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Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch to be adapted to film; an interview with Chilean author Alejandro Zambra; book owned by Brontë sisters’ mother to go on display next year; and other news.
"It's from 'A Prayer for My Daughter' and the lines are 'It's certain that fine women eat / A crazy salad with their meat,' and I thought it was a nice title for a book about women." In this 1975 interview with Studs Terkel, the late Nora Ephron recounts lines by Yeats, the poetic inspiration for the title of her book of essays Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women (Random House, 1975), and talks about her experiences as a journalist and feminist. Animated by Pat Smith, this video is part of PBS Digital Studio's Blank on Blank series.
Yesterday, the New York City–based PEN American Center announced its new PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, an annual prize honoring a book in any genre that has “broken new ground and signals strong potential for lasting influence.” The winner will receive $75,000.
Funded by oral historian Jean Stein, the award will be the largest prize conferred by PEN, and one of the richest literary prizes in the United States. PEN America president Andrew Solomon says the award will “focus global attention on remarkable books that propel experimentation, wit, strength, and the expression of wisdom.” An anonymous judging panel will nominate candidates for the prize internally; there is no application process.
In addition to the book prize, Stein will also fund a $10,000 oral history grant. The award will support “the completion of a literary work of nonfiction that uses oral history to illuminate an event, individual, place, or movement.”
The inaugural winners of both prizes will be announced at the annual PEN Literary Awards Ceremony in February 2017.
Stein has authored numerous works of nonfiction and conducted interviews with prominent American cultural figures, including William Faulkner and Robert F. Kennedy. Stein’s most recent book is West of Eden: An American Place, a profile of five prominent Los Angeles families.
The many libraries of the Czech Republic; African writers on globalization; book spine staircases; and other news.
Michael Dickman reads a poem from Brother (Faber & Faber, 2016), a dual-authored collection with his brother Matthew Dickman, which brings together verse written when their older sibling took his own life.
Summer eating competitions in New York earlier this month included both the long-running hot dog eating contest in Coney Island, and a kale eating contest in Buffalo. Imagine that you have to consume one type of food for a ten-minute all-you-can-eat contest—what food would you choose? Write a short essay about how you would prepare physically and psychologically, and recount your favorite memories that involve this food.
How literary theory can help explain capitalism; CantoMundo relocates to New York City; PEN launches $75,000 book prize; and other news.
"People always say, is it autobiographical? And the thing is, the whole thing is autobiography, because you're replicating your inner life." At an event at San Francisco State University's Poetry Center, Sarah Schulman shares an anecdote about working for an all-women's trucking company in the seventies, a point of inspiration for her latest novel, The Cosmopolitans (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2016).
In this slim volume adapted from lectures presented at the Mandel Center for the Humanities at Brandeis University and the British Museum, James Wood demonstrates that fiction is exemplary of George Eliot's claim that "Art is the nearest thing to life." Throughout four concise chapters, Wood explores the value and relevance of fiction—and its readers, writers, and critics—by drawing connections to his own life. Additionally, there are examples from works by writers including Walter Benjamin, John Berger, Aleksandar Hemon, Rachel Kushner, Marilynne Robinson, and Eudora Welty.
Over the past two weeks, the popularity of the new mobile video game Pokémon Go, which incorporates cartoon characters into the real world using GPS maps, has resulted in conversations about many related issues and consequences—from privacy and surveillance, to sore legs and outdoor exercise, to city engagement and the future of technology. Write a short story that takes place in a world in which all citizens have integrated augmented reality software, games, and apps into their everyday lives. Does the story’s main conflict arise from a societal shift due to the new technology or from the lack of human interaction?
