Category: literary life
When I was a sophomore in college, our class was assigned Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People for our African Literature course. I went to get my copy at the English Bookshop, which back then was on Zanqat Al-Yamama, across from the train station in downtown Rabat, right behind what used to be the British Council building. The bookseller had ran out of new copies, so I bought a used one–printed by Heinemann in 1982. A Man of the People was a revelation for me; it spoke to me like few books had until then (or since, for that matter.) I went back to the store and bought the other works of Achebe’s that I could find, including, of course, Things Fall Apart.
I’ve been scavenging bookstore shelves for titles from the Heinemann African Writers Series for a while, but I finally gave up and ordered many of the ones I hadn’t yet read from an online site. But what’s strange is that I tend to prefer to buy the orange-covered editions–maybe because I’m hoping to replicate that feeling of discovery I had with Achebe or because I’m hoping to fall into these books in the same way I have fallen into A Man of the People. There hasn’t been anything like that first time, though.
The Guardian reprints its original (1924) review of E.M. Forster’s A Passage To India. Quaint.
Ron Charles, writing in the Washington Post, is not particularly taken with Monica Ali’s new novel, Alentejo Blue.
Monica Ali’s debut, the sensitive, subtly witty Brick Lane , was one of the best novels of 2003. Now, with Alentejo Blue , she’s produced one of the best books of 1926. This spare, unrelentingly depressing story about several lost generations might have delighted Gertrude Stein and made Hemingway green with envy, but whether readers will want to subject themselves to it now seems doubtful. Searching for this title online, don’t be surprised if you get a pop-up ad for Prozac.
Other reviewers appear to agree. I’m really disappointed, but let’s face it, I’ll probably pick up the book and give it a try anyway.
If you’re wondering what to take the beach: The Guardian asked Monica Ali, John Banville, A.S. Byatt, Dave Eggers, Francis Fukuyama, Kazuo Ishiguro, HIlary Mantel, Pankaj Mishra, Audrey Niffenegger, Orhan Pamuk, Sarah Waters, and many many others about their summer reading lists.
Alison Bechdel, whose Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is one of the best graphic memoirs I have ever read, will appear at Powell’s City of Books tonight at 7:30pm. If I were in town, I’d be there. (I take some comfort in knowing Alex will get our copy signed, but it’s just not the same.) I’ll have more to say about this book in the near future, so watch this space.
As has been widely reported elsewhere, this year’s IMPAC Dublin award has been awarded to Colm Toibin for his novel, The Master.
“If you just look at who has won it before, you think, ‘God, I would really like my book to be in that list’,” Toibin said.
The author, who was serving as the Stein Visiting Writer at Stanford University in California when he learnt of the award, said he will return there in 12 months’ time.
“I’m going to take a year to get a new novel written. The great advantage of this is it really frees you, the money,” he said.
Previous winners include Orhan Pamuk, Tahar Ben Jeloun, and Edward P. Jones.