Category: literary life

“Nearly a half-century after Gabriela Mistral’s death, her presence can still be felt almost everywhere in Chile. There is probably no town in this country that does not have a street, square or school named for her, the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for literature, and her poems and essays have long been part of the school curriculum.
But “the mother of the nation,” as Mistral is often called here because of her poems for and about children, is now the focus of a controversy that is forcing a re-examination of her life and work. The recent publication of her private journals shows that she had a love-hate relationship with Chile, while a biography and a film project argue that part of her ambivalence stemmed from what is described as her lesbianism.”
More gossip in this Mistral profile from the New York Times.

That’s the title of the debut novel by le thim diem thuy. I’m intrigued by it because it’s one of the first novels by someone from the generation that fled Vietnam for the U.S. after 1975. Here‘s the Boston Globe article about the book.

Issue No One is finally here. Those of you who live in New York can go to the launch party. It will be at the Galapagos Arts Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on July 1st.

and no, it’s not Zadie Smith or Donna Tartt. The prize went to Valerie Martin for Property. The Guardian has a bunch of articles on the competition and the winner.

“The stink started with a picture drawn by Pam Santi’s 7-year-old grandson. ‘It was disgusting,’ said the Riverside resident. ‘He was drawing a piece of poop.’
More specifically, Taylond, a second-grader, was sketching Deputy Doo-Doo, the villainous character in ‘The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby’ by Dav Pilkey.
The book is part of the author’s bestselling “Captain Underpants” series, which presents such subjects as talking toilets, troublemaking cafeteria ladies from outer space and a mad scientist named Professor Pippy P. Poopypants.
Santi, who is also guardian of her grandson, was appalled to find that the scatological story was available at his school, John F. Kennedy Elementary.”

You can guess what happened next. In Complaint to Riverside Schools, Toilet-Humor Book Doesn’t Amuse. (requires registration)

Odd pairings at this weekend’s BookExpo: Michael Moore and Madeline Albright on one panel and Al Franken and Bill O’Reilly on another.