“The Swedish industrialist said he wanted the prize to recognize ‘the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction.'” That direction has changed several times over the past 116 years, having gone to writers as wildly different as Sigmund Freud, Winston Churchill, Pearl S. Buck, Rabindranath Tagore, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Samuel Beckett, Gabriel García Marquez, Doris Lessing, and Bob Dylan. Jim Heintz looks at what directions that ideal might be heading in this year.
Category: words
What Exactly Is ‘Cultural Memoir’? Margo Jefferson Explains
“For me, cultural memoir is a mutating definition. I first began to think in that way when I was working with the boundaries between criticism – literary, cultural, or whatever – which I had done for so many years, and memoir. I realised that I needed, in some way, to merge and to keep those two forms in dialogue, interrogating – as we like to say – each other. So, I began to think of cultural memoir. Initially I was just working obviously with non-fiction but, as you can see, fiction and theatre make their way in here, too.”
J.G. Ballard, Prophet Of Climate Change?
“Consider the images coming out of South Florida” – let alone Puerto Rico – “the past few weeks: sailboats capsized and clotting on the shore; high-rises looking on, humiliated by their reflection in the flooded streets; palm carnage. These could easily be used to illustrate J.G. Ballard’s 1962 novel, The Drowned World.” Hunter Braithwaite makes the case.
Does The Field Of Literary Studies Have A Future?
“What, exactly, is literary studies? Is it a kind of history, a branch of philosophy, the study of rhetoric? Is it about becoming a better reader, in an ethical or technical sense? It’s not about learning how to write; that’s what MFA programs are for. One might turn to histories of the discipline in an effort to clear things up — but here, too, the same confusions apply. The history of methods of scholarship and criticism is its own subfield, and one can find convincing arguments to suit most any purpose.”
I Agreed To Curate A Literary Festival. What Was I Thinking?
“Just in case you’ve ever wondered what the job of a curator is like, it’s the old duck analogy: above the waterline you’re serenely sailing along the water, moving events from venue to venue and e-mailing publishers; underneath you’re furiously paddling just to stay afloat.”
Giller Prize Finalists Announced
The winner will be announced on Nov. 20 and receive $100,000 — the richest literary prize in Canada. This is the first year the Giller Prize will be awarded since the death of its founder, Jack Rabinovitch.
A 13-Year-Old Syrian Refugee Has Won A Poetry Prize In Britain
Amineh Abou Kerech learned to speak English one year ago. How did she win a poetry prize for 10-13-year-olds? Her sister says, “She sits in her bedroom all the time and practises, practises.”
Hemingway’s First Short Story Found In Florida
Well, it’s the earliest one anyone has found, anyway, and it almost sounds like a parody of itself: “an untitled, previously unknown work that he wrote at the age of 10.”
Walt Whitman, Opera Fan
He didn’t start life as an opera queen – “As a budding young journalist in New York, he was known to take potshots at the etiquette and artifice of what he saw as an aristocratic pastime. Whitman cultivated a more democratic persona and preferred popular songs, which he called ‘heart’ — as opposed to ‘art’ — music.” – but bel canto won him over, and massively influenced Leaves of Grass too.
A Mother’s Command Led To The Establishment Of What’s Now The Oldest Black Press In The U.S.
Long before Haki Madhubuti established Third World Press – now turning 50 – on Chicago’s South Side, he was a 14-year-old living in Detroit. “His mother gave him a firm order: Go down to the public library and check out ‘Black Boy’ by Richard Wright.” That changed the course of his life, and of publishing for African Americans.