Category: words

What gets published by or about South Asians in the U.S.? “Mangoes, spices, and monsoons … saris, bangles, oppressive husbands/fathers, arranged marriages, grains of rice, jasmine, virgins, and a tacky, overproduced Bollywood dance of rejection and obsession with Western culture.”

“For a book to be taken seriously, does it have to take us right to the yellowing page of some crumbling edition guarded in the depths of an austere library, if the material could equally well be found through a Google search? Has an element of fetishism perhaps crept into what was once a necessary academic practice?”

“In fact, James is every bit as concerned with innocence recoiling at adulthood … The difference is that James writes about women, instead of wild boys. The archetypal Jamesian character is a young American woman – Daisy Miller, Isabel Archer, Milly Theale, Maggie Verver – whose innocence is manipulated and ultimately destroyed by the forces (usually British or European) of experience.”

Alexander Chee: “‘I don’t know how to evaluate this.’ ‘Shouldn’t comics have their own category?’ ‘This isn’t literary.’ As a frequent juror on prizes, colonies and fellowships, I am, it could be said, so tired of this, that in fact, I will fight you for Roz Chast’s right to be on this list. I will fight you for the right for Bechdel to get that MacArthur.”

“Just as Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series wended its leisurely, funny and warm way through the evolving gay and transgender communities in San Francisco, Dykes to Watch Out For dives deep into a fictional lesbian community, considering the impact of transgender politics, marriage and even the death of independent bookstores on her characters. … Did I mention that the strip is fabulous, funny reading?”

“Founder Jack Rabinovitch announced Tuesday that the Scotiabank Giller Prize is now worth $140,000. The winner will get $100,000 and the other four finalists $10,000. It represents a doubling of the prize and makes it the highest payout for a literary prize in Canada, richer even than Britain’s Man Booker Prize of 50,000 pounds (about $89,000 Canadian).”

“In France, they say they’re puzzled by the humor. In Germany, they say it will be difficult to market. Martin Amis’s latest novel, The Zone of Interest, a satire set in a concentration camp during the Second World War, is having trouble gaining traction in Europe, where his longtime French and German publishers have rejected it.”

“Digital poetry is still dwarfed by print, and some writers and publishers question whether there is much demand for poetry e-books.”

“Good taste precedes the individual. It is an inheritance, an invisible monument, a millennium of exquisite micro-choices all embedded in the fibers of the mind! Surely it will prevail!”

Two former U.S. poets laureate, Louise Glueck and Mark Strand, have made the longlist for the National Book Awards.