To clear up any confusion, author Chris Offutt has assembled a glossary of modern literary jargon. E.g., “short story: An essay written to conceal the truth and protect the writer’s family”; “chick lit: A patriarchal term of oppression for heterosexual female writing”; “deconstructionism: A moderately successful attempt by the French to avenge the loss of Paris as the global center of literature.”
Category: publishing
The Ten Types of Booker Prize Winner
The Guardian‘s blog breaks down the 40 years of the award into such categories as “the literary ‘Long Service Good Conduct’ medal,” “This is Britain’s premier fiction prize, but let’s show how ‘post-British’ we are,” “A Star Is Born” and “Let’s give it to a f***ing good f***ing novel that isn’t afraid to use the word f***.” Where does this year’s victor fall?
For Lit-Prize Geeks, A Booker Quiz
“Is there a higher honour in English letters? Yes, and you win it by getting all these questions right.”
Booker Odds Favor Sebastian Barry
“Irish writer Sebastian Barry is the bookmakers’ favourite to win the Man Booker Prize for The Secret Scripture. The author is ahead of shortlisted rivals Steve Toltz, Linda Grant and Amitav Ghosh.”
Booker Shortlist Has That Familiar Feeling
“As literary horse races go, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction is notoriously hard to handicap. … Yet the biggest question hanging over this year’s contest is more basic: Does anyone really care who wins?” Hephzibah Anderson writes. “The judges seem perversely bent on finding the best Booker-style novel rather than the best novel of the year.”
Who’s Who Of British Writers Protest New Terrorism Legislation
“In an unprecedented outpouring of anger, 42 of the UK’s most celebrated writers will each publish a short story, essay or poem tomorrow attacking the government’s determination to proceed with legislation to hold terrorist suspects without charge for 42 days. The list of writers taking part reads like a literary ‘Who’s Who’ of modern Britain.”
Is Texting Changing Our Language?
“The texting function of the cell phone ought to have been the special province of the kind of people who figure out how to use the television remote to turn on the toaster: it’s a huge amount of trouble relative to the results. In some respects, texting is a giant leap backward in the science of communication. It’s more efficient than semaphore, maybe, but how much more efficient is it than Morse code?”
A Run Of Interest On Nobel Winner’s Work
Editions Gallimard SA, the French publisher of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature winner Jean Marie Gustave le Clezio, is battling a flood of e-mail and telephone offers as publishers compete for foreign rights.
The Archbishop Does Dostoevsky
“We need a guide who combines the gifts of a literary critic and a trained theologian to work out how far the novels of Dostoevsky can be used as vehicles for such explorations. We also need a guide who is deeply versed in the ethos and spiritual traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church to place Dostoevsky, and the tormented exchanges of his characters, within some intelligible historical framework. Luckily, the Archbishop of Canterbury combines all these qualities, and more.”
Booker Prize – Time To Reboot?
Many of the winning books from the past 40 years just don’t stand the test of time. Why is the judging process so hit and miss? Is it simply that “some judges simply don’t have very good judgment?” Or something more?