Category: literary life
The January issue of Words Without Borders is now available, and the focus this month is literature from Egypt. Fiction, non-fiction and poetry by Hamdi Abu Golayyel, Mahmoud Al Wardani, Na’am Al-Baz, Haggag Hassan Oddoul, Salwa Bakr, Mohamed Makhzangi, Tamer Fathy and Iman Mersal.
Here is the opening to Hamdi Abu Golayyel’s “The Veiler of All Deeds,” an excerpt from his forthcoming novel, Thieves in Retirement, which will be published by Syracuse University Press later this year.
People are delighted—in the normal course of events—when they hear the news that a pious man has been caught red-handed mired in some wrongful act, whether a sin divinely prohibited, a scandalous act undermining the gravity and might of his religiosity, or an error that strips from him the cloak of infallibility to expose him as an ordinary person who doesn’t carry the halo of sainthood after all. Perhaps they react this way because his commitment to virtue has been wounding their consciences, perhaps it’s a question of seeking psychological equilibrium. It’s a relief to be able to rely on the sins of a man who appears close to God in coming to terms with their own sins which they suspect are quite appalling, and they can think optimistically about committing other wrongs that are no less atrocious. Or maybe it’s because people generally find it hard to put up with individuals who lay it on thick when it comes to virtue and commitment–their own as well as what they advise others to acquire.
Like Alaa Al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building, the characters in Thieves in Retirement all inhabit the same apartment building, thus providing the author with a convenient cross-section of society.
The guest editor for this special issue of Words Without Borders is none other than Chip Rossetti, of the American University in Cairo Press. Read his introduction here.
Nextbook, the online magazine of Jewish culture, has started a new series of columns, to appear on Thursdays. The first is by Israeli author Etgar Keret, who writes about what it’s like to be an atheist and have a sister who converts to Orthodox Judaism.
Nineteen years ago, in a small wedding hall in Bnei Brak, my older sister died, and she now lives in the most Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem. I spent a recent weekend at her house. It was my first Shabbat there. I often go to visit her in the middle of the week but that month, with all the work I had and my trips abroad, it was either Saturday or nothing. “Take care of yourself,” my wife said as I was leaving. “You’re not in such great shape now, you know. Make sure they don’t talk you into turning religious or something.” I told her she had nothing to worry about. Me, when it comes to religion, I have no God. When I’m cool I don’t need anyone, and when I’m feeling shitty and this big empty hole opens up inside me, I just know there’s never been a god that could fill it and there never will be. So even if a hundred evangelist rabbis pray for my lost soul, it won’t do them any good. I have no God, but my sister does, and I love her, so I try to show Him some respect.
Like much of Keret’s work, the essay is both funny and poignant. You can read the essay here.
The LBC, a book blog cooperative of which I’m a member, is due to announce its Winter pick. Tune in on Monday morning for the announcement of the winner, and stick around for the rest of the week to find out which other books were considered.
Over at Poets and Writers, Joe Woodward goes in search of David Foster Wallace, and finds that:
Everything I know about DFW (even his wanton use of acronyms in place of proper nouns) I know secondhand—through his books, a few printed interviews, reviews, and critical studies. It’s not that I haven’t tried to pose some questions directly to the writer himself, to ferret out a few insights from the man Sven Birkerts—in a review of Infinite Jest for the Atlantic Monthly in 1996—called “a wild-card savant.” No, my search to find the real DFW has been impeded by agent and publicist alike: I’ve been stonewalled. Whether he is “publicity shy,” as his publicist contends, or whether he’s weaving a web of literary mystique about himself, I do not know. And, it seems more and more likely, I never will.
You can read the full article here.
The Guardian has put together a handy guide to the work of Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, who is currently awaiting trial for “insulting Turkishness.”
The New York Times‘ Edward Wyatt reports on Doubleday’s response to the allegations made by The Smoking Gun that large portions of James Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces, were made up. In essence, Doubleday thinks Frey’s misrepresentations do not matter, because memoir, as a genre, “is highly personal.” (Didn’t you know facts are personal? Well, now, you know.) Says Wyatt:
Doubleday’s response underscores the gap that has emerged between book publishing and the rest of the media, which in recent years have been under increasing scrutiny over the accuracy of their reporting. Other high-profile media outlets have been criticized for reports whose truth was later questioned, including Stephen Glass’s fabrications at The New Republic, Jayson Blair’s reporting for The New York Times and CBS News’s reporting on President Bush’s National Guard record.
Meanwhile, on Amazon.com, an enterprising reader is suggesting that people send the book back and ask for a refund, because he “wanted non-fiction, not fiction.”