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Tom Kealy alerts us that his blog is a clearinghouse of information on all things MFA. His latest post is about U.S. News and World Report rankings of graduate creative writing programs.

Here’s something you don’t see every day–a book of fiction from and about Djibouti. Abdourahman Waberi’s The Land Without Shadows is remarkable for many reasons: It’s a collection of short stories (at a time when collections are the brebis galeuses of fiction), it’s set in Africa and written by an African author (you don’t need me to tell you that publishers aren’t clamoring for this sort of thing), and it’s translated from the French (less than 3% of fiction published in the States originally appeared in another language). The book is coming out in October from the University of Virginia Press, and it’s got a foreword by acclaimed writer Nuruddin Farah.

The latest issue of the New York Review of Books is now available, and several articles are freely accessible online, including Adam Shatz’s perceptive review of Jean Daniel’s The Jewish Prison: A Rebellious Meditation on the State of Judaism.

Daniel is the legendary French journalist who co-founded the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur and still serves as its editorial director. Born in Algeria to a Jewish family, Jean Daniel (né Bensaid) is one of those people seemingly made up of irreconcilable contradictions: he worked for the French Resistance, supported Algeria’s independence, argued for decolonization in general, championed the state of Israel, and deplored its occupation of the Territories. The review revisits each of these contradictions, all the while offering a brief but fascinating portrait of Jewish life in France from the 1870s to the present.

The impetus for the book, though, came from the second intifada (which began in late 2000) and the way in which it played out in France, a country that, Shatz points out, has Europe’s largest Jewish community as well as its largest Muslim one. The battles in Israel and Palestine were being replayed between Beurs and Jews (most of the latter, it should be noted, were of North African origin as well.) American readers will easily remember how this was shown in the press here, but, Shatz writes:

As Daniel insists, the popular account of anti-Jewish violence in France, especially in the American press, is no more than a cartoon of an extremely complicated, fraught, and volatile situation, whose causes deserve far more subtle consideration. It is not simply a matter of hate crimes by Arabs against Jews, but of a clash between two groups whose passionate identification with the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy threatens to eclipse their commitment to the Republic that is their home.

Which perhaps helps to explain why, ultimately, Daniel remains committed to ‘laicite,’ to the ideal of a secular France. (One need only look, for instance, at his latest editorial for Le Nouvel Obs for proof.) Great review. Intriguing book.

Loggernaut, the Portland-based outfit that brings you a bi-monthly reading series and a great lit site, has posted new interviews with James Longenbach (The Resistance to Poetry) and Daniel Alarcón (War by Candlelight). Here’s Alarcón talking about doing book readings:

The best readings were in places I’ve lived before–New York, Iowa City, the Bay Area, Birmingham–where friends showed up and brought their friends, or where peruanos showed up just to say they were proud of me and whatnot. Chicago was also excellent, lots of fun. In Boulder I started my reading with two people in the audience. I introduced myself to both of them and shook their hands. The reading was fine, I think they both enjoyed it, and actually a few more people showed up by the time the story had ended. They asked me to read another story and I did. Then afterwards some dude wanted me to sign a galley, an advance reader copy, the one that says very clearly “not for sale, uncorrected proof” on the cover. He told me with an innocent smile that he’d bought it used on Amazon. I was like, Are you fucking kidding me? I think he expected me to congratulate him on having found such a bargain. But he was so earnest and excited to meet me that he even had his two daughters pose for a picture with me. Maybe he’ll buy my next book. Or not. I don’t even know why I was mad; it’s not like I don’t buy used books.

Read the rest of the interview here.