Michael Chabon’s novel in progress is about a little know fact of U.S. history: that, in 1939, the U.S. Interior Department recommended that the Alaskan territory be settled with laborers from around the world, including Jewish refugees. The bill never passed, but Chabon’s book, tentatively titled Hotzeplotz, asks what if? What if Jews had indeed been allowed to immigrate to Alaska?
Link via The Elegant Variation.
can be found here. And again Jeffrey Eugenides seems to be a favorite.
Amy Tan’s workspace. She’s got built-in shelves. And within arm’s reach, too! That’s something I’ve always wanted, so when we move to Portland in early January I’m hoping we’ll find a place that has some.
The longlist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award has been announced, with A.S. Byatt, J.M. Coetzee, and Jeffrey Eugenides making the cut, among many others. The (hefty) prize is international: It’s open to any author, for a work in any language, and nominations are made by librarians around the world. This makes for an eclectic longlist, with such selections as Tahar Ben Jelloun for This Blinding Absence of Light, or Ismail Kadare for Spring Flowers, Spring Frost. Last year’s winner was Orhan Pamuk for My Name is Red. Visit the IMPAC website for the full longlist.
There are now 250 million copies of the Harry Potter books in print. J.K’s Rowling in money. Heh. Sorry.
The Guardian has an interview with Hanif Kureishi, the acclaimed author, playwright and screenwriter (My Beautiful Laundrette, My Son the Fanatic, The Buddha of Suburbia, etc.) His latest book is about a woman in her seventies, sex life included. The interview tackles the inevitable subjects of race (which I believe Maud already excerpted) and gender, as well as his writing routine.
He gets up early and writes every day. He writes loads, he says. “That’s all I do all day. I’m always writing. I’m an obsessive. It’s not because I’m a disciplined person. It’s because I’m crazy about it.” His most depressed period, he says, was when he had just left university and was waiting to see if any real writing talent might emerge; if it hadn’t, he says, he would have had to become an academic. But it did, and he started writing plays for the Royal Court theatre. One of the characters in The Mother is a failed writer, a woman whose ambition is unmatched by ability and who Kureishi depicts, in this pathetic state, with a little too much relish.
You can also visit Kureishi’s website.