Escape Lit
Ted Conover’s Newjack, an account of his life as a rookie prison guard at Sing Sing, was used by inmates to plan an escape, according to this article.
Ted Conover’s Newjack, an account of his life as a rookie prison guard at Sing Sing, was used by inmates to plan an escape, according to this article.
Algerian novelist Yasmina Khadra (alias Mohammed Moulessehoul) has a new novel coming out in the U.S. Unlike his previous works, which were set in Algeria where Islamists continue to battle the military-backed government, this new work is set in Afghanistan and tells the story of an educated, once-prosperous couple struggling under the Taliban. The Christian Science Monitor has a review of The Swallows of Kabul.
Carrie Fisher continues to mine her family’s history, this time for a new novel The Best Awful. She gets a NYT review.
The Missouri Review has started its own blog: Inside the Missouri Review.
Am I the only one who can’t quite make sense of this Village Voice piece about Marcel Proust? It looks like a review of a recent translation of Proust’s A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleur but there are two many em-dashes and bizarre changes in subjects with each new paragraph. Oh, and I guess there’s also a quickie review of a recent translation of Céleste Albaret’s biography of the man.
Ha’aretz has an article about small presses in Israel.
How is it that right in the middle of a recession new publishers are setting up shop? It turns out that small publishers who start out during an economic slump adapt to operating under such conditions. There are a few rules that help them to survive, the first of which is “do it yourself” – the publishers save money by working from home, and are usually the ones who edit and translate the texts, design the books and are also in charge of advertising and public relations.
Read the whole thing here.