doesn’t need to do anything.

Who censors the internet? It turns out it’s not just the usual suspects.

The spring quarter at UCR starts tomorrow. I’ll be teaching an introductory creative writing course, open to freshmen of all persuasions–future biologists, businesswomen, dentists, painters, or entomologists, as well as future poets and writers. I’m both excited (I get to give a lecture on writing twice a week!) and nervous (180 students? What fresh hell is this?), but probably more excited than nervous, since we’ll be reading and discussing Yusef Komunyakaa, Marjane Satrapi, Vladimir Nabokov, John Cheever, and Maxine Hong Kingston, among many, many others.

I am heading out to Santa Barbara for a literary festival there, but I did want to stop for a moment and note the passing of the great Moroccan intellectual Abdelkebir Khatibi. Maghreb Arabe Presse, the official news agency of Morocco, announced the news earlier this week. It has been many, many years since I read La Mémoire Tatouée (and I can’t seem to locate a copy; has the book gone out of print?). I remember seeing him, in his brown cloak, as he walked down the corridors of the literature building at the university; he inspired such awe in all of us. You can read notices in Al Jazeera, Le Matin, Le Monde, and El País. Pierre Joris has posted a remembrance on his blog.

PEN has announced its program for the World Voices Festival, which will be held in New York from April 27 to May 3. I will be doing four (!) events. Here are the details:

Personal Evolution, Social Revolution
Edwidge Danticat, Dany Laferrière, Laila Lalami, and Colum McCann; moderated by Benjamin Anastas
Thursday April 30, 2009
4:30 p.m.
Instituto Cervantes New York
211–215 East 49th Street

Garden Readings
With Laila Lalami, Morten Ramsland, and Peter Weber
Thursday, April 30, 2009
12:30–2 p.m.
Deutsches Haus, at NYU
42 Washington Mews

This Critical Moment!
With Eric Banks, Rigoberto González, Laila Lalami, and Kevin Prufer; moderated by Jane Ciabattari
Friday, May 1, 2009
3–4:30 p.m.
Scandinavia House
58 Park Avenue

Season of Migration to the North: The Work of Tayeb Salih
With Elias Khoury, Laila Lalami, Bruce Robbins, and Raja Shehadeh
Friday, May 1, 2009
6–7 p.m.
Scandinavia House
58 Park Avenue

The theme for this year’s festival is: Evolution/Revolution. The Arthur Miller lecture will be given by the Egyptian writer Nawal al-Saadawi. You can view the entire program and list of participants at the PEN website.

The reading at Macalester took place at the college’s art gallery. (It’s currently showing an installation that consists of pieces of insulation material hanging on strings from the ceiling; yeah, I don’t get it either.) I was introduced by my friend Marlon James, who teaches fiction here. I’m in the middle of his new novel, The Book of Night Women; it’s very good. I’m particularly fond of what he does with language.

I read from a short personal essay I’ve been working on and then from Secret Son. The most interesting question for me came when someone in the audience wondered why my main character is a man. It’s true (and this isn’t my first time.) But, with apologies to Flaubert, Youssef, c’est moi.

I just got back from dinner and I’m tired. More soon, I hope.

I am in St. Paul, Minnesota, where the weather is surprisingly (and thankfully) mild. On the way to dinner last night, we drove past Summit Terrace, the home of Francis Scott Fitzgerald, and the place where he supposedly rewrote This Side of Paradise. There are several homes associated with Fitzgerald in the area, and I hope at least one of them will be open for visits.

As I was getting ready for bed, I noticed a thick book on the shelf beneath the nightstand; it was a 1920 edition of Old French Fairy Tales by the Comtesse de Ségur. I grew up reading de Ségur in Morocco, so it was strange yet wonderful to encounter her characters in English, in a bed-and-breakfast in St. Paul, of all places.