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Authors Guild Launches ‘Human Authored’ Certification

‘The Human Authored initiative isn’t about rejecting technology — it’s about creating transparency, acknowledging the reader’s desire for human connection, and celebrating the uniquely human elements of storytelling,’ guild CEO Mary Rasenberger said in a statement Wednesday. ‘Authors can still qualify if they use AI as a tool for spell-checking or research, but the certification connotes that the literary expression itself, with the unique human voice that every author brings to their writing, emanated from the human intellect.’ Read more

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No Writer Better Understood the Agony of Expectation

During the past 50 years, the work of the Argentine writer Antonio Di Benedetto has found its way to readers like water trickling from a blocked stream. Beloved by an almost clandestine coterie of admirers that included Roberto Bolaño, Di Benedetto, who died in 1986, is still largely unknown in the United States.

With the publication in English of THE SUICIDES, the third novel of what can loosely be called a trilogy, this may be about to change. All three books have now been masterfully translated by Esther Allen, who has managed to capture the humor, the sobriety and the oscillations between realism and mental fragmentation that constitute the essence of Di Benedetto’s fiction. Read more

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‘The First State of Being’ and ‘Chooch Helped’ Win Top Children’s Book Awards

The books The First State of Being and Chooch Helped have won the Newbery and the Caldecott awards, respectively — the biggest honors in children’s literature. The awards were announced Monday morning at the American Library Association’s annual Youth Media Awards. Read more

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‘Strange Pictures’ by Uketsu

Strange Pictures is Uketsu’s second novel but the first to be translated into English. It’s a sinister and original book that straddles the line between crime and horror, drawing readers into a dark, unsettling and deeply immersive world of interconnected stories. With its haunting premise and intricate structure, Strange Pictures melds visual and textual storytelling to offer an experience that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally affecting. Read more

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What if the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction?

What’s awkward about this whole debate is that, though we speak freely of “attention spans,” they are not the sort of thing that psychologists can measure, independent of context, across time. And studies of the ostensible harm that carrying smartphones does to cognitive abilities have been contradictory and inconclusive. Read more

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