The latest issue of the London Review of Books is available, and it includes an excellent essay by Hilary Mantel on two new books about the AIDS crisis in South Africa. The essay explores sociological, economic, historical, and cultural aspects of the epidemic in a country that struck down apartheid only a decade or so ago. A must read.
Take a look at Meena; it’s a new literary magazine, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Alexandria, Egypt.
The Guardian reports that the contents of Che Guevara’s private notebook will be published next month in Mexico. Instead of the political writing or guerrilla strategy one might expect, the notebook contained Che’s favorite poetry, written in his hand.
The Observer has an interview with novelist/dentist Alaa Al Aswany about his best-selling novel The Yacoubian Building. The piece is called “An author with bite” (har, har). Al Aswany’s new novel, Chicago, will apparently be released by the American University in Cairo Press in 2008, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a U.S. publisher yet.
The shortlist for the Man Booker Prize was announced yesterday afternoon, and it includes: Darkmans by Nicola Barker, The Gathering by Anne Enright, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones, On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, and Animal’s People by Indra Sinha. Several newspapers and a few bookies are giving McEwan as the favorite. Of the six finalists, I have read only Hamid; I have McEwan’s new novel, but haven’t gotten to it yet. The winner will be announced in October.
The amazing Dave Weich interviews Junot Díaz about his new novel, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Toward the end of their chat, Dave asks Díaz what he would consider his greatest weakness as a writer. Díaz replies that “he doesn’t write enough,” but then later seems to remember something:
Díaz: – Oh, I suck at dialogue.
Dave: You suck at dialogue?
Díaz: Definitely. If I were better at dialogue, I’d probably be walking around with a fur coat.
This sounded so strange to me–I think Díaz is actually brilliant at dialogue and have used an exchange from “Fiesta, 1980” in a class on language. Funny how writers’ perceptions of their work can vary so greatly from those of their readers.