Search Results for: lit


R.I.P. Abdelkebir Khatibi

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.



Cheever Bio

When John Cheever died in 1982, he left behind a 4,300-page journal that was later (and fortunately for the reader) made available to the literary biographer Blake Bailey. His book John Cheever: A Life has just been published and Maud Newton reviews it for the Barnes and Noble Review.

Originally the author’s plans for this massive chronicle of his own evolution were unclear, but as the years passed and bisexuality entered his fiction more freely, Cheever took to showing explicit passages from his journals to visitors (although he never received the excoriation or absolution — whichever it was — that he craved). He also, notes Bailey, “became increasingly convinced that the journal was not only a crucial part of his own oeuvre, but an essential contribution to the genre,” despite or perhaps because of its focus on sex. “I read last year’s journal with the idea of giving it to a library,” he wrote. “I am shocked at the frequency with which I refer to my member.” It is a testament both to Bailey’s gift for storytelling and to the multitudinous variations of Cheever’s capacity for self-deception and self-loathing that this massive biography engages throughout its 700-plus pages.

The piece gives a clear sense of how troubled and isolated Cheever’s life was. I’m going to put this book on my to-read list.



Hostage Memoirs

When the Colombian and American hostages held by the FARC were spectacularly rescued last July, most of the press coverage focused on the French-Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt. But a couple of days ago, NPR had an intriguing piece about recent memoirs by former hostages, including one book by three Americans:

The book is much more than a survival tale; it also provides intimate details about life in rebel camps, such as petty jealousies between hostages and romances between prisoners. And it paints a not-so-rosy picture of Betancourt, who was considered the most valuable hostage.

Stansell describes her as self-absorbed, even spiteful. He says she hoarded books and food and determined bathing schedules.

“Whether they like it or not, I apologize. I don’t want to offend anybody, but I did not tell any lies,” Stansell says.

The book, which apparently contains an unflattering portrait of Betancourt, has been excerpted by some publications in Colombia and will be published there once it is translated into Spanish.