Téa Obreht
The author of The Tiger's Wife, published in March by Random House, recently sat down with PBS NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown to discuss her novel, which Publishers Weekly called "a brilliant debut."
Junger Says No More Front-Line Reporting, Ann Patchett to Open Bookstore, and More
Sebastian Junger will report from the front lines no more; reading inside the cloud; Ann Patchett to open a hometown bookstore; and other news.
Kevin Wilson
- Winner of the 2009 Shirley Jackson Award for his story collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, Kevin Wilson discusses his new novel, The Family Fang, which will be published in August by Ecco. About the difference between writing a story and a novel, he says, "The short story is this car and you just drive it into a tree... With a novel I had to keep reminding myself to drive as far as I could, to get as many miles as I could out of it before I crashed it."
Short Story Maven Edith Pearlman Wins PEN/Malamud Award
Yesterday afternoon the PEN/Faulkner Foundation honored short story writer Edith Pearlman with its twenty-fourth annual PEN/Malamud Award.
The prize, given to honor a writer's contribution to the short fiction form, includes a five-thousand-dollar honorarium and a reading at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
Pearlman is the author of more than two hundred fifty stories published in four books—most recently Binocular Vision (Lookout Books, 2011)—as well as in numerous literary magazines and anthologies such as Best American Short Stories and New Stories From the South. The author, born in 1936, released her debut collection, Vaquita and Other Stories, in 1996.
"Pearlman’s view of the world is large and compassionate, delivered through small, beautifully precise moments," wrote Roxana Robinson earlier this year in a New York Times review of Binocular Vision. "These quiet, elegant stories add something significant to the literary landscape."
Pearlman joins authors such as Edward P. Jones, John Updike, Eudora Welty, Grace Paley, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lorrie Moore in the ranks of past PEN/Malamud Award winners.
Sign Poetry
Kabir Kapoor performed his poem "Evolution," which takes us through the planet's evolution, from dark nothingness to the modern computer, at the second annual Bristol Sign Poetry Festival at the University of Bristol in England in February.
Forbes's Ten Most Powerful Women Authors, Librarians as Thought Leaders, and More
TEDx wants your take on librarians as thought leaders; Morrison, Oates are among Forbes's list of powerful women authors; Amazon as publisher could benefit writers; Unbridled Books offers e-books for a quarter; and other news.
Debut Author Téa Obreht Wins Orange Prize
The sixteenth annual Orange Prize was announced this afternoon in London. Twenty-five-year-old Serbian American author Téa Obreht became the youngest writer to receive the thirty-thousand-pound prize, for her debut novel, The Tiger's Wife (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). (The novel was published in the United States by Random House in March.)
"Obreht's powers of observation and her understanding of the world are remarkable," says chair of judges Bettany Hughes. "By skillfully spinning a series of magical tales she has managed to bring the tragedy of chronic Balkan conflict thumping into our front rooms. The book reminds us how easily we can slip into barbarity, but also of the breadth and depth of human love."
Obreht's book won out over the favorite, Emma Donoghue's Room (Picador), which took the Youth Prize yesterday. Also on the shortlist for the prize, given annually to a woman novelist, were The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury), Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson (Sceptre), Great House by Nicole Krauss (Viking), and Annabel by Kathleen Winter (Jonathan Cape).
In the video below, Obreht discusses her book, and how she had to return to the places of her nomadic youth to create it, on PBS's NewsHour.
Blogger Missing in Damascus, Barnes & Noble Sues Over the Nook, and More
A Syrian American blogger critical of the Syrian regime is missing; Barnes & Noble sues; John Hodgman helps revive George Plimpton's 1983 arcade game; and other news.
The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing
Poet and teacher Richard Hugo has brought together a series of lectures, essays, and reflections, all “directed toward helping with that silly, absurd, maddening, futile, enormously rewarding activity: writing poems.” The book includes pieces on how poets make a living and how to write “off the subject.”
Wichita Vortex Sutra
In 1966 Allen Ginsberg wrote the anti-war poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra" (composing it as he spoke into a recorder while travelling across the Midwest.) Twenty-two years later the poet met composer Philip Glass in a bookstore in New York City's East Village, a chance encounter that eventually led to a collaboration that yielded this piece, which is featured on Glass's 1990 album, Hydrogen Jukebox.
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