Category: literary life

Novelist and short-story writer Edwidge Danticat contributes an opinion piece to The Progressive about the immigration protests of last month, and what they say about our society:

At the heart of these protests is also the obligation of a country that needs, yet despises, those who comprise a large percentage of its fundamental workforce. Should we desire in our midst a group of people only when they’re willing to do for less pay the work that our own citizens find too grueling, too demeaning, or too hazardous? The moral question aside, what does it say about our own societal structure that we cannot within our own borders make these jobs more appealing and more humane for our own citizens?

The bottom line is we’d like our immigrants to be disposable, to work when we need them, then disappear when we don’t.

Please read it all here.

RAWI, the association of Arab-American writers, has announced the winners of its 2006 Literary Prose Competition. They are: Barbara Bedway for “The Hungers of the World,” Patricia Sarrafian Ward for “Remember,” and Nada Sneige Fuleihan for “Photo Opportunity.”

The May/June issue of the Boston Review is now out, and portions of it are available freely online.

I bookmarked Maud Newton’s interview with Rupert Thomson yesterday and now that the house is empty and I’m alone, I finally sat down and read it. I loved reading Thomson’s insights about his writing process:

I tend to write at least six entire drafts of a book, and sometimes as many as twelve. By a draft, I mean writing the book from beginning to end, no matter how long that takes. I will often go back and forwards as well, within a single draft. By the time I reach the third or fourth draft, I have a good idea of the final shape of the book, but I still might not have found that extra level that’s crucial if the book is to have the depth I want it to have. The best novels are like cities built on cities built on cities. Once you start digging, there’s no end to what you can discover.

The actual writing process feels a lot like sculpture. I start with something amorphous and vague — the equivalent of a piece of wood or marble — and do my best to find out what it’s supposed to be.

I feel like screaming, “I’m not alone! I’m not alone!”

Dan Wickett’s latest e-panel features literary translators C.M Mayo, Jordan Stump, Liz Stump, Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough, Laura Wideburg, and Linda Coverdale.

Ngugi wa Thiongo is back in Kenya, to attend the trial of the thugs who attacked him in 2004, and to launch his new book, Murogi wa Kigogo. It’s written in Gikuyu and I’m not sure if an English translation is planned, and the English translation, by Ngugi himself, is due out from Pantheon in August, under the title Wizard of the Crow.

(Thanks to Kyle B. for the info.)