Nation Spring Books Issue

The Nation‘s spring books issue is already available online. There’s lots to read here, so I’ll only single out a few of the essays. For instance, John Banville’s review of Roberto Bolaño’s Last Evenings on Earth and Ismail Kadare’s The Successor is an interesting piece on the convergence (or divergence) of art and politics. You might also enjoy reading what Alice Kaplan has to say about Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française. (I’m dying to read this book. I have piles and piles of books that don’t interest me and which I didn’t request, but for some reason I never seem to get the books I really want.) And I know I’ve already mentioned Wole Soyinka’s memoir, You Must Set Forth At Dawn, several times, but see what you think of Fatin Abbas’s take. Lastly, Reza Aslan reviews Shirin Ebadi’s memoir Iran Awakening, which was co-authored with Azadeh Moaveni (Lipstick Jihad). This is the book that caused Ebadi to sue the Office of Foreign Assets Control for the right to publish it in the United States (see this, this, this, and this.)