Category: literary life

Rob Roberge’s new novel, More Than They Could Chew, is reviewed over at the NY Times (third item).

Roberge stages even the most brutal scenes for nervous laughs, and he has a knack for impeccably grotty details of the demimonde: one of Nick’s companions is a disbarred lawyer known as Maggot Arm Joe, thanks to his unorthodox treatment for an IV-drug abscess. Best of all is Nick’s studiously masochistic girl friend, Tara, who believes that ”you can get through life with just two lines: I don’t know and You’re talking to the wrong guy/gal.”

Roberge will be touring the Pacific Northwest in about three weeks’ time, so watch this space for updates.

Regular readers of this blog probably know of my obsession with Ahdaf Soueif. In The Eye of The Sun, remains one of my all-time favorite novels, and her story collections, Aisha and Sandpiper, are ones I often pull out of my shelves to re-read. (I didn’t, however, care as much for A Map of Love.) Soueif has a new book out, a collection of essays titled Mezzaterra, that should be coming out in the U.S. in October.

The Guardian‘s Aida Edemariam provides a lengthy profile of Soueif, which focuses a bit more on her political activism and her essays than on her fiction (natural, I suppose, since she addresses politics in Mezzaterra.) I was a bit suprised, though, to hear about Samir el-Youssef’s reaction to Soueif’s work.

Last year, she published her first volume of non-fiction, Mezzaterra, which includes [pieces of reportage from Palestine], as well as book reviews; read together, they have one overwhelming urge: to isolate and attempt to neutralise the damage the west inflicts on the Arab world at the level of the word – the thoughtless objectifications, the passive constructions, the essentialisations and impositions that go towards subtly dehumanising and creating an enemy.

Not everyone approves of her activities: Jewish peace activists have complained that she plays down their efforts; and there are Palestinians who would rather she directed her energies elsewhere. “She is a typical Arab intellectual who wants to send Palestinians anywhere apart from their own countries,” says Samir el-Youssef, a Palestinian writer exiled in London. “I cannot trust it. Nothing is easier than to attack Israel, but are you willing to look at your own society? This is the real challenge.” He says he was “appalled” by a 2004 Guardian piece in which she asked Palestinian authors how the occupation affected them: “It’s a typical Arab attitude to Palestinian literature, that Palestinians don’t write literature, they are just there to do propaganda, to make people feel sorry for them. It’s supposed to show solidarity, but what it shows is superiority.” Furthermore, “I don’t find very flattering” the idea that she’d go around “championing Palestinians in the west as victims. That’s taking something away from Palestinians, and I don’t feel very comfortable with that.”

The piece that el-Youssef is referring is archived here, so you can read it and judge for yourself. I think el-Youssef is being a little unfair, but it’s good to see that there is disagreement, even if it’s via the media rather than in vivo. At this point, I’m just happy that the article mentions that Soueif is taking a few months off to work on fiction–it’s been too long since she’s put out anything.

The Guardian uses the occasion of Lionel Shriver’s win (for We Need To Talk About Kevin) to raise the question of the Orange Prize again:

From the mixed reactions even of the judging panel, it is clear that this year’s winner is a controversial book, not just because of the violence at its heart, but because it deals with a mother’s deep-rooted ambivalence towards her son. The Orange Prize, however, revels in controversy. Now in it’s 10th year, and firmly established (beside the Man Booker and the Whitbread) as one of the UK’s ‘big three’ literary prizes, it nevertheless retains its power to raise blood pressures. The question of whether women writers require a dedicated prize never seems to go away. On the one hand the fact remains that although women publish about 70% of novels in Britain, as judge Joanne Harris says, “year after year the shortlist for the Booker is mostly old men.” On the other hand, the implication that there is such a thing as women’s writing, which deserves its own prize, is uncomfortable. A box that categorises can also limit – if a book can be defined as ‘women’s writing’ it can also be defined as ‘only women’s writing’. And while chick lit may have a counterpart in lad lit, you would never find the male-authored equivalent of the Orange prize books described as ‘men’s writing’.

The second Loggernaut reading will happen tonight at 7:30pm at Gravy (3957 N. Mississippi). The readers are Sarah Mangold, a poet, Ben McGrath, a journalist, and Peter Rock, a fiction writer. Cocktails and other beverages will be available for swilling at the bar. Admission is $2. I’ll be there, so stop by and say hi.

I got back home from BookExpo last night, and I’ve already gotten quite a few emails asking “How was it?”. I suppose my answer to this question is simply: BEA is the very worst event a writer can go to.

The sheer size of the show (BEA was held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center) was quite overwhelming. There were 1,500 publishers, from the big houses to the small ones, each with several dozen books on display. There were several thousand attendees, all congregating on the show floor to check out the books and the authors.

Walking that floor at BEA is one of the most depressing things I’ve done as a writer. There were times when I had to literally elbow my way out of an aisle, and it reminded me of being in a food souk in Morocco, right before dusk, when the prices are lowered in order to clear the merchandise, and people go into a frenzy. What the hell? I thought. How can I add my voice to this cacophony?

But I suppose that’s also what makes BEA one of best events a writer can go to. It made me remember, just in case I’d forgotten, why I choose to write–not because of the publisher, nor the hype, and Lord knows it’s not because of the money. I do it because this is what I’ve been called to do. It’s not just that I want to write, it’s what I need to write.

Sure, it was fun to read in front of a large audience and to sign my first galley. It was fun to go to a few parties, where I met people whose work I’ve read and admired, or read and disliked, or even just heard about. But it was even better to be back home, in my quiet little office, where I can just hole up, alone. And write.

My experience at RAWI was quite the opposite of BEA. The conference took place at Hunter College, and there were perhaps 100 attendees–you could actually hear a conversation while you were having it. You didn’t need to raise your voice over the din. So I was able to have real discussions with fellow Arab American writers, on topics of huge interest to all of us.

The panel on blogs was well-attended, and though I felt nervous that the amazing Naomi Shihab Nye was in the audience, I think it went very well. And I got to spend some time with Leila Abu Saba, as well as with Randa Jarrar, who’s been guesting on Fridays at Moorishgirl for quite some time. It was like meeting old friends–they were both exactly as I’d imagined they would be. Randa shares her own thoughts here, and Leila echoes a call for action here.