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Jane Ciabattari
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Is Sorokin the Russian Bolano?
Although his arrival was delayed by visa problems, Vladimir Sorokin, with his leonine mane of silver hair, was much in evidence at the PEN World Voices Festival.
A daring samizdat postmodernist in the waning Soviet days, Sorokin was known for stories that threw grenades at the long forced marc...[More]
Other Posts:
>> From Russians, with Love
>> Written on Water
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Lyn Miller-Lachmann
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Children’s Authors on Voice & Place
The two empty chairs onstage at the PEN Children’s Committee panel, “Who Tells the Story? Children’s Book Writers Talk About Voice,” seemed to have been left there by accident, but unforeseen circumstances kept two participants from attending. Children’s Committee chair...[More]
Other Posts:
>> The Mischief and Mayhem Revolution
>> It’s an Audience, Not a Market
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Alta Ifland
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Book Expo America 2011, 05/25
Third Day: Wednesday, 05/25
It turned out that, indeed, there was another area of the exhibit that had more publishers of literary fiction than the area I’d previously visited. By the end of the day I had a bag full of so many goodies I had to ship them home. First, I stopped (a...[More]
Other Posts:
>> French-American Foundation Prizes
>> Book Expo America 2011, 05/24
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Anelise Chen for Anderbo.com
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Abdellah Taïa & Self-Mythology
Abdellah Taïa is a writer who reminds us of art's power to transcend boundaries and break barriers. Sartre famously wrote that genius is what man invents when he is looking for a way out; Taïa shows that courage also happens.
Taïa is the first openly gay writer to be published ...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Revolutionaries in the Arab World
>> The Pale King Panel Discussion
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Mindy Aloff
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Truth or Dare
I’ve often wondered what an essay is—how it differs from fiction, for example, or prose-poetry, or even from reporting. In 2010, many writers and most publishers will tell you that it is the marketing of “essays” and “fiction” that determines the di...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Transportations
>> A Conversation In Excelsis
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Ronald K. Fried
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New York Stories
I can’t attend a literary evening without recalling Elizabeth Hardwick’s comment that the only thing she ever learned from a poetry reading concerned the physical condition of the poet at the time of the event. No poets read last night at Gilder Lehrman Hall in the Morgan Library—p...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Pinckney on Hardwick
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Zachary Lazar
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New European Fiction
A provocative, funny, and frequently inspiring discussion and reading took place at Le Poisson Rouge last Saturday in celebration of Dalkey Archives’ anthology Best European Fiction 2010. It is of course a huge topic, European Fiction, and its diversity was a...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Anne Frank: The Diary, the Girl, an
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Catherine Texier
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Revolution in the Library
The PEN banned books trailer popping on the screen of the Standard High Line Room on Wednesday night was particularly appropriate to the theme of How to Start a Revolution in the Libra...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Literature at Le Poisson Rouge
>> Listening in other languages
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Willard Wood
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PEN World Voices Adaptation
When you write a book, says Francine Prose, and you get a review, there's always that second or third paragraph where they give the plot summary. And you read it and say, How did anyone ever think this is what the book was about? So when a movie is made from your novel, it's like seeing that paragra...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Philippe Djian and A. M. Homes
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Dedi Felman
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Beloved and Unknown
Beloved and Unknown: Adventures in Marketing an International Masterpiece
What sells a book?
Picture an editor desperately scribbling at her desk. She’s drafting a “sell sheet” for a book for which she hopes to gain her publishing colleagues’ support. The autho...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Adaptation
>> Mr. Sandman: Neil Gaiman at PWV
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Mariela Dreyfus
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Jelly Roll Morton's "Mama 'Nita"
Reading Blue Notes, a collection of essays, poems and interviews by Louisiana-native poet Yusef Komunyakaa (1947), revived my old passion for jazz. At 18, after entering Julio Cortazar’s hallucinating universe in Rayuela (translated into English by Gregory Rabassa as Hopscot...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Two Poems on Mother's Day
>> Patti Smith: Embrace all you fear
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Molly McQuade
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Bloomerang
"Let's get to the business at hand. I'm old, and I may collapse at any minute!" So says the critic Harold Bloom, settling into his chair with a portmanteau majesty. The very last event of the 2011 PEN World Voices Festival begins. I feel as if I've gotten lost...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Ifs
>> Schneider, Toussaint, Monzo, Harris
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Chad W. Post
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The Publishing Revolution Is Here
I was going to wait until our manifesto was available online (PEN said it'd be up by last Monday . . . maybe I'm missing something?), but I'll just jump ahead and tell a quick story or two about this panel that took place last Thursday.
As part of PEN World Voice's first "Working Day," Anna Mosch...[More]
Other Posts:
>> PEN America #14
>> Vladimir Sorokin's Coming-Out Party
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Sonia Pilcer
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READINGS IN THE GARDEN MEWS
Environment affects experience. Of course. PEN events in different venues.
For instance, sitting in the mews of Washington Square, in the Deutsches Haus garden, the sun streaming through the trees, NYC traffic outside, and somehow far away, made me feel blissful as I ...[More]
Other Posts:
>> INTERNATIONAL WRITERS AT JOE’S PUB
>> THEY COME FROM THERE: Young Arab Pl
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Judith Benét Richardson
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From Russia With Love - photos
...[More]
Other Posts:
>> From Russia With Love
>> Written on Water
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Antonio Romani
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Leopardi
GIACOMO LEOPARDI’S CANTI: A Conversation with Jonathan Galassi
Questo incontro ha proposto al pubblico un Jonathan Galassi leopardiano.
Sincero fino all’autolesionismo quando dice di aver cominciato questo lavoro su Leopardi 10 anni fa, perchè dopo Montale non aveva trovato nessun poeta italian...[More]
Other Posts:
>> Il piacere dell’immaginazione
>> ...la notte e senza vento
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