At least four writers have pulled out of the Frankfurt Book Fair, the biggest book fair in the world, citing concerns over the presence of far-right publishers. Writer and activist Jasmina Kuhnke, who was slated to make an appearance at the fair Friday to promote her debut novel, “Black Heart,” posted a statement Monday on Twitter saying she decided to withdraw after learning that far-right books were being promoted at the event. Read more
‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Author Margaret Atwood Faces Backlash for Gender Neutrality Tweet
On Tuesday, Atwood tweeted out an article by Rosie DiManno from Friday’s Toronto Star entitled “Why Can’t We Say ‘Woman’ Anymore?” The opinion piece argues that gender-neutral language, such as “pregnant person,” equates to “an erasure of women” and causes “well-meaning” people to become “tongue-tied, lest they be attacked as transphobic or otherwise insensitive to the increasingly complex constructs of gender.” Read more
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The Black Mountain Institute will cease publishing venerable Believer literary magazine
Founded in 2003 by authors Ed Park, Vendela Vida and Heidi Julavits and originally published by McSweeney’s, Dave Eggers’ independent publishing house, the Believer is known for its offbeat content and upbeat critical philosophy. Its articles by authors both established and emerging have earned multiple nominations for National Magazine Awards. Nick Hornby, Peter Orner, Amy Sedaris, Susan Straight, Anne Carson, William T. Vollmann and others have contributed to the publication. Read more
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Will a screenwriter ever win the Nobel Prize for literature?
The Nobel Prize began in 1901, and 120 years — and several hundred thousand movies — later, no writer whose primary work is for the screen has been awarded the top literary prize on Earth. Read more
How Oscar Wilde evolved from poet and playwright to symbol of martyrdom and individualism
Oscar Wilde’s birthday is Oct. 16 — he was born on that day in 1854 — and there’s a simple way to both celebrate it and give yourself a present: Pick up a copy of “Oscar Wilde: A Life,” by Matthew Sturgis, an authority on the 1890s whose previous works focused on the artists Walter Sickert and Aubrey Beardsley. Without supplanting Richard Ellmann’s beautifully written “Oscar Wilde” — which a young reviewer bearing my name enthusiastically reviewed in 1988 — Sturgis’s biography is now the fullest one-volume account of the iconic fin-de-siècle writer, aesthete, wit and gay martyr. Read more
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Three Men Win Million-Euro Literary Prize Having Posed as Female Author
Speculation on the identity of one of Spain’s most prominent crime thriller writers, who wrote under the name Carmen Mola, ended on Friday when three men rose to accept the 2021 Premio Planeta literary prize — worth one million-euros — for Mola’s currently unreleased work “The Beast.” Read more
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The Greenwich Village Townhouse That E. B. White Called Home
The 4,256-square-foot house has four bedrooms, five full bathrooms and one partial bathroom. Amenities include five original fireplaces, a rear garden, a front yard, a roof deck and multiple terraces. Price: $10.5 million. Read more
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Hanif Abdurraqib wins the Gordon Burn prize for A Little Devil in America
Abdurraqib’s book is a meditation on Black performance in the modern age, moving from Beyoncé’s Super Bowl half-time show to Aretha Franklin’s funeral. It is inspired by Josephine Baker’s words: “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too.” It topped a six-strong shortlist featuring titles including Jenni Fagan’s Luckenbooth and Salena Godden’s Mrs Death Misses Death, to win the prize, which celebrates “literature that is fearless in both ambition and execution”, in honour of the late writer Gordon Burn. Read more
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Timuel Black, historian, civil rights activist, dies at 102
Mr. Black, a political and civil rights activist, educator, historian, prolific author and revered elder statesman and griot of Chicago’s Black community, died Wednesday. Read more
Sally Rooney Declines to Sell Translation Rights to Israeli Publisher
The Irish novelist Sally Rooney said on Tuesday that she would not allow the Israeli publishing house that handled her previous novels to publish her most recent book, “Beautiful World, Where Are You,” because of her support for Palestinian people and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Read more
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