Category: literary life

There is a nice review of Faïza Guène’s Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow in the Sunday NYTBR. It might help if they’d spelled her name correctly. (It’s Guène, not Guèn.)

Turkish writer Elif Shafak, who has been charged with “insulting Turkishness” via the same law that had earlier been used againt Orhan Pamuk, is interviewed by Scott Simon over at NPR.

Daniel Alarcón contributes a piece to the Washington Post‘s occasional “Writing Life” series. I was particularly interested in this passage, which describes the fear many immigrant or expat or exiled writers experience when their books come out in their countries of birth:

In a few months, my first book of stories, War by Candlelight — published last year in the United States — will be published in Peru. I’ve been looking forward to the Spanish version anxiously. It’s not just a matter of worrying about how the translation will sound; it’s deeper than that. My incomplete knowledge of the place will be on display before critics who are least likely to be forgiving. To be panned by an American reviewer would probably have more of an impact on my career, but similar treatment at the hands of Peruvian critics might do more spiritual damage. I’ve taken what I know about a place, written it in English, and now those people depicted in the stories will have their say. Exoticism will not color their understanding of the work, and the stories will be read on their own merits. These readers will not be seduced by a pretty sentence or a well-observed detail: They will know instantly if the book is true or not, whether I have added something of substance to the discussion of Peru’s national trauma or have simply plagiarized our suffering.

You can read the entire essay here. Authenticity (and not emotional truth) continues to be the question of the moment for writers of color. See, for instance, reactions to the film adaptation of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane.

Jami Attenberg, whose debut collection, Instant Love, came out last month, contributes a piece to Nextbook about discovering her Jewish roots, sometimes in the least expected places. Here’s a tidbit:

So off I went to college in Baltimore, where there were plenty of Jews—and I successfully ignored them. In fact, in all the cities I lived in over the years—from DC to Tampa to Seattle—I managed to ignore them, the other Jews, only stopping to think about my own Jewishness when someone else bothered to mention it. At one point I attended a Catholic wedding in San Diego, a wedding so white I was the token minority. Someone actually said to me, “I heard you were Jewish. Say something Jewish!”

Read it all here. And keep checking this site. I have a signed copy of Instant Love that I will be giving away at some point.

Bread Loaf, the nation’s oldest writers’ conference, will take place in Middlebury, Vermont from August 16th to the 27th. A listing of faculty and fellows is now available.

Here’s one reason to cheer up: Edward P. Jones has a new collection of short stories coming out this September, titled All Aunt Hagar’s Children. Kirkus gives it a starred review.